Do you have theme songs to your dreams?

I think my Inner Voice, Higher Self, Subconscious, Spirit…something…speaks to me at night while I’m sleeping through music. For several years now, I always wake up in the morning with a few lines of a song in my head. The lyrics always seem to speak to what I’m thinking or feeling or going through at that time.

This morning I woke up with the chorus from a Leann Rimes song called “Something’s Gotta Give” in my head. The lyrics go:

Something's gotta give me butterflies
Something's gotta make me feel alive
Something's gotta give me dreams at night
Something's gotta make me feel alright
I don't know where it is
But something's gotta give

I think these lyrics speak to a longing in my right now for something more, something greater than what I am experiencing right now in my life. I am longing for something to make me feel more ALIVE.

I am making some small steps right now to try to improve things. Yesterday I called the university where I last took classes, so I could figure out what I need to do to go through the re-admissions process and start taking part-time classes again.

People are always amazed that I make a six-figure salary and am so far in my career, yet I still haven’t finished my Bachelor’s Degree. It’s a bit of a skeleton in the closet for me. But with my career going so well all these years, I guess I never made it a priority to go back and finish it. Unfortunately, I think I’m at a point in my career now that it is going to impede further progress. Beyond that, I really want to check off that box. It would be a huge sense of accomplishment for me and a big monkey off my back in an emotional and psychological perspective. I think I will just feel LIGHTER when I finish it.

Beyond feeling more alive, I think I just want to feel more like ME. Over the past few years, I feel like I don’t do anything anymore that makes me ME. I used to meditate regularly, attend yoga classes three or four times a week, participate in political and social causes, go to fundraisers, journal regularly, read constantly. Becoming a wife and a mother seems to have usurped a lot of the time and space in my life that I used to reserve for those things.

I guess the good news is that I recognize that this has happened, so I now have the ability to try to change it.

Baby steps.

Longing for someday...

On the recommendation of a friend, I had a phone reading with a psychic/intuitive reader named Shaman Star (Paula) about a month ago and one of the first things she said to me was that she could see that I wanted to be a spiritual teacher. When she said it, I welled up with tears, because it is something that is true in the deepest part of my heart. I have felt at lost on how to make that a reality though for quite some time now.

The fact is that I have a husband and a young daughter. Although I feel my husband and I are both contributing in important ways, I am the financial breadwinner in the family and support our daily expenses with a mid-senior-level corporate job. 

On top of that, Life has presented us with a lot of challenges over the past few years, as it has for many. We had to sell one home, another is in foreclosure. The third burned down in a fire. I was laid off from one job, found a contract job for a year and then found a new full-time job after that – but it required us to move across the country to somewhere unfamiliar to both of us. Since that time, both our fathers passed away, my husband’s business went down the tubes and he is in an expensive legal battle.  Add to that some medical issues for both of us as icing on the cake. This is all over the course of about two and a half years.

Through all of that, we were navigating the waters of parenthood with our now almost two-year-old daughter.  She is the light of our lives and makes me smile and laugh and fills me with more love than I ever thought was possible.  And while I know we are blessed in countless ways and I find gratitude every day, it has still been a grueling few years for us and some of the most stressful of my 35 years.

The reader thought I should research a placed called The New Seminary of Interfaith Studies in New York. Apparently, they have correspondence courses and she suggested I look into them as a means of slowly working toward a goal of being a spiritual teacher. It sounds fabulous. I thought, “Sure, add it to the list of things I wish I could do!” It’s just hard to know when I’ll be able to make those wishes a reality with all my mundane responsibilities and debt that keep me perpetually depleted and exhausted.

I hope someday to get to a place in my life when things slow down enough that I can attend to me and my longings again. With everything that’s going on right now, I just have to hold onto the hope that those opportunities are ahead of me and do myself to strive toward them. For now, this blog is my first step toward honoring a deeper part of myself that needs to speak, that needs a voice, that needs more than the limited, unrewarding and unsatisfying rat race that so many of us find ourselves stuck in.

Hope.

Welcome to "Seeking the Secret" blog

3/22/11

I’ve spent many years searching for my own sense of spirituality, reading self-help and self-discovery books, digging through ancient religious texts in search of obvious and hidden messages and meanings. All of this has led me to a loose set of universal beliefs about how the Universe works, what God is, and what the meaning of my Life is.

Much of what I believe falls in line with New Thought concepts and Law of Attraction principles, which was popularized and brought into mainstream consciousness a few years back by the book and movie called The Secret.  Words shared by authors like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Cheryl Richardson, Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Ernest Holmes, and Louise Hay resonate deeply inside me. But I know I have so much more to learn and so much further to go on my journey of self-discovery and self-remembering.

In the best of times, I feel pretty well aligned with the Universe and experience the pleasure of synchronistic events like always getting a perfect parking spot when and where I need it. Unfortunately, I’ve never seemed to be able to find the discipline, insight or faith to take it any further than that and truly experience Grace in any sort of consistent or miraculous way. I know there is so much more of myself calling to me to come home to it and unveil the spiritual being that I truly am at the core of my being.

I am starting this blog in the hopes that it will prod me to more deeply explore the meaning of my existence and how I can become more self-realized through the exploration of different spiritual texts and practices. I called this blog “Seeking the Secret” because I am still searching for answers and meaning in my life. I want to use this blog as a way to explore and expand my understanding of spirituality and what it means to be alive and part of the unified fabric of this infinite Universe.

If you somehow cross paths with me here, I thank you for taking the time to read this blog and hope that you will find something here that speaks to you. I hope you will also share your stories, thoughts and feelings with me if you feel so inspired. I believe there is something to be learned from everyone we meet and every moment we experience.

Namaste,
Elliana