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← CHAPTER OVERVIEW

Let’s find some clarity

Dear Creatrix,

I hope you enjoyed familiarizing yourself with the topic for this month and thinking about all the questions and ideas you have around your life’s purpose, your calling, your gifts, talents, mission and vision.

As we have quite a few things to cover this month, we will start today, by bringing in some clarity about the terms and tools we’ll be using.

The terms we’ll be looking at today are:

►Purpose
►Calling
►Vision
►Mission
►Gifts
►Talents
►Values

Because when I had a vision, one night in 2022, in which I received my calling (or one of my callings), and then told people about it, I realized that they were really unclear about all of these terms and often used them interchangeably – so it helps to find some clarity about these terms in general, but it’s especially important that we make sure that we will share a common understanding and are on the same page about these terms when we’re using them in this course.

And then I will also give a brief introduction to the tools we will be using, with a special focus on Oracle and Tarot Cards and how they can help us to connect to our highest self and to understand ourselves better – and how using them (daily) will give us confidence here too, which is why we will make this our practice for this chapter.

But before we begin with that, I’d like to share something with you that prepared me to get to the day on which I received that vision of one of my callings and what got me to founding the CREATRIX School as well – because these two things are connected, as I’m now living my callings.

In May 2021, I moved from Berlin, where I lived and worked for almost 12 years, to the countryside in Germany, after my partner, who I had been living with until then, and I, broke up.

And I’ll have to admit that up to that point, my world view was pretty grim. So while the breakup was a difficult moment then, I’m incredibly grateful for it now – because it opened the door to so much more than I ever could have dreamed of then.

And even though my outlook on the world was very pessimistic at that time, I guess, that people would have still described me as a cheery person, as I always had a smile on my face and words of encouragement on my lips, but deep down I felt really discouraged about my own possibilities and I didn’t feel so good about the situation of humanity and our planet either.

This was during Corona lock-down time, so the restrictions did not really lighten the mood either.

However, when I arrived at the old farm house in the countryside that my friend had inherited, and that I would live in and which I would help to renovate for the next two and half years – all of a sudden, I found myself waking up to birds singing, able to move through amazing nature, and putting my feet in clear rivers almost every day – instead of taking the dogs through puke, and used needles, rubbish and left over food on my way to the park before – and that change made me realize how much my perspective was informed by what I saw daily.

And to say it bluntly, it’s easy to think that the world is pretty shitty, when there’s a lot of shit and desperation that you see each day.

Seeing nature blossom and evolve, however, the flowers, the trees and every living thing getting up each day and welcoming life and the new day, I realized that for the past 20 years or so at least, I had been really ungrateful.

I had spent all my days complaining about what wasn’t there, what didn’t work, looking at and seeing inequality, racism, sexism, discrimination and exclusion wherever I looked.

At that point, I worked as a web designer, mostly working for organizations focusing on anti-discrimination work, I had led a LGBTIQ organization myself, and I had also worked for organizations fighting for the rights of minorities in Ukraine and Germany, so these were topics that I dealt with every day.

And I still continued to do so after I changed my location – until I began to see and understand what nature was showing me every day.

And that was, that we cannot succeed by focusing on what’s missing, but only when we shift our focus to what we wish to have instead – and learn to enjoy ourselves on the way there.

Just imagine nature being disappointed or sad after every heavy rain, or storm, and then complaining about it after the sun came out again.

The flowers don’t do that, and neither do the animals. The second the sun comes out again, they come out from where they were seeking shelter, or unfold their leaves and enjoy all that is there once more, and cherish the rain for its nourishing qualities, and the energy it gives them to grow.

And it felt like I’ve been trying to fight the rain and the storms all my life, even when most of the time I lived in sunshine. But because of all the fighting, and worrying about the next rains and the storms, I wasn’t even able to see the sun.

Seeing nature be so happy at every chance that it got, continuing after each storm not fearing the next, but giving everything every day, and seeing that incredible beauty and energy around me every single day, I felt so ungrateful for having complained every day of my life until then, instead of being grateful for being able to live in such a magnificent world – full of possibilities.

Because just like nature, we wake up every day renewed, and we live in a world full of possibilities and opportunities, no matter who we are or where we are, it’s just a matter of whether we see the opportunities and possibilities or not – they are always there.

So, I began to look for options to change my career – because I did not want to fight sandstorms any more, in which I would exhaust a lot of energy for a tiny bit of change, but find a way to really create large-scale change in a way that would actually give me more energy – while also learning to enjoy my life.

I wanted to find out how we can create lasting change from the ground up – not fighting inequality or discrimination, but by creating an alternative that makes discrimination and inequality obsolete in the long run.

As you might guess from this, I’m more of a we-oriented person (as I have red in the second half of my Wheel of Colours) and the collective advancement is more important to me than my personal advancement (people with red in the first half of their wheel seem to be able to think of themselves first more easily, and one is not better than the other – we need both, it’s just good to know which way we naturally lean and which way we might have to grow more, to come into balance here).

So, my driving force was more on a collective level than on a personal level, and I mention this because it is incredibly important to value both equally (source is reminding me of that as I write this) because we cannot have one without the other – and I still had to learn this at that point, and continue to learn more about it every day.

At that point, though, I simply realized that there was much to do, if I wanted to find a way to help myself and other people recognize their power within and to create joyful lives for themselves, instead of fighting each other, and I wanted to find out how I could best be of help with that.

