Being True to Myself
I sent out my first newsletter this week. It wasn't much but it had taken me a year to do it and I was proud of the fact that I actually accomplished it (especially because I did it on a day when I kept getting distracted by various things). I received an email from Mail Chimp a few days later and it told me that two people had unsubscribed.
At first I was thinking, why would someone unsubscribe when they had been the ones to sign up for the newsletter? But as I thought about it more, I am aware of that there are people who are disappointed in the fact that I'm not writing about grief like I used to.
While my work has always been about moving forward in life, now it's less focused on understanding what we go through and more driven about how we actually make positive change in our lives. I want to help people build skills to do that, using what I have learned to get through the various challenges in my life.
It was then that I realized that I am not going to change my work because people are disappointed. I have had the perfect opportunity to make sweeping changes in my life: a huge new beginning. More than anything, I need to be true to myself.
I have times where I see it would be easy to venture off and do things that might be good to do, might bring extra income in ways that would be easy for me, but then I realize they aren't what makes me truly happy. Life is short and I need to keep focused on what does make me happy. I have always allowed myself to get distracted in helping others and in other ways.
Now though, it's my time. And I know that it's almost important that I show how I have been able to take my life forward because that inspires others; they see that they, too, can do it. And I know it will show in my work– as it already does in my new book, The Green Dress– that I am doing what makes me happiest inside. And the more I do that, the more others will resonate with it.
And so a leap forward into the unknown although I see it more like the red carpet rolling out in front of me.
