Identity crisis of a multi-passionate visionary?

Have you ever experienced a completion of your mission and identity? When you knew it was time to move on and that felt just so expansive… And yet, there was this period of grief-like mood (when you surrender all the dreams and aspirations that never got to materialize)? Not to mention the hooks of what you just grew so accustomed to even if it felt like a body-armor about three sizes too small?

This image was originally shared in a different context, but I just find it so fitting for those of us who identify as multi-passionate and -talented visionaries:

Especially since dissolving my private practice of 10+ years in order to launch what essentially is its upgraded and expanded version — Elite Mystique Agency Inc. in partnership with Dianne Sykes — created this experience for me not that long ago.

Indeed, I know a thing or two about how awesome yet frustrating it can be to have many talents, and skills. And about loving to do so many different things — and be good at most of them. And about investing so much time, energy, resources, and love into something that it becomes your identity…

This isn’t said in arrogance.

Rather I offer it to you as an inspiration, consolation, even, if this feels familiar to you as well.

Because nothing is wrong with you if you struggle to box yourself into a clearly-defined label!

I lost count of how many marketing coaches I had hired who insisted that I pick this one thing and lead all my marketing through it; I lost count of how many small deaths I’ve died trying to follow their advice!

Until I discovered that there is a whole universe beyond Kolbe and D.I.S.C. assessments, strength finders, and personality tests.

This Universe contains Gene Keys. Codes of our Human Design. Mysticism of our Natal charts. And insights of our North and South nodes.

See, the way my mind works sometimes, I can still get easily overwhelmed with “What am I supposed to do? How do I distill this down? How can I compartmentalize it?”

As a smart, driven, and strategic person, my ego has a field day with those musings!

But when I wander too deep into that comfort zone (aka security blanket that’s keeping me distracted from the uncomfortable things I should be doing to move the needle), my body responds with sensation of heaviness.

My stomach shrinks. My throat closes.

The harder I try to push my intellect to come up with some creative flow, the stronger the pulsation in my navel area.

It’s a dead end. A total time-waster. Mind as well just stop and step away!

It’s taken me years to read those signals. To trust them. To trust myself.

Because there are also lighting bolts that shoot through me when my heart responds. When my eye catches a glimpse into something that piques my interest. And when that thing contains the answers I’ve been seeking.

For example. Founding our brand new Elite Mystique Agency Inc. required a lot of introspection, openness, intelligent moves, and heart-centered decisions. Releasing the old identity with dissolving of my 10-year private practice required me to clarify and define my new role moving forward. “What do you want? Like, really want?” poked Dianne.

For months, I’d be working so hard on keeping it all logical.

Of course I can do old-fashioned strategic consulting, it’s my background.

Naturally I should offer done-for-you services, I have the skill-set.

Sure, I can try to fall in love with project-management again, it’s what market demands.

But all that I could muster, was manufactured enthusiasm. And that ain’t moving the needle when the stars chart your Destiny path the way they do mine! It’s the hear that holds the reins, not my brains!

What’s more — it’s been the inner-dialogue of mine for the past few years, sitting on two chairs. What I thing I should do and what my soul KNOWS I get to do.

My spiritual teacher once told me: “Sara, your South node is what’s already easy for you! It’s what you default to and if it were a bike, it would be like going in its low gear. You’re paddling super fast and it looks super easy. But you’re not moving. North node is what you’re here to learn. It feels hard. There is resistance — just like biking up the hill. But once you’re up, it’s all cruising with ease from there!”

And something just clicked!

And then, there was this job ad that I happened to come across…

It started with “ Have you competed at an elite level sport? Do you enjoy working with kids? Do you want to help the next generation of young people become the success story of their dreams?”

Boom! Lightning bolt!

Wait what — kids? Teenagers? But — I work with women in leadership! Most of them are 45–55 years old and have already accomplished more than most people ever will!

Well, maybe. I don’t know — that’s not on me to know. It’s not on me to figure out the how (just yet).

But there was just something within those lines that verbalize my knowing — that put into a whole new perspective what I was feeling.

Something about being a coach. Inspiring. Empowering. Understanding that people have unlimited potential and that success (however each defines theirs) is the combination of multiple things! People, not businesses. Life, not organizations. Limitlessness…

Something awakened deep inside of me that’s been dormant for many years!

There’s something else in those lighting bolts…

In those lightning bolts, time ceases to exists!

On a wave of such limitless inspiration, I get to create and produce more in a single afternoon than I would have in a week!

It’s taken me years to accept this. To get OK with it. To actually embrace it and work with it.

And that’s the magic behind the philosophy my business partner and I are building our agency on.

This transition period essentially seemed like a great time for some reflection before anchoring the new vision.

Sitting on the office floors and going through piles of old marketing materials, years-worth of strategic planning notebooks, business and personal journals, I realized something:

Sometimes all that we need as multi-passionate and -talented visionaries, is just a simple twist of imagination and a pinch of our own preferences that transform the most mundane, old-fashioned, outlived things into something that sparks joy again.

Take, for example, moving old-fashioned strategic consulting out from a boring board room and 2-dimensional zooming… and turning it into a nourishing immersion experience (in nature, or on a horse farm, or even in my own backyard — which is exactly what we’re doing, by the way)… Can you feel it?

What is that spark for you? What’s looking to emerge through you? How can you (re)emerge in a way that matches the fire of your heart and knowing of your soul?

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.