Would I Continue To Live From Shoulds or Risk Living from Inspiration?

20 Dec Would I Continue To Live From Shoulds or Risk Living from Inspiration?

A reckoning of what living an inspired life means began for me in my twenties.

By all appearances, I’d done everything right:

I went to a good law school, studied hard, earned top grades, and then was hired by a prestigious law firm. As a lawyer, my career brought approval from loved ones. Total strangers seemed impressed that such a young woman in the 1980s could even be a lawyer.

In those days, I expected happiness to come from outside of me. So all that approval felt pretty good.

Whether the job was right for me was not so clear. Our clients were big businesses and banks. Days were filled with either suing or defending lawsuits between one corporation or another–each of them looking for the best result based solely on the bottom line.

The quote, “The Law is a Jealous mistress.” told me to expect long hours and total dedication.

It warned that using time to enjoy a life of friends, family and outside interests would never lead to what we all should want: material success.

So, I worked 70-hour workweeks and did not complain about the lack of time off or social life to enjoy.

The overworked days, lack of meaningful work, and the loneliness of my underdeveloped social life, though, did begin to take their toll.

Even the external recognition for my career could not make up for how the job drained my soul.

I did not feel inspired. I felt the opposite–dispirited.

At that time, I had not learned to turn inward to question whether what I was being told I should do matched what I wanted in my own life.

I simply ran full speed ahead, intent on meeting all the high standards set for me—regardless of the personal cost.

The personal cost was physical and emotional exhaustion. I couldn’t sleep, became anxious and overwhelmed. I couldn’t concentrate. Had trouble completing work that should have been easy for me. I worried that my demanding boss would see me as a failure.

Trying to keep up, I worked longer and harder until I felt dead inside.

Emotional well-being and self-care were not the buzz-words in the 80s that they are today. So I was on my own to puzzle what had happened to me and fret about whether I would ever stop feeling so bad.

Luckily, I discovered a consultant for something we called, “Stress Management’ back then. Now, we would call it what it is: counseling.

With that help, I began to recognize patterns in my thinking that did not serve me.

I began to see that I had been

focused more on

what others thought of me

than I had been

on my own inner urges or desires.

This clarity helped. I became calmer.

As I continued to meet with my counselor, I noticed a recurring image.

It was an impression, a feeling, that I should be sitting in her chair, guiding people to feel better.

How absurd! I couldn’t possibly do that! I told myself each time this happened, dismissing any consideration of what the impressions might mean.

From the Time I Was Eight Years Old, I Was Determined to Become a Lawyer.

Life’s purpose seemed only to find the means to arrive at that goal.

To be unhappy in the career shook my entire identity.

I was trapped between feeling at the end of my rope and blind to any alternative for my future.

Then suddenly, something unexpected happened at my job.

My boss agreed to help with a child custody lawsuit. We never took on cases that involved individual people. But, it was a special favor for a particular bank shareholder.

The folder for preparing the psychologist for trial contained pages and pages of his raw descriptions of the children, their divorcing parents, as well as the personality traits and emotional lives of each.

I read the psychologist’s concerns for the children living through the messiness of two parents locked in dispute. I saw that he had ideas for how custody could best support the children, based on his experience and psychological research.

I could hardly put it down.

Like magic, I was lit up and hooked by curiosity about this man’s career. His work would make a difference in the life of every day people.

It felt real and meaningful.

All those discounted images about seeing myself in a counselor’s chair came flooding into memory.

At that moment, I stopped scolding myself for having images about making a big change in careers.

Instead, I began to treat those musings with respect.

As if they mattered.

It dawned on me: Those faint urges toward a different career, and even my depleted spirit, had been gifts.

They alerted me–like loud, blinking signs–that I was on a path that no longer worked for me.

They cautioned: “Don’t miss your life!“

I had a choice to make:

Do I take a risk to follow what I felt animated by?

Do I listen to urges to bloom into something I’d never considered before?

With all the courage I could muster, despite my quaking stomach and my family’s bitter disappointment, I chose the risk.

I left the law.

I’m not going to lie, the road from there was bumpy for a bit.

But, I survived it.

Years later, I entered graduate school and got my doctorate in Clinical Psychology. Indeed, this twenty-plus-year career has been one that well-suited me, bringing much joy and satisfaction.

The Impact of My Stunning Decision to Leave the Law Reverberated Through My Life— Beyond Getting a New Career.

It changed the way I live my life:

I. Taking the risk emboldened me:

I realized that if I could let go of that career, with as many shoulds demanding I stick with it,

I need not be bound by others’ rules for my life.

II. I revised my definition of success. For me, it’s not about achievement, praise or stuff:

Success is defined by the amount of Curiosity, Inspiration, and Joy that I can feel at any time.

III. The guiding principle for my life changed from ‘What should I be doing?” to:

“How do I know what life is calling for me to do right now?

Question for you: Have you ever found yourself discounting images or urges calling you to something new? What did you do with that?

Tell me in the Comments Section below. I’d love to hear from you!