Blessings in Disguise

When I returned from India in 1980, I went to live in a rural community in Washington state to reunite with my daughter and to find my new path. However, at that time I also needed a steady income just to pay the bills. I found work as a Child Therapist at the Mental Health Center, which was considered something I could count on as far as employment. During that time, I established myself in the mental health community and gained respect for my therapeutic skills. Suddenly, after being there for approximately one year, President Reagan said the economy required huge cuts and so began “Reaganomics” – a slang term for slashing most of the mental health budgets around the country. I was laid off, along with many of my colleagues. We were all in shock!!

However, David and I had also been practicing Master Mind groups and learning the power of getting clear, very clear about what we wanted. We made a Vision Board and placed on there pictures of having a Healing Center in the mountains where people could come to stay and to do their professional as well as personal growth work. We created our mission statement of “Teaching the Teachers and Healing the Healers.” In my new book, Longing for Belonging, I discuss the process of this transformation in depth. It is now our reality and deeply fulfilling to both of us as well as to our thousands of students from all over the country and many parts of the world.

Today, some people, especially those working in agencies that may be cutting their budgets, may be experiencing something similar to my 1980s experience of fear of loss of security. However, most of our Heart-Centered Therapists who are in private practice say that their practices are filled to overflowing right now. People are anxious, wanting to chart a new course in their lives, and are seeking therapy.

The Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy is a perfect tool to help people get clear about what they really want in their lives. Now is the time to create your own business, to start your private practice or to take the risk that you were afraid to take when you had steady employment.

One example is a young woman who has had a steady job at a Tech company for 18 years. She had great security, the best benefits and an important position. On the other hand she was not spiritually fulfilled and has been very attracted to Heart-Centered Hypnotherapy, first as a client, then as a PTI group member, and then as a Six-Day student (audit). She wanted to be involved in this work in every way that she could. She realized that her job, was just that: a job! But her heart and soul was attracted to the personal transformation work that we do here at Wellness. So after completing every one of our programs that she could, she then began asking to assist. She assisted every PTI group that she could and was thinking about going back to school at night to get her MA in counseling. Suddenly, due to the economy, she was laid off and was told to start looking for a new job. 

She went into shock about being laid off from her secure job. She told me that now as she looks back, she would have never been able to leave that job on her own. Giving up personal security is a very difficult thing to do. So, now she is at a major crossroads in her life; sometimes referred to as Mid-Life Crisis, I call it Mid-Life Transformation. Being at this crossroads can be a huge opportunity to reach out for that new path that feeds your soul, a blessing in disguise as they say. Or it can be a way to desperately grasp on to what has always been familiar, safe and boring. It reminds me of the classic Arthur Miller play Death of a Salesman. Willie Loman didn’t die physically, it was his spirit that died by doing something that he didn’t have the courage to change.

There is another opportunity in the current financial situation: to discover what we were really wanting to accomplish with all the materialism that consumed so many over these recent years. By historical standards, the average American is rich beyond measure. Our homes have ballooned in size and our cup of coffee has quadrupled in price. How has that worked out for us? The disturbing trend was documented by psychologist Tim Kasser in his 2002 book, The High Price of Materialism. Kasser’s conclusion was decisive: the more you believe happiness comes from material wealth, the more likely you are to be depressed, distressed, and anxious—and the less actual well-being you’re likely to experience. There is a fascinating article about our devotion to materialism in the March/April issue of Psychotherapy Networker titled “You Can Never Get Enough of What You Don’t Really Need.”

And, of course, the current financial uncertainty is indeed a blessing in disguise if we recognize the opportunity to re-clarify our values and our priorities, and to devote our energies to what feeds our soul – that is, after all, what we were really shopping for in the first place.

Whenever there is upheaval in your world, it’s like a deck of cards being tossed up in the air. Everything is being re-shuffled and new opportunities become available to anyone who is willing to get very clear on what they want. You must get very clear on what feeds your soul. What is your passion for life? What do you want to be doing for forty or more hours per week and for the rest of your life? What did you come here to do? Do you see yourself as a paper-pusher or a healer? How can you reach your highest goals and manifest fulfillment in your life? To take a risk like this, it takes courage, clarity and a working Master Mind group. The time is right and the time is NOW! 

Lots of love, Diane