Here You Begin: A Guided Journal to Discovering Your Passions, Your Purpose and to Creating the Work Only You Can Do

By Elizabeth Darby

Dear Reader,
You are not perfect at anything . . . except at being you. You are perfectly made, however, for the life and work you are here to do in your Life-time. You are perfectly able to create — in fact you must — your own Work...

Here You Begin: A Guided-Journal to Discovering Your Passions, Your Purpose and to Creating the Work Only You Can Do . . . Whether just starting out on your life-path or needing to start completely over, this guided journal is a fill-in-the-blanks for your Soul to assist you in creating your own Life-Work, On Task and On Purpose, right now and right from where you are at this moment.
Here You Begin guides you from (re)discovering your passions, inspirations and sense of purpose for your life-time here, to developing The Plan to create your own Work, here and now...

Through a series of journal explorations you will discover your passions and purpose and by this guided journal's end, know exactly what steps you specifically can take to Plan and Create Your Work now.
This is Work only you can do and which will support you, financially, spiritually and energetically, all your days here.
There's only one You in the world and you are needed to do the work you are here to do. Make your Life and Your Work one great adventure. So, Here You Begin . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Darby
• Release date: Aug 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452465760

Elizabeth Darby

Elizabeth Darby is an award-winning international journalist and author of several books. As editor and a writer for national and international magazines, she has traveled the world covering environmental issues, politics and wilderness, and human stories such as pollution and poverty, homelessness and child abuse. She is the author of books and articles about wilderness and the soul, conservation, environmental security, conservation and sustainability. She has spoken throughout the world on issues of the environment, women, spirit and finding voice. She also serves as a consultant, guide and men-tor for seekers of all ages who continue to reach for and achieve the Work of their individual life-journeys. She offers workshops and mentoring for struggling artists internationally. With Here You Begin: A Guided Journal to Discovering Your Passions, Your Purpose and to Creating the Work Only You Can Do, she offers workshops and mentoring to anyone seeking to create his or her own work. She welcomes opportunities to speak to and lead workshops for any age and all backgrounds, and especially those geared for students and counselors in schools and universities; for Vets facing new challenges with their return home; for those living homeless or for women who are abused, frightened or needing to start over in life. She also welcomes speaking to corporate groups to re-inspire employees or to women’s business groups as well as those focused on mid-career life changes or mid-life career changes. She offers workshops and courses on becoming wildly, authentically You and creating your Work. To join one, or suggest one, see her blog for forthcoming events and venues.

Book preview

You are not perfect at anything . . .

except at being you.

You are perfectly made, however, for the life and work you are here to do in your Life-time.

You are perfectly able to create — in fact you must create — your own Work.

It is work only you can do, being On Purpose and On Task, in the time you have living here on Earth.

So this guide to uncovering You, Your Passions and Purpose, and to creating the Work only You can do, is written for you:

It is for you who feels the excitement, confusion, and freezing fear brought on by the myriad decisions before you as you think of how to spend your Life. Our time here is spent living moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath. How do you choose to spend yours?

It is for you who spend sleepless nights worrying about the job you just lost or the job you can’t find. And it is for you, who find yourself unable to achieve the work that fits you, making each of these days terrifying with concern over how you will make your way in your next moments here.

There is Work for you: You can make it.

You must make it, for it is work only you can do.

It is what you do in this moment that makes your dream-work of your Life-time here come to be real. It’s how you fill this very moment that reveals your essential Soul, Spirit, Self — You — in this world. And that can feel daunting.

The possibilities for how any of us spend our time here on Earth — how we put into service our energy, talents, and the choices of what to make of ourselves — are endless. Such choices are limited only by a combination of imagination, self-confidence and sheer courage to meet our own Self in the process.

There is not a circumstance that limits the possibility of becoming exactly who we each yearn to be in our most authentic dreams, for it is in the actions of each small moment that we define ourselves, and in which we reveal our Spirit and Purpose.

