God Gave Us Beer So We Can Be Happy

So it's been more than a month since I last checked in. Honestly, I haven't been doing anything even remotely metaphysical as far as self-development goes. I spent a whole lot of time getting the Putnam Valley First Annual Psychic Fair off the ground, and it was much more successful than I'd dreamed. People even in towns like mine seem much more open than I'd anticipated.

And now that things have settled back down again, I can once again turn my attention back to my favorite subject: me. Well, more like: me and whether or not I'm fulfilling my purpose here on earth.

I had lunch yesterday with a friend from college whom I haven't seen in 25 years. A couple of summers ago we started talking on the phone for the first time since graduation, and that's because I've been doing readings for him; yesterday was a purely social visit so I enjoyed a more balanced exchange of ideas.

Let me preface what I'm about to say with this caveat: I'm not an elitist, at all. If anything I'm probably anti-elitist, coming though I do from a kind of well-heeled New England family with country club memberships and generations of good teeth and robust leisure time. Both of my parents are college-educated; we have always had a summer home; every one of my siblings has a career and married well; favorite Sunday afternoons at home (even now) involve discussing books, invigorating exercise in the fresh air, and cooking, dining and cleaning up together. Yet something about the snobbery associated with that lifestyle (though never existent in my upbringing) was always so off-putting even to me that I sought out friends, work and sweethearts outside of that realm.

Anyway, caveat disclaimed, what I enjoyed most about my lunch with Jude was talking about God, service, politics and life-calling with someone who is smart the way I am. Yeah, yeah, I know. But it was so sweet to be able to talk to someone I didn't have to explain myself to, or provide back-story for! I could look this man in the eye, over a beer at The Slaughtered Lamb in the West Village, and describe a spiritual conflict I was struggling through -- and listen to his thoughtfully weighed responses that had nothing to do with his point of view but which were inherently designed to draw more from me.

I'm reminded of a brief sojourn with Toastmasters years ago; we had to learn to speak extemporaneously (and cogently) on a subject chosen for us -- even if we knew nothing about it. I guess Jude was listening like that: he doesn't really know me, it's been decades since we talked without money being exchanged, and yet the eloquence in his listening and subsequent responses was of the kind that blossoms naturally out of a great liberal arts education.

It's only in the presence of that kind of listener that the speaker (me) finds herself more clearly crafting the question. Posing my life-purpose questions aloud in front of anyone who listens less actively -- insert anti-elitist caveat here again -- doesn't encourage further refinement because the listener doesn't demand more from me.

Before yesterday, I had been asking myself these kind of variations on the same theme:

- what does God want me to do?
- how can I best serve the world?
- am I supposed to write? paint? teach? speak?
- shouldn't I pursue a single path: hypnosis, psychic readings, healing, writing or teaching?
- who am I supposed to be talking to, working with, teaching?
- is it also okay to want to be rich?

...et cetera.

In the 24 hours since my lunch with Jude, my mind has not stopped circling in on the question I really need to be asking myself:

- how can I show the people who are ready to listen that they are free to love themselves the way God loves them?

It's kind of like I just had a really great working lunch with a successful colleague who has helped me refine my mission statement in the business of being Me. By virtue of his particular brand of listening to me, Jude has helped me to define my target audience: those people who are sitting on the fence between "I-got-it-all-figured-out-New-Agers" and "That's-all-woo-woo-bullshit-if-I-can't-see-it-it-ain't-real-ers." I love healthy skeptics! When someone comes to me for a reading, a Message Circle, energy healing or hypnosis and they are unsure if they even believe in what I'm doing -- and they have a positive experience -- they tell everyone. They usually have wide circles of friends and co-workers and they are happy to contrast their skepticism with their positive results to anyone who will listen. Can you imagine a more weighty testimonial? Like Dr. Brian Weiss, the conservative MD who during one of his psychiatric sessions witnessed his patient regress to a past life -- and then wrote about it -- there is no one more believable than a skeptic who takes a risk by broadcasting their own counterintuitive experience.

And it didn't end there with me and Jude. Me, really -- Jude probably has no idea the self-exploration he's triggered. What the refinement of that question has meant for me is a closer understanding of my life purpose. The obvious next steps involve the discovering of "how:"

- I can write about it
- I can bring in through mediumship or channeling the wonderful overarching perspective of the spirit people to help put fears, self-doubts, hopelessness into perspective
- I can minister (teach, speak, heal)

These look like the same questions I asked above don't they? Except now they're not questions, they're actions to take. Now there is no question mark at the end but rather a period, defining work to be done and statements to be made.

It's the last bullet in the list that sings the loudest to me, and I know that God and the spirit people are integral parts of this action, and that the last bullet incorporates the first two.

As I return to my meditation, my cries for help to my guides and to God now follow a thread, because I now have a subject about which I can ask - teach me!

And you can be sure, what I learn (and how I learn it) I'll share with you.

So here's what I would recommend: find someone you went to college with (or high school, trade school, whatever) and tell them what you want to do with your life, or what your challenge is, or where you are lost. Listen closely to how they respond to you, because if you're listening you'll find that their insight will bring you a little closer to what you really mean to say.

A problem defined is already half-solved.