she began a non-traditional healing journey that ultimately healed her body, mind, and soul. Besides her soon to-be-published book coming out, her passion now is communicating through the media outlets. Conscious Talk has been on the air for nine years and is being expanded into more markets through syndications. Conscious Talk, where I have been a guest several times, is an informative and compelling alternative talk show that was one of the first radio shows in the Seattle area pioneering a shift in consciousness. The show topics cover politics, money, conscious consuming, spiritual and alternative healing, as well as social, environmental, and relational issues. Brenda and Rob are cancer survivors and do individual sessions with people, along with webinars and workshops on Conscious Living. As Brenda says, “I am passionate about creating, speaking, and communicating through terrestrial radio, the Internet, and television in order to get our message out.” Brenda also sits on the Board of Advisors for a new nonprofit cancer foundation called Emerald Heart Cancer Foundation, and is an anchor writer for a beautiful online women's magazine called Sibyl.
A long time ago, I read Victoria Moran's early book, Creating a Charmed Life, and wrote her a letter telling her how much I enjoyed her work. She was still living in Kansas City but she was plotting to move to her beloved New York City, because writers live there. We met shortly after that when we were both in the city and she invited me to meet her for high tea at The Plaza. We've been friends ever since, and we help each other out whenever we can. As Victoria says, “I am first and foremost a writer, and I am a writer with a mission. I really believe that I have something to share, both about living with this childlike sense of magic and also living in a way that is compassionate and astonishingly healthy. So that's how I see everything first. When people ask me, ‘What do you do?’ I always say: ‘I write books.’ I've said that for a long time. I've thought about trying to train myself to say some of the other things, but it's just automatic. What do you do? I write books. This is my legacy. This is what I came to the earth to do. But while I'm doing something else, I'm focusing on that. I mean I love speaking; I just love it, it's the most fun. The one thing that I really want to get more clear on as I go along, and as the new media progresses and is easier to understand, is where not to put energy and emphasis. Right now, as part of a platform for being a writer, it's very important to be able to say I do this or that online, but there's also the reality of how much good is that really doing? How many people are my efforts really reaching? I need to weed out what doesn't really have a return and focus on what does.”
Victoria and I often speculate on what will happen to books and writers in the future with e-books, Kindles, etcetera in our midst. But we know in our hearts that there are many of us who were born to write and love to hold real printed books in our hands.
Sometimes our passion can even be a bit unconscious. My colleague Caroll Michels is the author of the classic book How To Survive and Prosper as an Artist as well as an artist advocate and career coach. She identified strongly with her creative father, who earned his living as a graphic designer but was actually a painter who had other interests as well. He always had a million projects going on at any one time. Caroll inherited his tendency to work on many things at once, although at the moment her passion is dance, especially the tango, and a fusion of ballet, modern, hip hop, and jazz. I get great holiday cards from her every year that depict her decked out in her dance attire doing some daring move. Before she became a career coach to artists, she was a sculptor herself and had a number of jobs, including a job in advertising. Her father was an important support system for her. But as Caroll says, “When it came time for my father to take his art out into the marketplace, this is where he froze. It wasn't until I was in my fifties that it hit me—look at what I do for a living. I am helping artists do what my father was unable to do. And that was a real mind-blower for me.”
This next story speaks to the value of experience in helping young people zero in on what they want to do and what they are truly fascinated about. Kathleen Dudzinski, PhD, is the founder and director of the Dolphin Communication Project in Mystic, Connecticut. She attended a high school with programs in vocational agriculture and was part of the Future Farmers of America. There, she was able to blend her passion for animals and science. She worked at a veterinary clinic, raised chickens, and did petting zoos for local schools. Her love of the ocean and the coast came from summers with her family on Cape Cod and the Connecticut shore. While she was accepted to a number of prestigious colleges, she chose to go to the University of Connecticut because she did not want to start out her adult life in debt.
When she got to college, Kathleen says, “I knew I didn't want to go to veterinary school because I don't really like microscopes. I didn't know how to make a career out of what I wanted. I loved science and I could tell you the name of every single science teacher or professor I've had since the seventh grade, but in college I didn't know how to make a science career work. So I participated in as many internships as I could, doing labs and field work. During the summer after my sophomore year in college, my internship was with a whale watching company out of Gloucester, Massachusetts, and I was there from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We worked seven days a week, twelve hours a day, and I thoroughly enjoyed it and knew, okay, this is what I want to do. I started reading everything I could on mammals and I was drawn to communication and social behavior. I started applying for scholarships after college and was accepted into Texas A&M without a master's degree because I had published as an undergraduate. I went straight for my PhD and was awarded a National Science Foundation Pre-doctoral Fellowship.
“Then, in 1997, just after I finished my graduate degree, I was invited to participate in a film that Macgillivray Freeman Films was making for IMAX theaters called Dolphins. I put together a website that people could go to after they saw the film. Both Alejandrao Acevedo, another scientist in the film, and I spent a year visiting forty museums and theaters to introduce the film and develop programs for kids, again funded by NSF. During this time, I was also able to create my nonprofit, which allows us to do research in four locations and then take the research directly into the schools.”
My favorite watercolorist and the author of a number of thoughtful and beautiful books, Jeanne Carbonetti, came to painting very early, she says, starting on her own with scribble pictures but taking no classes. It wasn't until she was a senior in high school that she took her first art class. “I remember doing the first oil painting that I was so excited about in that class, and going to the teacher at the end of the day asking if it was dry enough so that I could take it home. The teacher said, ‘Oh, God, yes.’ I think that's probably why, when I got to college, I minored in art history, not studio art, and majored in English literature.”
Jeanne became an English teacher and her plan was to paint in the summers. But it wasn't enough. So she and her husband built a house and a gallery in Vermont and moved there. Painting became a key part of her life, as it had been when she was a child.
All of these women were guided to their passions; one by an illness, one by an internship, one by loneliness, and so forth. When we know our life purpose and tell the truth about what we love to do, we find our rightful place in the world and are able to make our unique and creative contribution. Too many women chase security or obligation until their soul starts screaming at them to change. We each have a gift and a chance to focus on the field or the ideas that make us want to get up in the morning and to begin every day with joy and an agenda.
Secret Three
Heal Your Self-Esteem and Your Fears
“When one woman honors who she is, all women collectively move closer to becoming what they are capable of being.”
—Unknown
In order to be highly successful women, we have to treat ourselves with complete and total respect. Let me say that again—complete and total respect. Too many women underachieve, or play too small (when that's not what they choose), don't get paid what they are worth, belittle themselves, and walk
