Talking to a client this week and so many of her words absolutely resonated with my journey, thoughts and values.
We were talking about being brought up in a society/culture where the expected is to get an education, get married, have kids, have a career and somewhere along the line get on the property ladder too, or at least some of the above.
I know for myself, and it seemed for this client too, that as we started on that path, it soon became obvious that it wasn’t working for us very well, it didn’t feel aligned or flow, or was generally a hard slog or just felt clunky.
I shared some of my story starting at school where it was not the norm at my school to go in to Nursing, that I was asked more than once why I didn’t want to become a Doctor, and even after completing my training and working in the profession for a while, I still felt something was missing.
I wasn’t interested in promotion, I just wanted to be amongst the patients. Leaving Nursing, I then worked for the Prison Service and then ran a pub, before coming away to New Zealand, hardly a logical or progressive career path. But in hindsight it is very clear that through all of that I was gaining experience of working with people in different settings, hearing different stories, understanding more.
Here I am now, a Certified Life Coach in New Zealand, working with an incredible team at the Taranaki Retreat. There is no way I could have planned for this, even when I got in touch with Suzy to talk about volunteering for three months back in 2018, it never once crossed my mind that it would turn in to what it has now.
My path may not have had a plan, a map or even a compass, but it was the right path for me. For this client, she is very much in the process of owning her path yet is already seeing some of the beautiful sights it holds.
It can be so easy to think we are wrong because we are not following that same, expected path. But it does not mean that at all. It takes courage and strength to mark out our own path, but the rewards can be so very high.
