Sarah, from there to here…

I started my human journey in the suburbs of Ohio in 1957. My parents were both teachers and musicians, and choir director and organist in several Presbyterian churches. My brothers and I had to go to church and had to sing in the choirs, something I don’t think any of us enjoyed. There was nothing spiritual about this experience, at home or at church. I wasn’t very interested in the Sunday school classes or teachings. I got a vague sense of Jesus and the Christian stories, but nothing more.

I went to high school and then college in Florida, where I was finally able to stop going to church. The Christian teachings had never made much sense to me - original sin, Jesus dying for our sins, having to believe in Jesus to go to a place called Heaven, a dark, fiery underground place called Hell with a frightening red Devil  terrorizing me forever. Really? It was also the height of the feminist movement, and I was seeing the patriarchal presence in the Christian teachings and organizations.

After college, I started working as a high school English teacher. Teaching had been the assumption for me with my parents, a good thing to fall back on if I didn’t get married. (Yes, they actually said that.) Turns out, I was a shockingly bad English teacher and I hated it. Fortunately, at 24, I married a man who owned a small business. I quit teaching and became his office manager. And a love affair began. 

I found that I loved organizing and creating efficient processes, the feeling of order and flow. I didn’t realize it then, but I had discovered a gift, a super-power actually, that would take me places. 

The marriage ended and then, with my second husband, I moved from Florida to Seattle, where I found my first corporate administrative management job, and I loved it! I got to use my skills and lead, another gift that I discovered. I became active with women’s political groups and, with that exposure to equity and fairness issues, I developed an interest in corporate Human Resources. After 12 years in Seattle and after another divorce, I moved to San Diego and became a Human Resource Generalist for a large telecom company.

Approaching 45, something started to feel off. The corporate world felt harsh and unfulfilling. The questions started to come, Why am I here?, What’s my purpose?, Who am I? I went to a career counselor and, talking about who I was and what felt good to me, I shared how much I had loved doing the therapy I had done with my husband, how much I loved talking about my journey and seeing into myself and others. She suggested life coaching, and I felt an immediate resonance. Shortly after, I quit my corporate career, and I entered a one-year life coach training program. I also fulfilled a dream that I’d had to become a Jazzercise instructor, purchasing a Jazzercise franchise and teaching classes. I was now a two-business entrepreneur and, as I gradually discovered, totally unprepared for what that entailed. Not only was I unprepared, I realized at the end of the life coaching program, that I really didn’t want to do that. It felt stressful to think of finding clients and making a living that way. The Jazzercise classes were draining my physical energy and, as I came to the end of the coach training program, I found myself in a strange situation. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want to coach, I had no income, and I was starting to get sick from over-exertion and stress. 

And so the deconstruction of my life began. Every now and then I would sit down to my computer with the intention of looking for an administrative job, but something wouldn’t let me. Over the next several years, I was ill a lot and my financial situation fell apart. I let go of all my belongings and lived in peoples’ spare rooms as I went from job to job, trying to figure things out. Strangely enough, in the midst of all that confusion, I felt a sense of freedom and clarity as the old way of being fell away. I didn’t have answers, but it felt more right to be searching than to live what I knew wasn’t right. 

My life coach training had started me on a path of personal discovery and growth, and a friend from the program introduced me to a spiritual teacher who spoke from A Course in Miracles, Abraham (Esther and Jerry Hicks), and Byron Katie. I started to understand that my thoughts create my world. I studied other metaphysical teachers, astrology, the Enneagram as I asked, ‘What is my purpose, what am I here to do?’. The odd jobs continued along with some odd relationships, and I started to feel a disconnect between what I was learning and the life that I was living. I understood the law of attraction and metaphysical thought, but my life didn’t match what I knew. I was confused. How do I bring this together? 

With one particularly awful job, I came home one night, got down on my knees next to my bed, and I had a conversation with God. I surrendered. ‘God, I don’t know what to do. I give up. Please help me’. In the midst of the silence and my tears, a phrase came into my mind, spiritual retreat center. I didn’t know what that was and had never had that thought before, but I went to my computer and googled spiritual retreat center. I was on the computer for the next few hours and the next few days. With no money to speak of, my options felt limited, but I had to find a place where I could not worry about paying rent, where I could just be, let go, breathe. I found an intentional spiritual community that had a three-month full self-emergence program, including room, board and spiritual study for $200/mo. I could do that. I called and spoke to the leader, and the next day I quit my job. Two weeks later, I was at the community, where I lived and worked for five years. 

My time in the community felt like a five-year, 24/7 graduate school program, deepening my understanding of metaphysical thought and giving me the opportunity to live that understanding with other intentional people. I also had the opportunity to do deep personal work, delving into the parts of me that had always brought me shame. A book about introversion came my way, and then a retreat for people with the highly sensitive person (HSP) trait came to the retreat center. Answers to my questions started to come - Why is it hard for me to be with groups of people socially, to go to parties, to tell stories and laugh like other people do? Why am I so serious? Why is the world so loud? Why do I want the lights so low? Why does being alone feel so good to me? Why do I always want to know what people are feeling, to go below the surface and talk about deep stuff when nobody else does? Why am I so different? How do I live in this world?

It took all of the five years in the community to live into my answers and to learn to accept and love myself, to see my gifts in my differentness. I learned about the cycles of life, processing emotional triggers, allowing my world to unfold around me from a place of calm non-resistance, living intuitively and trusting Spirit moving through me, guiding me. I found a firm foundation within me as I learned to live consciously, present and attuned with my True Self. And I came to understand that my conscious living contributes to the collective energy of the world, that my clear and intentional inner and relational work is important and bigger than myself. 

I’m now willing to be seen fully, to express my authentic truth and beauty into my world. I know the answer to my question,‘What am I here to do?’. I am here to be me, the True me, the big Me, the divine I Am showing up as Sarah Jones. That’s all and that’s enough. And a new world creates itself from there. 

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