Following passions and dreams. . .to succeed in life you must sacrifice

For a while now I have been battling my own preconceived ideas about what constitutes "real work" or a "real job" ... interestingly enough only where I am concerned, though!

My CV confirms that I have proudly followed the straight and narrow path of the blue collar worker during my student years followed by 20+ years as a white collar worker. Religiously attending work come rain, snow or shine.

Yet now I've reached a new fork in my path. I have had to confront some home truths about my beliefs.

My ingrained programming is so deep that I have been struggling with truly acknowledging the limits of my own beliefs. What I believe to be "real and acceptable or possible" was actually based on limiting beliefs that were handed down and ground in by the fear of the community I've grown up in and live within.

For some time now, many teachers and guides have been encouraging me to follow my passion and dreams to create a new life of joy, one that involves working with what I love in my daily life. Passion that can become invested in to a career that would be my main income stream. Yet this has been an obstacle for me until now because of the subconscious strength of my beliefs in what could be possible or even really acceptable as work/job/career.

A job gives you position and respectability in life. A career becomes a process in sacrificing your time in exchange for money to support you, yours and you family's needs. Competitive in nature the world we live in feels threatened if you dare think outside the box or try to free up time out of your week for yourself, for your passions and family life.

To succeed you must sacrifice.

Work in itself has been accepted for far too long as a sacrificial alter we need to visit daily to receive the blessings of the money god. And sadly, I had, until recently completely bought into it for myself and saw little chance of creating anything other than the self sacrificial career to deserve an acceptable standard of living let alone an above average lifestyle.

In short my life has been modelled on what is truly possible being based around what society believes is truly possible and acceptable.

I realise now I have been a good little consumer, only allowing myself to believe that life and it's adventures can only be experienced after a lot of hard work and following the path that is set aside for the "good" people or you have to be born into it! haha!

After the realisation, comes the action.

So now I watch daily as my thoughts creep into automatic reactions. By watching each thought and reaction I can arrest my fear-driven behaviour and lean more towards the things I love..... but the first step is to strip down the "need" which is almost a dependency on the work that i have done previously to fulfil my needs and find the "love and passion" I have buried so deep within my psyche.

So far I have discovered that I love writing, talking, intuitive work and dancing and I simply love the sun.... step by step I venture forth into the new rarely trodden paths, I have frequent lapses and I know I have to continue.

What helps is recognising those who've gone before me on the hidden paths. Their "lanterns in the dark" encourage me, giving me strength and encouragement. I now recognise that to me these practices were simply fun and not what real work was all about... my heroes have awoken a new dream within me....

Watch this space for updates.