Our gifts are often more known and obvious to others than to us. Your teachers, family and friends have probably told you for years how good you are at something yet you have never paid too much attention to their comments.
WHY?
Maybe because that particular talent is something you were born with and you have always taken for granted that there is nothing so extraordinary about it. You keep using it with the same nonchalance you walk, speak and brush your hair most likely thinking that everyone can do it as well and as spontaneously as you.
Or maybe you have never ever cultivated your self-esteem to the point where you can be comfortable with being really good at something and aknowledge it once for all. You have played small most of your life and have never thought of making a living out of your gift. You have chosen safety and avoided exposing your hidden talents to protect yourself from potential suffering that following your heart may cause you.
Whatever reason and excuse you might have found to keep your gifts in the closet so far, there is always a time in our life that Truth will knock on the door and ask for our attention.
It can happen any moment. Your body gives strange signs by hurting in the most unusual ways and for no real causes. You don't sleep as peacefully as before. All the job employers you have contacted suddenly are not interested in you at all, no matter how good your CV looks and actually is. Life seems falling apart somehow and you wonder what's wrong with you without taking into consideration the possibility of asking yourself a different question.
What's so damn right with me l am not aware of? What do l need to bring to surface and how can l use it in the most productive way?
Sometimes what arises from our personal investigations can be surprising and quite distant from the perception we have had of who we are. Being able to come to terms with our gifts is not necessarily an easy task, especially if it means a change of career and even of lifestyle.
When l first was told l should look into the possibility of becoming a teacher since l was really communicative and excellent at sharing any knowledge, l thought people didn't know me enough. I thought they just felt comfortable in my company and saw something there that was nothing but my natural enthusiasm and empathy. I didn't think that those two qualities are actually essential to being a good teacher.
When a few years later, out of the blue, l was offered to teach kids with emotional issues as a last minute substitution and mostly to help a dear friend, I didn't know that a portal was being opened for me right there. I started to see more clearly it was no accident when those same kids most educators were struggling with gradually softened up and improved their overall performance in my company and teaching hours. Even the most aggressive ones managed to calm down and learnt to say sorry when they lost control.
I was pretty amazed. Where and how did l learn to be a respected, trusted and loved teacher?
Still these days, after many children, teenagers and adults have crossed my teaching path, l can't really give a definitive answer to my doubt. I was probably born with it, with the gift of tuning into the emotional field of the person or people in front of me and share what l like and happen to know from a place of compassion and love rather than from the ego or some superiority department as some teachers tend to do. I instinctively know what to say and how and l keep thinking it has little to do with me. It is more like a channeling process where l stay open and let knowledge or wisdom flow through me.
My talent for words surely help but then again, l am aware that they come to me effortlessly like a stream of clear water reaching the sea. People often tell me how helpful my words and writing are or have been through their struggles and l guess they really mean it. I still don't know what I am supposed to do next with the fact that there is something more to the way l deliver words and concepts. But I have decided that l will pay attention to it and see if it can be of any benefit for others and for myself on a larger scale. Even the thought of it scares me off. I have such an issue with making public use of my inner thoughts and reflections. They usually end in my drawers, folders, pockets and private mail boxes, anywhere but out there. Yet for the sake of the Muses and of my mother who is still waiting to see my poems on a bookstore shelf, l am willing to deliver my fears and vulnerability once for all and see what happens from here.
Embracing the mistery is my Christmas gift to myself this year, no matter how long it will take me to unwrap it all.