From the Midwest to Manhattan: Excerpt from "Mirror, Mirror"
Enjoy this excerpt (Chapter 2: "From the Midwest to Manhattan") from my book, Mirror, Mirror.
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It took twelve months to heal my physical body. It also took that year to recognize my fears and overcome them one by one. It was time for me to look myself in the eyes and reflect on who I was, what I really wanted out of my new life. One morning, I just sat still—something rare for me—and took a deep look into the mirror of my soul. I was told that this journey would be about helping people find their souls’ purpose. Well, that meant I had to find my own soul’s purpose first.
Gathering the courage to leave America and everything that was familiar and supporting behind was indeed a daunting task. I knew that there were very few people with whom I could share my vision, because it would only attract their own fears and judgments about how foolish or irresponsible I was for dropping everything and just taking off. I could not explain to anyone why I was taking my upcoming trip. There was no tour guide, no itinerary, no destination. It was a trust walk with the Universe and I had to face what Ulysses faced: the challenges and dangers of the unknown. One of my first tasks was to find some people who had done similar things in their lives to help me past my fears.
My family would have freaked. No one in my family would encourage me to break free and do something so risky, so I knew I didn’t dare tell any of them about my plans. In my heart was the knowledge that I would just be burdened by all of their fears and resentments about my doing what they might have missed in their lives. Because my parents had lived through the Depression, they were still affected by the fear of loss of security. In addition, being raised Catholic had inflicted on me another strangling sense of not trusting myself as a woman, including great fears that men would take advantage of me. My family constantly undermined my creative and entrepreneurial spirit, questioning my choices of career and wanting me to do something that they deemed safe and secure. To me it just looked like entrapment to work for corporate America.
Mirror, Mirror...show me the people who can guide me through this forest of fears, doubts, and insecurities.
