Your Calling

I recently applied to be part of a business incubator. I wasn’t accepted and I was both disappointed and relieved. I spent a few days feeling sorry for myself and then came up with a Plan B. The gods/guides helped; in a dream, they outlined my next steps.

My therapist asked me once why I didn’t retire. Why keep coming up with Plans B and C and D? On a practical level, I need those plans. But on a deeper and more soulful level, those plans hold my deeper calling and give meaning to my life.

What is your deeper calling? Each of us has one, notes depth psychologist James Hillman in The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling. This calling can be one’s work, or a way of being we are destined to live out and which we cannot avoid without grave consequences. 

My mom’s informal calling was stories; it was the currency by which she formed relationships. It was also her legacy to me. I think about that this time of year, during tulip season, the season that she died. 

To identify your calling, dig below the stories of who you “should be” to claim who you are. Then, when you find your calling, put it in service to others, writes author and psychotherapist Stephen Cope in The Great Work of Your Life. There’s no more perfect time than now.

The world is hurting. Mental health professionals can’t keep up. There are not enough containers to hold the grief, or guides to show others how to swim in its transformative soup. If you’re reading this newsletter, you are probably one of them.

The task then—yours and mine—is to claim your calling and share it with the world, even if you have to get all the way to Plan Z to do that. 

Carolyn

What Carolyn Has Been Writing

For Seekers

The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Emotional constructs cloud our judgments and cause miscommunications. This client article outlines why it happens and what to do about it. Read.

Is Your Life Part of a Bait-and-Switch Game?
We all want a comfortable life. But sometimes, that life comes at a price you’re unaware of. Here’s how to tell and what to do about it. Read.

Positive Psychology as Pandemic Antidote
The DSM outlines what’s wrong with people, but not what’s right with them. Positive psychology wants to change that, as this client-written blog outlines. Read.

For Wayshowers

Leadership Trends
The market is poised for the deeper work of transformation, as this client-written blog on leadership trends shows. Read.

The Game of Blogging
If you want to share your gifts with a blog, this short essay will offer you some basics, and help you see this often-tedious task as a game. Read.

Leadership Gold: The Business Journal
If you have corporate clients, edge them into self-awareness with this business tool. This client article outlines what it is (and isn’t) and how to use it. Read.

The Gamed Universe
Gaming is hot these days. This client article shares how to leverage that with your audiences. And if you prefer a picture instead, check out the aerial view. Read the article and/or scan the infographic.

THE BACK STORY

I discovered the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm the year my mom died. 

Carolyn’s Current Reads

The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West, a New York Times pop culture opinion writer who exposes the patriarchal bones below the cultural surface.

With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix, MD, a hospice doctor who, via patient stories, outlines the physical and emotional process of dying.

The Shame Machine by Cathy O’Neil, PhD, a Columbia University mathematician and Bloomburg Opinion writer who exposes the shame tactics of popular business models.