This is an unedited Transcript 

What question is at the heart and pilgrimage of your life?

Hi, welcome to today’s episode of granting journey callings. I’m Cris Greer your hostess, and I’m super excited that you’re back with me for a new season, I took the summer off to kind of figure out where I was and what I wanted to do this season with a podcast. And if you’re new to grounding journey, I have said many times that grounding journey is my passion project. It’s kind of my playground where I got to connect with other women and experience their journey and share the lessons of mine with them. Because it was my passion project. I didn’t always give it my all, I run a creative agency with my husband. So when business got busy, I kind of let the podcast cycle I didn’t give it everything I had to. And one of the things that I’ve realized this summer, is, this is part of my calling. This is part of what I’m supposed to be doing right now. It’s not just my playground. So now my intention of running journey is to be of service to others, to allow this podcast to inspire and guide others on their journey and to give me a place to learn about journeys. So I’m introducing a whole new modalities podcast, that instead of just talking about a word and how it’s worked for somebody whose journey has inspired their journey, we’re gonna do a series where we talk about different Motown modalities, like astrology, animal communication, Human Design, just to name a few. And I find that all of those things are part of our calling that that’s what I want to talk about is how people heard their calling, and followed it. So as I mentioned, I was feeling restless, anxious, unsettled. I was getting angry and flying off the handle. And that is not common for me. Unless it’s cycle time, but I was just so not at rest When Phil and I were even talking about me going on 130 sabbatical on my own to kind of find my place to figure out where I was and what was happening. And I started reading callings, my Gregor boy. And he in the first couple pages talks about that restlessness, that anxiousness that unsettled. And it was like a lightbulb went off for me, of Oh, that’s all the stuff I was feeling. And so I’m gonna do this podcast, a lot of it is stuff I read in Greg Boyd’s book. So it’s not just my content, I want to make sure that I put that copyright disclaimer out there. One of the things that Greg talks about his callings our announcement for change, a call the monologue, until you create your following, and it becomes the column response. And I thought that was so neat. Because that’s how you can create that peace in your soul is finding that calling and finding the connection with your soul and letting them do a call and response. I think about in yoga class, when our yoga teacher does a mantra, and we repeat it, and there’s that call and response. And how beautiful that feeling, that sensation that comes over me when I sit in that room, and I close my eyes. And I just listen to the column response. And I think how beautiful that can be if you can really feel that yourself, and really create that call and response in your own self, and how peaceful that feeling would be. So last year, I was feeling really connected to my calling, I would go into meditation. And I would know, that grunting journey was my passion project that there was so much more to create with it. And then life happened. I went through a huge healing with my grandmother, I lost my grandmother. I went through my yoga teacher training. And that’s a whole nother story of what that started for me. Business got busy, business got hectic. And I lost connection with that calling. And I didn’t actually lose connection. I started listening, I stopped having that call and response, that conversation with it. Because the calling was still there. It was still urging me it was creating that restlessness in me. But I wasn’t listening to it. I wasn’t communicating back with it. And it’s like a marriage if you don’t talk interactively with your spouse. trouble starts. And one of the things that I read in Greg’s book was when you lose touch, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t my calling, or it was a test. But it was more a time to ask my devotion to My calling, because I think we’ve put that pressure on, oh, it’s a test and we’re going to pass this test. It wasn’t for me, instead of saying, am I all in? Does this really call to me. And I think back about Big Magic with Elizabeth Gilbert. And she talks in the book about how she’s writing a book. And I’m gonna probably butcher this story, because it’s been a couple years since I’ve read the book. But she talks about how she was writing this book. And life got busy, and she moved across the globe. And so she put everything into storage, including the book that she was writing. And it just kind of sat for a year. And then she met this amazing lady sometime later, who they were talking about books. And the woman was writing basically the exact same story. And she felt that when she had met this woman, once, before, she had given away this book, she had not been working on it. So she met this woman. And the inspiration and the energy for this book, left Elizabeth Gilbert and went to this woman, because