Well, to my delight, it appears that process is now in the works. While at this moment she is still at the "day job," she appears poised to make that leap. It is that sudden stomach leaping, heart stopping jump off the high dive. I'm not sure what she had done in the week or two since I talked with her, but my guess is that God's world now has another, very skilled full-time healer. And that evening on the phone, she told me she had a dream of being outside of a department store window, a beggar looking in at a wealth of material goods with no way to purchase any of them. I asked her how she felt during the dream - what her emotions were. She said 'cold and free'.
Another friend of mine, a business coach, once likened the difference between being an employee and being freelance to the difference between house pet and a wild animal. The house pet has it made - a warm bed, fed every day, held on it's human's lap and petted, etc. But there is no freedom, no room for initiative. It will never start a company and it will never solve any of the world's great problems. For the house pet, there are only expectations that it is and always will be at the bottom of the heap. Its only purpose is to entertain its humans. It lives in a comfortable gilded cage and if it's home is good, then it is set for life.
And then there is the wild animal. The wild animal has left the comforts of home - living out in the world where there are no comfy beds or guaranteed food. The wild animal never quite knows where its next meal is going to come from, yet It has complete freedom - if it can survive. If it is good at living in the wild, it can thrive. But first it must stay alive.
I remember vividly the first day I had as a freelancer. It was the day I got laid off from the day job. I had a great time in my exit interview, handing out my hypnotherapy flier. Then, suddenly that evening, I realized the magnitude of what I had decided to do. Now, I was on my own and the thought was terrifying.
That night I had a dream very similar to my friend's. I had been walking up a stairs through interesting rooms and floors in a comfortable house (in truth, I really enjoyed what I was doing at my last job. It was the corporate culture I disliked). There were pleasures and challenges but most of all, it was an interesting, comfortable place to be.
Then, as I ascended the stairs, they suddenly ended in a glass doorway, and beyond that door there was nothing. I could see a lighted hallway beyond. It was sparse, but it was large and free. No more comfortable rooms and no more pleasant places within the house. Now I was free in a vast but cold world. There was enough to live on, if I knew how. As I stepped out the exit, I could look back through the window and see the pleasant apartment building with gardens, and with dinner tables set with food and drink. But that door was now closed. I was free and on my own.
The dream hit me even harder the next night as during the day, I had decided not to pursue a new job lead. I had committed to the path that left behind my career as a software developer - that nice cushy house-pet job - to become a freelance healer. That day, I filed my corporate papers and made my statement to the world. I was now a hypnotherapist with my own business and no salary (to be fair I did have a nice severance to tide me over for a while).
I have heard many spiritual teachers tell me all about the law of abundance. When you are on the right track, when you are doing what you are meant to do, somehow the Universe falls in step with you. Like the lillies of the field, God takes care of them. In the Christian teachings, it's called having faith. And now, as I book new clients, sell books and CDs and arrange new speaking engagements, that road is clear to me. Yet on that day, a year and a half ago, just as for my friend on the phone a week or so ago, that table of abundance looked a long ways off.
Now, I was on the life path of an independent business person - feeling as if I had just walked from a warm comfortable pet bed out into the dark mysterious forest. While I might still be able to see in the door, it was now closed behind me. Like my friend who is just beginning her entrepreneurial path, I was free. And like her, I could feel the cold of being outside, staring into the unknown.
On that moment, I could see comfort and abundance at the table behind me but that was not where my path lay. Now, all I could do was look backwards in the window one more time - and then take my first steps out into that brave new world.
