She reaps, she sows

This subject has been floating around in my head for a month or two now. I grappled with posting it, as on face value it appears to largely self-promote, yet this is far from my intention; I came to the conclusion that it was taking more energy for me not to spill and mention here what is going on in my changing professional role than it was to just be as open as I have always maintained on here. And it might explain why my posts on this blog could - who knows - become obsolete, or at least much changed (hence my working towards setting up the private blog last year, so that I may continue to post somewhere less open, as I sort of saw this coming) if it begins to impinge too much on my personal life.

You see, what happened was this: I lifted my head up near the end of 2010 for a brief moment and realised.... I have been studying non-stop for six years. That's six years of knowledge all backed up and archived in my head (and in my overflowing study!). And almost as soon as that realisation crept in to my awareness, I began to be sought out for my services as a psycho-spiritual counsellor. Not just friends or friends of friends this time. Real life, no personal connection, paying querents. I knew I had to start cracking a whip on myself if I was going to seize this opportunity to make my life's work (to date) turn into something meaningful for others. Otherwise, what had been the point of any of it?

For the first three years, it was most certainly a heal-the-healer journey, as most often are. And then I turned a corner. Almost unwittingly, I embarked on an extension of the study whereby the manuals referred to this unrelatable, unrecognisable, seemingly unattainable person called "The Practitioner". Before I was even aware, my mentors and class facilitators were going along with me on this ride where I've suddenly screeched to a halt and looked around and gone, "Oh my stars, I have my first paying client!"

Despite my trying every which way to weazle out of my responsibilities here - and stay relatively 'anonymous' online and help who I can, when they seek me out (and you know who you are!) usually via email or even by phone - and also to remain outside of the murky waters of remuneration for a service that I have to this point in my life considered an Earth Healing cause, I am on the precipice of the amazing and unique privilege of calling myself a legitimate counsellor. Rather like the online forum moderator who slogs diligently, voluntarily, until that moment in time where they realise that the energy exchange has become overblown. They're not "married to the job", for it is not a job they are being paid for and yet it seeps into their family and private time as if they were some sort of executive. So they either let the role go to someone else or they get put on staff as a paid contributor to the running of the service. And they're a lot more satisfied and work more efficiently because of it.

There have been lots of to's and fro's, lists of pro's and con's and so forth, all going in to my decision. I find that I have come to a point where I am actually not being as good as I can be in my role when I am sought out on this casual basis by acquaintances - and part of this is because I don't know the defined line; where do I stop relating to them as a friend and giving the support a friend can and should give, and when do I put my professional hat on, treating them somewhat more clinically/distantly so that I can step aside and be clear of mind in order for the assistance to come through and help them more effectively? It seems that when people lay their money down, that line is defined. And it is actually the only way to be effective.

With my skillset largely experiential, backed up by a highly principled mode to healing which ensures my spiritual etiquette and ego are firmly in check to allow whatever is permitted for the recipient, I think I have something unique to offer here.

I feel like the Masters' apprentice. I know what I know, I have no idea what I don't know yet (but I know it's a lot!) and yet, I find myself over-ripened on the learning vine. The next logical step is this. I have great expectations of 2011 being the fulfilling year I always thought it could be.

How about you? It seems there are so many posts going around about not having resolutions. And I for one think this is marvellous. So with all this self-affirmation and confidence that we're not actually going to set ourselves up to fail/beat ourselves up, and with the freshness of a new decade laid out before you,
what do you see as being your one overriding uplifting hope for your Soul purpose this year? Do you have one? If not, why not?