Walking the path of my calling
I am continually amazed at the changes my life undergoes. I go along with my everyday life....feeding the kids, running errands, cleaning toilets, washing dishes, and then suddenly the world opens up. I am flooded with new perspectives, new ideas, and I am changed.
Just a few short weeks ago I was content with my life as it was. I found my work as a birth doula rewarding and fulfilling! I could see myself continuing my work for a long time, serving women as a provider of emotional, physical, and informational support during their pregnancies, birth, and immediate postpartum. Then I attended a meeting for a local doula organization and my complacancy began to wash away, in torrents! I listened as women spoke of their midwives, their homebirths, their birth choices and my tears began to fall. I was faced with the reality of limited choices for women in my own community, just across the water from the city in which these women lived, and I knew I had to act. I struggled with this realization...What could I do to bring choice and support to women in my own community? Was I already doing enough with my doula work, with the newsletter I publish along with two other women?
Memories of my childhood wish to be a doctor began to surface. I remembered my desire to be a midwife, to provide holistic care to women, children, and families. I remembered my intention to return to school when my own children were school age, which just happens to be coming up this fall! I recalled a conversation with Dr. Hibbs, ND. who asked me if I had ever considered becoming a Naturopath, and told me he thought I would make a good one.
The universe began to unfold and I felt the "truth" of my calling blazing from withing me. It is time!
So I've begun the process of returning to my education. I will pursue finishing my Bachelors Degree and then I will move on to attend the ND program with a certification in midwifery at Bastyr University. I hold the vision of becoming a family practice Naturopath, working with famlies from their inception, helping to bring babies into the world with the grace and peace that their humanity and spirit require.
As I speak my intention out loud, and pursue it by meeting with advisors and visiting campuses, I find that I am in the right places at the right times. I find the people I meet are supportive of my vision, things are going "right", and I am confidant that my goals will be realized if I continue to move forward from a place of integrity, clarity, and vision.