I took a course in mindfulness and business (Inner MBA), where some of the most successful CEOs and thought leaders from the US taught us all we needed to know to run thoughtful, mindful and sustainable businesses, but when I started I still had no idea what it was that I really wanted to do. (I also didn’t have the money to take this course, at the time, because I had a hard time valuing myself, but I valued myself enough to apply and receive a scholarship).

In one of the exercises, we did during that training, we were asked to complete the sentence: “I’m a commitment to…”, adding what we wanted to dedicate our lives to – and I remember how I felt so lost, as I didn’t know that yet. So I asked what to do when we didn’t know, and one of the other participants came up with a brilliant solution by suggesting saying: “I’m a commitment to finding out about my calling.”

And that worked like a charm. (You can try it yourself! But we’ll also come back to this in one of the upcoming lessons.)

In the end, this exercise and the training I received from the Inner MBA, led me to founding the CREATRIX School, my qu_ing Coaching programme, and the Sustainable Business Directory, as they helped me to narrow down on my callings, my vision and my missions, and there’s also another calling that I received in that vision that one night and that I will share with you later because I’m not actively working on that yet, just opening up to ideas to realize it later.

So it’s not like I always wanted to do this work, or prepared for this work. I was just someone who felt pretty lost and alone growing up, who was smart and talented, had some ideas about where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do, but no role models or guidance to help make wise decisions or choices.

I had a hard time deciding between going to art school, or studying humanities, but eventually decided on getting a master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology, Political Sciences and Russian as I wanted to know so much more about this world and how it works, and I felt like I loved art too much to want to make it my business.

And I am glad that I did what I did because that, too, led me to where I am now. And it led me to that moment where I had no idea what I wanted to do next – the only thing I did know then was, that whatever I was going to do, it had to be based on what I had learned from the nature all around me.

It had to be grounded in finding a way to enjoy life as an individual (something I had a really hard time with) while having a strong vision to create something meaningful for all.

I wanted to find out how we, each of us, can enjoy and love our lives to the fullest and how we can then begin to share from this place of overflowing abundance, joy and love with others – not just once we’ve reached a goal we set for ourselves, but in any moment.

And for that, I slowly began to realize, we would have to stop acting as if it was us against those in power or those who make decisions based on their individual gain instead of caring about all – like these were opposing forces, when really we are all part of nature and all need each other – and if we don’t know how to use all our powers yet – we can learn it.

And to achieve that, we, each of us, would have to recognize who we truly are as humans, and who we are individually, what we are capable of and how we can best use our powers (instead of blocking them by trying to fit in or blend in), what our purpose, calling and so on is – and what it will take for each of us to fully come into alignment with our highest self, arrive in the presence, discover and use our unique superpowers and begin to live a life that is as magical as that of a flower and all nature – because we are nature too. 

We might have just forgotten. Or I surely did. Not theoretically or, remembering deep down that I am, but I wasn’t living it.

Because the difference between most humans and a flower (and now don’t say there are many, I know that ;)) is that while the flower will continue to enjoy being a flower, even when it’s cut and put in a vase, or when it’s left somewhere to wither, many of us have forgotten how to value what we have and who we are, as we were trained and continue to train ourselves to look at what we don’t have instead of what we do have.

And we have forgotten that we are eternal beings, making a short stop on this planet in our current bodies, to experience life in form.

The flower knows that its essence will never die and that it is just changing form as part of the circle of life – and that therefore whatever happens to her is her fulfilling exactly her purpose now, to go on to other things after, and that’s why she can do it all with grace. She knows that death is not the end, just a change, and so nothing to be afraid of.

So I wondered how we could feel like that flower as humans.

Nelson Mandela is a good example of living as that. And so are many holocaust survivors, or people like Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins, Malala. They all kept their head up high, even when people tried to destroy them, and they focused on what they wished for and created such a strong vision of that, that they survived impossible situations in which most other people, who did not have a vision, gave up.

And what is possible for them, is possible for us.

We just have to find clarity about what we are doing and why and then begin to create a strong vision, with which we can align ourselves, our lives and our work.

And that starts with understanding, realizing, feeling and connecting to the meaning of life, the meaning of each life, the meaning of all of life, the meaning of our lives – and to live that meaning by becoming magnificent, unique, shining, unbreakable and eternal beings, by living as our true selves, as our best selves, as our qu_ing selves.

And not as dimmed down and comfortable versions of ourselves, who have found a way to live sickly, tranquillized by TV and pleasure entertainment, with just enough energy to survive and procreate, maybe have some simple enjoyments, but mostly worries and fears – as people who live well-adjusted to a sick society.

When we really can be and have the potential to be limitless, happy and free.

Honestly, what’s that all about?

Knowing the answer to this question is the only way we can build a strong basis for our lives though – as EVERYTHING, our success or failure, our happiness or unhappiness, our abilities and inabilities, or health or our health struggles, our energy levels, and whatever else you can think of, depend on what we believe about the world, the meaning of our life and our abilities and possibilities in it.

How we live our lives, and what we will be able to make of our lives, depends on the meaning we give to it.

So, today, we will start giving our life a meaning that allows us to be all we wish to be and do all we wish to do – if that’s what you choose to do – if you too want to be limitless, happy and free.