Honoring the Gift

Do you believe that each of us is presented with a gift to share with others—whether with loved ones only or the world at large? I do!

For a long time, I've wondered what my "gift" is. I've shared my talents knowingly and unknowingly through the years. Some, like my articles that bring extraordinary places to life for my readers, are obvious to me. Others I learn about only when a person who has been touched by them goes out of her way to tell me.

One cherished remark pops to mind. When I was visiting a small Brazilian town 25 years after I worked there as a Peace Corps Volunteer, a young woman approached me to say, "You won’t remember me–I was only 5 years old when you lived here. But I loved to watch you walk down the street self-assured and with such beautiful posture. I looked up to you and always remembered you." My heart sang knowing that just by being me, a little girl believed she, too, could walk in her world with poise, confidence and self-esteem.

But the "gift" I’m thinking about is one that falls into our laps, comes out of nowhere. It’s something that shows up and causes us to wonder where it came from, why it showed up, what we’re supposed to do with it, and how long we’ve had it in our possession without realizing it.

About two years ago, I started getting inklings about the gift that I’m meant to share with others when I crafted three statements to use in a program I presented to a women's group. Six months later, I used the same three statements as the writing prompt for a free teleseminar series on surviving the holiday season.  Encouraged by the participants' comments, I started offering free, monthly teleseminars called Writing from Source.

Participant feedback about invaluable insights and guidance prompted me to continue. Twenty months later, I continue to hold the monthly calls. Whether one or a dozen people show up for a session, I’m pleased to facilitate it. The fact that I do the calls simply because I love the process and what it reveals tells me I’m meant to be doing this.

Yes, this is the gift I am meant to share—Writing from Source, a writing process that uses your responses to three statements to gain insights, guidance and answers from inside yourself about a key issue in your life.

Now that I recognize that the Writing from Source process is the "gift" I’m charged with sharing, I’ve started heeding the intuitive nudges that have been poking me the past many months. Those nudges tell me to share Writing from Source in a bigger way—and that the next step is to write a book about it.