it was something needed to be brought into the world. And Elizabeth wasn’t going to do it at the time. So she felt that it was kind of a passing of the energy. And so I’ve been working on these chakra yoga cards for almost a year and a half. And I felt so called to them, I felt so inspired by them to create them. And I just never made the time in the space to do them. And then I got pressured and worried and fearful that if I didn’t do it, I would lose the inspiration, I wouldn’t follow through with it. And there was just a whole lot of fear in it, that I was gonna miss out on what I was supposed to do and live with regret on it. And I kept talking to my coach about it. And, you know, she said, it’s going to come whatever years, Mr. Green will be created when it’s time. But I lived with that kind of fear that I read in Big Magic. And don’t get me wrong, because I love Elizabeth Gilbert. And I love Big Magic. But that hung over me. And when I started reading Greg, the voice book, he talks about that, it will come when it’s time, and that maybe we have to experience more before we can bring it to real fruition based on what we’re supposed to bring it. So it took so much pressure off once I realized that I had to experience an experience to bring whatever I was supposed to bring and create instead of feeling like it needed to be created. And it was either me or somebody else. And so if you’re struggling with that calling, and that fear of time, and having to get it done, I invite you to relax into that because it will come if it’s your calling. And one of the things that I was reading about in the book last night I was a following as a call, you have to follow it, when the discomfort of not following it has been been greater than the fear of following it. Because there’s surrender their sacrifice. And it took me back reading that for a week or two, you took me into fear of surrenders fear of sacrifice, and thinking about that you have to be so uncomfortable that staying is worse than the fear of the change. And it took me back to when I was in my first marriage. And things are really rough and really bad. And it was time for it to be over. It was time for me to be done with it. So we got really uncomfortable, it got really painful, so that I had to leave. And that’s completely what took me out of that marriage was I finally was at that point that the discomfort of staying was worse than the fear of changing and the fear of what was on the other side. And I can say firsthand, the best thing I ever did was give into that and surrender to the fact that it was time for change. And I know that I know that surrender and sacrifice brings something better on the other side. Yeah, I found myself in that same place of not being willing to surrender and not you know, being afraid of the sacrifice that I was going to have to make. And I thought that that was really ironic because that’s one of the things I’ve always been grateful for was the lesson I learned The surrender. And you know, when I became a single mom, I was the stereotypical single mom, no child support a kid to survive three jobs. It was really, really hard. I did a lot of deep self work. And I came out so much better on the other side that I want to never forget how worth it all of that hardness was, because it got me to where I am. But I was afraid of what the next level of sacrifice, the next level of surrender was going to be. I remember shortly before I went through the separation, lay in bed and saying, okay, God, take all my safety nets, I’m ready to free fall because it can’t be any worse than we’re in. And I found myself recently, the summer earlier in the summer be like, No, I’m good. I don’t want to freefall. I don’t want to have my nuts removed. And I knew that I already in that for myself, because I’ve done that I know how grateful it is, I know how helpful it can be. And so it took me a little time to work with that to figure out what surrender meant for me what sacrifice meant, and to become okay with the fact that that was a big surrender, that was a big sacrifice. But it doesn’t have to be that, like surrendering, can be sitting quietly and listening, instead of controlling it. Sacrifice can be, instead of sleeping until nine o’clock, and then getting my day started. That sacrifice can be getting up at 730. And spending a little more time in my daily practice, going to bed early so that I can get up earlier, instead of watching TV like those were the sacrifices that I saw I can do. Because they weren’t benefiting me. So before it was huge sacrifice my marriage, which I thought was this huge entity, but it wasn’t benefiting me, it wasn’t helping me I wasn’t growing in it. So sacrificing that now looking at my life, sacrificing sitting on the couch, watching TV with my husband at night to gain waking up early and having more practice daily practice time. So putting it in perspective of what sacrifices or render means that it doesn’t always have to take you into the dark night. And so that it’s just listening, sitting quietly and listening to my soul. And I don’t know about you, but I love to meditate. But the voices in my head, love to talk more. And I began to really understand that the voices in my head are not