Despite the potential personal, and at times professional, sacrifices, when you are truly driven to fulfil a life or soul mission, you do it anyway. You follow your call to what I refer to as High Love. Where you take all thoughts, intentions, and spoken thoughts to a high level of potential for the good of all.
Alberto Villoldo (The Heart of the Shaman, 2018), anthropologist and teacher of ancient wisdom and the shamanic way, refers to this quest as following your Sacred Dream. The dream of Luminaries who are guided by and follow the luminous Light of Creation. He says that when you truly commit to a Sacred Dream, a dream that serves the whole of humanity, the Universe conspires to assist you in its creation. That doesn’t mean you can sit back and watch it all unfold. My personal and professional experience has been that you may have to push through the darkness and internal and external resistance to free the pathway of light coming toward you.
Is it worth the sacrifice? To stand out because you don’t fit into the ‘norm’? Or to become a target because you stand up against what goes against your values. Is it worth at times being forced into the shadows, for fear of shaming or bringing harm to your loved ones?
It is hard to know the answer to that question. For the Luminary - for those who spend months at sea defending the ocean's creatures, or go to prison for picketing against the fall of the last great forests? Perhaps not, for the pain of isolation, fear of humiliation or hardship that holds you back from peacefully following the call to create your Sacred Dream can become overwhelming at times. For those on the receiving end of the great causes for the survival of our planet and awakening of humanity? It is always worth it. How else would peace and change come about?
Soon after my father died, the invitations he once received from different communities to speak at anniversaries, and letters of tribute and sympathy, began to flow to his daughters. I eventually came to realise that he had been a Visionary and Trailblazer and had lived much of his life in service to others. He had served the communities he lived in in many ways, through time and sacrifice. He had to let something go to serve the greater good. His greatest dream was to serve in the war as a pilot, and because he was too young, he was unable to fulfil that dream. He never got over it. But he fulfilled many other calls to serve. He gave his time, creative ideas, land and funds to build community buildings that still survive and serve, 60 years later, today. He freely assisted his neighbours during times of hardship, lending and giving machinery or sending men over to help. He was the head of the local emergency services for many years. He tithed truck loads of grain to the church. Through the eyes of an Adult, I feel proud of my father and his accomplishments. Any shame or resentment I once felt toward him has dissolved. His spirit of leadership and service to community has encouraged and supported me to push through many times of self-doubt and fear.
When you find yourself struggling because you are following your heart, pushing to fulfil a dream that will serve others to be healthier or more enlightened, and is ultimately for the greater good, a dream that will demand you to use the powerful gifts you have been blessed with, know and trust that the Universe is conspiring to help you. Don’t be put off by internal fears or external projections from others, of failure or the illusion that there is not enough time or resources.
You will be shown the way. You will break through self doubt and fear, into flow. Into trust. Free from shame. However, the break-through must come from within. It comes from forgiveness of others for not having the trust and capacity to support you and your Sacred Dream. It comes from self-forgiveness for taking a different, less safe pathway. It comes from forgiveness of your soul for choosing to stretch and grow through hardship and challenging your values.
When you expand your primary drivers from personal gain to include freedom and well-being for humanity and/or planet and its creatures, and by honouring your call, being proud of your difference, you will free the Light to shine brightly through you, and you will find Flow. You become the Light. You become the Way. Villoldo refers this expansion as shifting from dreaming personal daydreams to honouring and committing to Sacred Dreams for the good of all. Personally, my experience is that there is room for both. When our personal dreams are fulfilled we expand the light around us which allows us to be seen and to see beyond ourselves. This awakens our Generous Heart that is more able to serve others. However, some people never get past serving themselves. They never get to experience the joy of pursuing and fulfilling a Sacred Dream. You can be certain that when your Dreaming contains major elements of altruism, that Light will flow to you and expand your personal experience of fulfilment that comes from sharing your gifts. The good you have done will live on forever and be carried forward by many.
The night my father died, we had the most intimate conversation we had ever had. I asked him how he felt about dying. He was holding on to life and had been incredibly unwell for years. However, this night there was no sign of death, at least not at the beginning of our conversation. My father told me he feared that he had not lived a 'good enough life', that he wouldn't be forgiven for all the wrong he had done. I listened with love and compassion, holding his hand, and reminded him that he would be seen for all the good that he had done, and that if I could be sitting with him and forgive him for any pain or hurt, surely he would find forgiveness where he was going. I urged him to forgive himself and to find peace, reminding him that once, during a near death experience he had travelled down a corridor or light where angels greeted him. He had realised there was unfinished business to be done and had chosen to go back to do it. This was the unfinished business, self-forgiveness.
My father mentioned he felt a little 'odd' as I said goodnight. Soon after 4am my phone rang. It was one of my sisters telling me our father had passed. He had been unable to care for his personal grooming for some time, and he had been sleeping upright in a recliner. However they found him in fresh clothes, his hair combed, lying peacefully on top of his bed. He had been supported by the Light to journey home consciously.
When I look back on the pathways my father took, I can seen many of them were opened through personal desire, feelings of unworthiness, fear and perhaps through mindless self gratification. However, I can also see that there were others that were compelled by his willingness to honour and live his gifts - his difference - for the greater good. His soul was on a mission. And that mission meant he had to draw on the courage to be himself and follow his own dreams, and he had to be prepared to sacrifice whatever he lost because of that. However, I must be careful not to glorify my father and his mission. His personal gain meant that those he loved suffered. The child's-eyes must be respected, and given validation, compassion and love. There is a weighing up always when you follow your Dreams. A reckoning. To serve one's self before others can keep you strong, abundant and comfortable, and if you are grateful and willing to use that strength then toward the service of the greater good - your family, your community, humanity, nature, the planet, than there is real balance. If it is purely self-indulgent service, it can isolate you, blind you to gratitude, and cause you to be forever seeking more than what you have.
Remember, embrace your difference so you can illuminate your truth and follow your unique calling. Step toward your Sacred Dream in gratitude, love and in service. Your difference could be the difference humanity is waiting for❣️🙏