Everybody has a story. Everyone has a journey. What I want to share; what I need to share to help move myself forward; out of the past and into the future is this. Depression can steel your joy but it doesn’t have to. If truth be told I have two sides to me. One side is the creative decorator and the other is my spiritual side. Over the last 3 years or so I’m not sure where one begins and the other ends.
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Finding balance with both life and work is indeed a balancing act.
This journey of mine this spiritual journey really started with the death of my older sister. A couple of years after she died I started questioning everything, looking at things differently. It was bad enough that I lost my younger sister 29 years ago at the age of 17 but loosing my older sister as well was almost too much for myself and my family. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of them both. I think their memory urges me to live more fully.
The fact is I have been on a spiritual path for many years now. You ask what’s that got to do with a Interior Decorator. For me it’s got everything to do with Interior Decorating. I can’t help but have that one part of my soul interact with the other part of my soul. It’s who I AM.
This is what I know today, that sharing a part of my journey, what I believe or what I hold dear to me not only effects me in my own personal life it effects me in my professional life. I’m not here to push my own views or beliefs on anyone it is only to share parts of myself that may benefit someone else or to show them that they are not alone. For so many weeks now I have been trying to find the words to get this out then sometimes I think who’s gonna read it???
Maybe nobody. Maybe somebody. Maybe you.
Maybe just that one person who NEEDS to hear it
Ultimately, in the end though, you need to know it’s the strength within yourself that you will find your own light and your own strength will lift you higher.
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The Day in the life of a Decorator ~ (sent on written May 28th, 2014)
This is my story…
Take it for what’s it worth and for anyone in the same situation, take heart
– know your thoughts can change things no matter how hard that may be at the
time. To be honest most of 2013 plagued me with grief and depression. Things
did not look the same, life as I new it was transformed in a way that I
did not expect. Grief was no stranger to me. My younger sister died at the age
of 17 from a form of Lupus. Two years ago my older sister died from a long
battle of breast cancer.
(Well I thought it was 2 years, then I went and looked at her memory book
on May 1st, 2014 her 50th birthday from her ‘Celebration of Life” only to
discover it had been 4 years! much to my shock because it feels like yesterday)
Being the middle child I learned or took on the roll as the ‘strong one’.
My strength vanished, my compassion waned and the things I use to get excited
about dwindled. The excitement about decorating a room or helping clients just
wasn’t the same. Sure the passion for design and decorating will always be
part of me but….things shifted and as result; for many other reasons my business suffered.
My journey took me down another road. Grateful for the experience i
took a job at a flooring showroom. It went against who I was and what I
wanted to do but I needed a more steady income so I took the job. It didn’t
last, 9 months later I was back to where I started.
Going from self-employed to working for someone else had it’s moments.
Pro’s and con’s. Thankfully strangers helped in a way that can’t be
explained.
Trusting the universe always has the first move and all you can really
do is keep on going, keep the faith and believe in yourself. Still stuck
in depression I could not see my way clear. Still this is an ongoing
battle one I have not shared with many people.
Then I found out about the 21 day meditation “Finding your Flow” with
Oprah and Depak. I did the meditation online (and have since bought the cd)
and it changed me deeply in the most profound way.
When i started I believed that my voice didn’t matter. That what I thought
didn’t matter. Expressing myself completely was and still is difficult
at times.Writing in the online journal everyday I felt I finally found a safe
place to share my feelings and express my thoughts that I had never been able to
do before. I felt Oprah and Deepak were talking to me directly. My beliefs
about a higher spirit have always been very strong but I have been going deeper
into my spiritual beliefs. Seeking to become more than I have seen myself to be.
I am an empath which means I experience OTHER people’s emotions as if
they were MY own. This is very difficult and confusing to say the least
and only compounded because of the depression.
It is like a overwhelming feeling of sensing or feeling ‘energy’ when you know are
not your YOUR emotions. Feeling down when theres no reason I should be
feeling that way. Other then I was missing my sisters but its more then
that. I know I have this ‘six sense’ being an empath but haven’t met anyone else
who is the same. I have never been trained or known how to protect myself from
outside Influences and outside noises or “static” from this energy. I learned to
tap into my intuition even more and find the core of my BE-ing to listen to my inner
voice and know it will not steer me wrong. Everyday I pick one angel card,
(ie; I might get LOVE, TRUST, COURAGE or SURRENDER) they are just one word)
I use runes and pick 11:11 alignment cards to seek guidance from my higher self.
The meditation helps so that I can rely less on the cards and more on my inner voice.
My inner guidance. Knowing that when I get “quiet ” and “still ” I can hear what
my gut/intuition wants me to tell me with respect to what I need answers to. I believe that
the universe speaks to me in whispers and being more “present ” and being in the NOW
also is not just words but a way of life for me. As challenging as that may be at times.
I believe the world is changing and that our thoughts truly do manifest what we think.
Following and believing about the “New Earth” book by Eckhart Tolle and
believing that we are all interconnected and the energy you put out flows into the universe.
I believe we are all connected to each other by this tiny thread and what I
do effects someone else. And that if I heal MYSELF then this will have a
chain reaction on someone else. If I can heal my broken bits then that
energy will ripple out and cause someone else to heal something in them.
This is what I believe with all of my true -self. We ARE spiritual be-ings first
then human this is what I believe. Everything is energy and if we are kind, loving and compassionate
towards other people the world can change. I share my story in the hopes it helps someone else.
Thank you for reading,
Namaste’
In love & light Stephanie
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I have no idea where my journey will lead me next but I’m going to have faith it is exactly where I need to be.