always my intuition. I feel always led by my intuition, I have spent a lot of my life able to hear my guides. And so when those voices in my head start talking, I had to realize that sometimes those are just voices in my head. It’s not my intuition. It’s not my guides. And when I realized that trying to find how it can be led by them how I can be guided by them again. And part of yoga for me is that connection with my body, that presence. And so I realized that listening to my body, my body is my best barometer at this point in my life. It’s not the voices in my head, I started to notice when I was in meditation, that I would feel that peace that call that sensation in my body. But the voices were still going on and the conversation was still happening. But I knew I was meditating. Because when I came out of it, even though there was chatter the whole time, there was a peace to my body. There was a calmness to me. And so I’ve really started focusing more on my body being my intuition and my guide instead of the voices in my head. And that’s been a lot of fun, you know, learning to sit, and if I wasn’t certain, take a breath and just feeling does my body feel expansive? Does my body feel contracted? Does my heart feel joyous and fluttery? Does my gut feel heavy and really giving myself that opportunity to listen to my body and seeing that part of it? When I used to listen to the voices and hear my guides and intuition. As I’ve grown as a person, that intuition has shifted, that guidance has changed. So being willing to accept the change, being willing to look for something new and feeling that my body What’s guiding me now knowing to ask the questions, and instead of listening to the voices in my head, listening to how my body feels, and just being quiet for a moment. And that’s been really enlightening, and challenging sometimes to remember, because I’m not perfect at this, I’m always evolving, and part of learning is being willing to be open and evolve, and willing to change. One of the things, you know, with that whole surrender and sacrifice was running from it, running from the fear of what was I gonna lose, never really looking at what I was going to gain. And I read this quote, within doubt, where you want to be looked down at your feet. Because I was feeling like a failure, I was feeling like I put all this time and energy, I had hyped up this yoga project that I was working on to my husband and my son, I’d invested a lot of time and energy, but it just wasn’t getting there with it. And I was avoiding it because I was afraid of failure, I was afraid of the sacrifice. And it was neat to think about, and in the book, it talks about running and avoiding can be part of the calling. And I have said before to myself, that Wherever I am, is part of the journey. If I’m off track, that’s part of the journey, because it gives you that gratitude and appreciation when you find it, so that you’re never really off track. It’s just part of the journey. And so it was nice that in the book, it talks about that, because I’ve always thought that I’ve said that. And maybe I thought I said it to comfort myself. But knowing somebody else looks at it that way to you gave me a little bit of confirmation. There’s gonna be fear and suffering in life no matter what. So why avoid your calling, and suffer more fear and suffering. When your calling could in fact be what removes that fear and suffering. And I know for me, it was easy to do the podcast when it was just my passion project. It didn’t matter how many downloads I had, how many followers I had, it was just something I was doing for fun. That gave me the disclaimer for myself that if I didn’t have a lot of followings, or if I didn’t have a lot of downloads, then it was okay, because I was trying to do it for that. And part of that announcing that it matters, announcing that it’s your calling, is acknowledging that it matters that much to you that you want it so bad. And there’s that it’s almost like stage fright. And in the book, again, going back to the colleagues, he talks about stage fright, comes when we have something so deep within us that’s being called out that we have to share it. And that’s definitely what I was feeling. The pain that comes from avoidance, not the pain that comes from surrender. But the pain that was coming from my avoidance from my fear of what if I feel this calling so deep, that nobody actually cares. And then I realized that there’s somebody whether I ever know who that somebody is that needs to hear this episode, or a past episode, there’s somebody who needed it, because it’s being called out of me. And for some reason, I’m the one who gets to bring it to life. And so I want to end with a fun story about regret, because I have definitely felt in the last few weeks that when I follow my calling, I’m gonna find that release, I’m going to find that piece. And I’ve been doing a lot of work on my project. I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself. I’ve started engaging with my podcast again, I have really been ready to be all in again. And there’s been this piece. So I said I was going to end with a story I have two stories to end with. So we as a small business received part of the PPP loan, and when I received