Mystery Unfolding

I know, that was last year's Daily Practice, nonetheless, it continues.  I have been granted by life a three month sabbatical in which to focus on what comes next, in the form of being laid off with 2 weeks notice & 11 week's severance.

I am trying to think big.  Way bigger than I have been.  I see jobs posted, read the descriptions, and realize that's me 10 years ago.  I see jobs posted, read the descriptions, and... I don't know who that is. Which is ok at this stage of the game. I think. First things first, I am taking some time to be introspective & reflective of how I've grown in the last seven, ten, fifteen years.  Where I have been is not where I'm going next.  If I don't take time to figure out what I want, how I want to feel, and how that's changed, I won't recognize the right thing when I see it.

Lots of work -- today's thinking led to the realization that I wanted to bring the following archetypes to help me in what comes next: thinker, collaborator, storyteller, visionary.  My default mode of operation tends to be thinker.  In order to accomplish things, I integrate collaborator.  I have other archetypes that pop in and out as well.  Storyteller is one of the archetypes that has been quietly poking at me for some time.  Being able to see and draw out the connecting threads of an existing dynamic, and pull them into something.  I'm still learning to tell a good story, but it's coming along.

And visionary.  I wanted to put this one back, but it called to be kept.  And I had a slow dawning realization that I am a visionary -- often my big crazy ideas are things that will take several years to fully implement... and for the first time, I'm realizing that's ok. It's hard for the short-sighted, and short-term thinkers.  What I need to do is accept that my vision is correct and focus the short-sighted and short-term thinkers on the tiny piece of the vision that can be accomplished in a span of time and sight that their minds can comprehend.

When I realized these developing archetypes, I wanted to run this past many people... and then I realized this validation that these things are true about me must be owned by me.  I cannot keep looking to others for validation, for their acceptance of who I am.  Just as I own my competencies, it is in my heart and a core part of who I am, so too are these archetypes.  

I find myself at the heart of the flame, I find myself in my strength...