Wellbeing - what does it mean to you?

As I side stepped becoming a nurse to become a wellbeing therapist (just to say it took me a whole 24 years to call myself that, check out my blog - What's in a title) here I reflect 25 years on from taking that step to acknowledge what wellbeing really means.

How did I come to reflect on it in this moment so deeply well, it's because I'm coming to the end of a life-changing course, the kind of course you search for. Throughout my entire life I've felt 'called' to do something BIG, it felt so big that I had to write it in capital letters but how it felt as it sat in my head I could've actually obliterated the entire screen with the word and turned it bold with a font size of 150! I think you hear me and, if you're a woman you'll hear it loud and clear and if you're a mother to children or the mothering figure in your group of friends then it shouts at you!

The 'calling' can be discombobulating especially when the sense of it feels bigger than you believe you can achieve and in the end nothing you do feels big enough, and instead a sense of disappointment swamps over you. I felt this for years and as a result I would sound so ungrateful for what I had achieved along the way yet I was making moves in my career that were going somewhere but, I just didn't know where to?

In 2016 I tuned into a podcast featuring Cathy Burke who is now the ex-CEO of the Hunger Project, Australia. She shed some light on her path in life not being obvious especially when parents would ask her 'how can I get my kids to follow a good path' and she would respond with 'I was one of those kids once' and then she shares 'that her boyfriend at the time exposed her to making change in the world and that it sadly wasn't Mother Theresa's top hints for living falling from a bookcase one day'. That conversation put me at ease to allow the path to unfold for me and, five years later I'm just about to complete a seven month course led by Cathy. I even stepped into that golden opportunity thinking I too would end world hunger and, I was even naive to think that my BIG calling would be achieved or at least well on it's way within those months.

That period of time turned into a very different journey, one where I would feel more true to myself than ever before, uncovering the truth about myself with the ability to say it out loud. I remember the day I wrote my vision - just how calm and at peace it felt to write it, read it and feel it in my core. Yet, simultaneously I felt an edge of disappointment about it as it wasn't what I expected and in one of the modules 'Personal Power' I just couldn't put the strength into the vision to power it up and instead I spent time thinking my vision wasn't my truth. It took a conversation with a fellow team mate in Japan to bring this vision to the world, and what followed was my courage, freedom and the power to make it happen. To be on a course where you are heard and people see your truth is magical and yet all these women were strangers to me at first. They were from other sides of the world, from Australia, to the USA and as I mentioned Japan yet my true self came alive and for that I will forever be grateful.

You may be wondering what is this truth she speaks of, what was in that vision, how is it connected to the title I came for - wellbeing and, what BIG thing is she going to tackle?

An excerpt from that very vision will begin to answer it, here it goes;

Spiritually, I am connected to my authentic self, the words I speak and write come from a place of truth, my true self.

My voice through the years has been quiet, I even used to get solid blocks in my throat disabling speech when needing to be heard and in work meetings people would say 'is Claire still here?' I spent my career in wellbeing listening and tuning in to others and growing my intuition. But wellbeing for me was a very different story and I found it, I'm celebrating it here with you now - writing, the written word is my therapy, my soul, my being, my truth and the fact that in my vision I state it within the spiritual aspect of my life tells me it's the right path so here I am, being true. Find your own wellbeing somewhere in your truth.

Cathy's course RISING got me to this exact moment but of course other things helped me reach this point in my 44 years of life and I'll be sure to share them along the way.

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