it earlier this year, I was like this is great. Our business is slow. We have the income coming in now that I can really focus on what we’re trying to create that will provide for our business later on. And I approached my husband and my son that they were going to have to work really hard that I was going deep into this project, because we now have the money for me to create the time and the space. We have the space because our business was kind of slow, because that’s what was happening in COVID. And then we landed a big client. And it was a client I had to work on, my husband and my son couldn’t work on it. It took all my focus and all my energy. And he was a really successful client. And it was a really great project. And I really learned from it. But I kept feeling that nagging that tugging. And I wasn’t doing my project, I wasn’t focused on the podcast, I wasn’t focused on connecting with others, which is the whole point of the podcast. And then suddenly, all of my business dried up, my husband and my son’s business got busier, because we handled different aspects of the agency. But all the clients that I’ve been working on, been on hiatus, and so for two or three weeks now, I haven’t had any billable time, I haven’t had clients to work on. I haven’t had projects that have to start with me. And so I realized that it’s kind of back to when I was in my first marriage, things got so bad, I had no other choice. And so that sacrifice and surrender, I didn’t have to give up everything. But I have the money. And I didn’t create the time. So now I’ve got the time, and I’m going to use it to create the money. And so it’s been a really neat journey for me to wake up and realize that our business is fine, it’s going to pick right back up. As soon as I focus on my calling, and where I’m supposed to be right now, that didn’t have to spend me into a dark night, like I went through before I needed that dark night, then now it’s more a matter of I can buy into the fear. And I can panic. And I can reach out and try to get new clients and things that don’t feel good. Or I can lean into the trust of the universe, the trust and knowing that this is part of my calling, that I am devoted to it. And that it’s time for it to come to fruition that I’ve worked through a lot of stuff that I now have something beneficial to offer. And that it’s time for me to bring it to life. And so I can either live in fear, or I can live with no regrets. And I can follow it and find that piece from the call and response that I’m creating. So this is really the final story that I want to leave you with. When Kevin was in seventh grade, you know, he’s 20 now. So when he was in seventh grade, he came home one day with an big, big black sharpie marker written on his forearms, no rigor, and it was like on one arm and then the other no records.And it was regret spelled backwards. And you know, so after Matthew and I laughed about it for a little bit. You’re like, what is this all about BOD? And he had a big black accents on his hands. And he said that he there was a symbol in school if you put black x’s on your hands and that you were drug free. And he wanted to say that he would have no regrets being drug free. So he had his friend, right. No regrets, and they block x’s on the scenes. Well, he is in seventh grade, and he’s a boy. So he doesn’t take a lot of showers. He used a thick black sharpie. So it was on his arms for about a week. And we use that as the saying in our family of never hurts instead of no regrets because we somehow have regrets you know, something we didn’t say something we did say things like that. But to me what no regrets is, is not looking back at something you could have done, should have done wanted to do felt called to do and didn’t answer. That’s the not taking the class, not taking the chance, not taking the trip. So I try to remember always to live with no regrets. And that’s where really refocusing my intention with grounding journey really letting it be by service to others my service to myself by being of service to others. That’s my no regrets. And so for Kevin’s 18th birthday, he and I both got tattoos, mine is on my ankle is over his heart and it says no records. And we did have to convince the tattoo artists to spell it wrong. And we’re not allowed to say where we got it because he doesn’t want people to think he accidentally messed it up. But it’s a constant reminder for us to live with no records, to listen to what calling about us to sit in silence and listen to our bodies and know is this something I’m supposed to do and If so, trust, be open surrender to life leading you in that path. And so my end quote, out of the callings by Greg lowboy is, the soul doesn’t care at all what price we have to pay to follow our calls. Our happiness and security and status simply don’t matter to it. Although our courage, faith, and alive gnus do. Thanks for listening to today’s episode. I hope that you will check out past episodes. Visit me on Instagram at grounding underscore journey. If Facebook’s more your gig, it’s grounding journey, and you can check out my website with all of my past recordings at grounding journey calm. Thank you for being a part of my journey and I hope to be a part of yours.