Messages and guidance.  

As the dry, intense heat of summer settles into the vineyard rows of the Italian wine country, I asked for some guidance. As soon as I did, I uncovered a buried memory,  had synapse-snapping conversations with beautiful women and a stunning revelation from a guest, and got direct guidance right in front of my eyes.

It started out with a meditation during which I asked my guides the following:

Are we sure this is the right time for me to be growing my work as a coach?  Because if there’s any doubt, now’s the time to make the wind whip up or something…

(I’ve just started, in recent months, to speak so directly to the spirit world. So I still do it with kind of an attitude.)

Well, here’s how the guides responded.

Almost immediately, a buried memory surfaced.

It was a cocktail mixer, at a downtown Washington, DC hotel, circa 1991.

I was there in my capacity as Marketing Director for my employer, a California design and construction company.

The event was a conference for those involved in the development and building of time share resorts all over the world.

Or something like that.  I was there hocking design and construction services.

Everyone was well dressed and the mixer was the ice breaker for the three day event.  I got out of the elevator, and looked around, holding my breath.

I knew I shouldn’t be there.  Let me rephrase that.  I knew, at a deeply subconscious level, that I shouldn’t be there.  But four semi-conscious layers closer to the surface, where I spent most of my time, all I wanted to do was score some construction work on the west coast and fly back a hero.

It had the makings of a nice evening.  Except, and no one tells you this, that people who develop time share properties are even more sleazy than the people who try to shove those same time shares down your throat at their planned sales pitches.  I mean that.

I wasn’t half way through my first glass of choked-with-oak chardonnay when one of the top development guys and I got into a conversation. A significant group had gathered, and this guy and I were bantering back and forth.  In the midst of the conversation, he said, “So.  How does it feel?”

I looked at him quizzically.  The guys behind him were grinning already. They knew Development Dude’s routine.  ”How does what feel?”

“To be a prostitute?  Because that’s what you are,  you know.  You’re just a prostitute for whatever you’re trying to sell.  You’re out of your league here.”

Lots of giggling from behind Development Dude. We had reached the maturity level of middle school gym class. I was being mentally undressed as I was being psychologically dressed down.  I knew it, and did nothing.

I blocked this memory for a good long time – over twenty years –  but came flooding back last week.

It was as if my guides were saying to me, “Look how far you’ve come. Now you’re ready to see this for what it was.”

At the time, I thought those men knew more than me.  I thought they were smarter, richer, and that they had something that I wanted.  I let them laugh at me, debase me, because I thought that was what it took to be one of them. And somehow, I thought I deserved it.  Because I didn’t want to upset them.  Imagine that. 

But now I see it for what it was. And I want to go, hug the professional woman, just trying to do her job, who stood there speechless and mortified.

I want to take her bad wine, and throw it onto Development Dude’s private development bits.  So that’s what I did, in my meditation of course.

It was very energizing.

The splash of wine moved me in another direction.  It was huge shove out of my own tired paradigms about who I at one time believed was.  And I thank God, my guides and masters, and anyone else who’ll listen that I no longer suffer fools who are not good for me.  It has been worth every single moment of self doubt, traumatic change, hard work, exploding fear and breath-robbing panic to force myself into moving way from those who do me no good.

Development Dude was guidance.  Full blown, hard shoe and bad haircut guidance.

And the truth is that I’ve received a barrel full of guidance, unfolding for me the mystery of who I am and what my work is.

And so have you. You can block it for twenty years, like I did. But you don’t have to.  You don’t have to be on a hill in Italy, meditating in your garden before things surface.  You can look at what’s happening today and glean the guidance out of it.  You know when you’re moving in the right direction.

You might not want to know it, but you do.

Then, there were the phone conversations.

With an amazing artist friend, another amazing artist /floral designer friend, and an amazing personal development coach slash artist slash entrepreneur slash friend. 

Hours of whole-hearted, female conversation.  

It’s like drinking white hot liquid energy for the soul. 

These ladies are doing their work, walking their talk.  This clearly reminded me of a life truth I learned on the tennis court in 1973:

If you really want to do, then hang with doers.  They help you hold yourself accountable.  You don’t want to go into a conversation with people who are bounding relentlessly towards the Sun and say, “oh, really?  Hmm, I was watching back episodes of the Young and the Restless all day….” or whatever.

Seriously,  you never know what’s going to come from fruitful conversation.  Start talking.

Then, the stunning guest revelation.

I was having a lovely conversation at breakfast with two people who might have well qualified for the Two Cutest Honeymooners On The Face Of The Planet.  It was a lively talk about, well, life. Letting go.  Trading financial accumulation for personal happiness.  That kind of stuff.  Out of (cough) nowhere, the new husband turned to me and said,

“You know, you should give talks about this stuff.  Coaching.  That kind of thing.”

Bingo.

By this time, I’m thinking my spiritual guides pretty much might have it going on.  

But then there were the hearts.  

See, hearts have been for me, for a very long time, a symbol of my own personal strife and happiness.  Actually, I have two symbols.  Houses and hearts.  I paint and sculpt both in multiplicity.  You will see both represented over and over and over on my property, in the rooms, in the kitchen, just about everywhere.  For me, this life in Italy is about love and home, love and home.  Hearts and Houses mean love and home to me.

Hearts are something I have always poured energy into in a design sense.

So on Saturday, I was blindly surfing that most addictive of all social media forms, Pinterest, and thinking in a blank sort of way, “I really could use one more sign about doing this work.”

I’m really not easy to convince.

But within about 30 seconds, this was my screen.  I was so blown away, I had to take a screen shot.

OK, FINE. I GOT IT.  I REALLY DO.  

(oh, and if you want to see my heart artwork, here’s a piece still up for grabs.)

Now, what about you?