I’m the first to say that it can feel more than a little overwhelming to suddenly comprehend that how you or I meet this moment — this moment, and then this one, and this one — reveals a bit more of the artwork that results from our time spent here on Earth.

For those among us seeking happily-ever-after perfection in this moment or the next, beginning again is a hope for getting it right this time. But more likely our lives are taking yet one more trip around the merry-go-round of self-doubt, self-destruction or self-disappointment as we hope for perfection.

Such moments of confusion — or even terror — over What Do I Do Now? [and the nagging voice behind it whispering, Oh what if I make a gaff this time/again/now?] are how so many of

We each face these moments, whether early-leavers, or newly pink-slipped workers finding they’ve been made redundant, as well as those of us facing new choices of what to do in life based on sudden family changes, whether additions of children or elderly parents to our nests or newly empty nests and hours of weeding awaiting us in the garden.

Many of us in this difficult economic time have given up looking for work, and are settling in to a life of resignation at our lot of part-time ‘whatever-jobs’, doing whatever needs to be done to survive, and feeling the dreams and sense of being vital in this world ebbing away in a soulful sadness.

Perhaps there should be a new bumper sticker added to our cars of life, along side the country/university/political/religious identifications, this one stating simply:

Starting Over Happens.

Just because transitions are a constant in our life doesn’t mean anyone ever achieves a perfect performance at them, despite what it might look like from our perspective. Perhaps it is easier to look at our individual journeys this way:

It’s time for each of us to create our own work. This is work each of us is here to do; it is needed, and it is important. And it is work only you can do, using all of your talents, gifts, skills, experience, and passion and purpose.

The transition facing you at this moment, wherever you are in life, is akin to looking at a tall mountain and wondering which way to go: up, around or through. There are so many potential paths to choose next on your journey, and each of them seemingly Right for you. So how to choose?

One path might appear to go down and through the woods, bounding off on a soft trail leading to a few stretches of mud you don’t yet know about. It might offer no view, perhaps is filled with a bramble or two, yet is cool and green. Another path portends a hard climb at first, and one can only wonder how steep it will be, whether there is any shade or water, how beautiful the view might be at the top. Or it perhaps will result in just a cliff with crumbly rocks.

Then there is a marked path, well worn and perhaps somewhat paved. Crowded and noisy, it’s on all the maps; even it doesn’t promise certain success. Yes, the marked path might have more direction signs to follow or benches on which to rest, but it too often leads to one little overlook with a fence around it to protect you from the stupendous view and perhaps a bit of rubbish left by those there before you. It leaves you with a so-so feeling of success even as such a well-worn path offered a perceived certainty of not getting lost.

How does anyone choose the path —the Work — that is worthy of the investment of the precious little time a human has in his or her Life-time here?

Some of you reading this are just starting out, thinking about first path choices, first steps, first directions, and how to spend the hours and days that appear to stretch out forever before you, whether the choice of the moment is university or career and life. Others among you are shaking off the dust from a sudden surprise at how your life has just abruptly changed, despite all the planning: Children are born, or are suddenly grown and leaving for their own lives; or your current career or life-partnership may have come to a sudden screech, halt, or crash. Or perhaps your health poses a new set of stresses and time left here feels suddenly very short.

Who was it I thought I was, you wonder? Where am I now? What is it now that beckons my focus and use of my time and care? And oh, am I scared, fearful that I am alone in this wild and wooly place — that is the normal quick second thought just behind the first realization that you are not who or where you thought you were.

All the questions, even all the self-doubts, accompanying these times of transitions boil down to this:

What is it I am here to create, before my time here is up

What light do I have to shine in this moment?

This is the real challenge before each of us; it is the positive way, the fearless way, of facing our choices and doubts and in making use of our Life-time.

A start is just that — no matter at what age in life you are or what your personal circumstance might be. It is always a ‘Start Here’ moment.

The choices you make are the steps you take; there is no wrong choice on your Life Path even if for all the world it appears to be only a muddy field before you just now.

Rather each transition and choice leads you into life moments that help you know — know — from deep inside whether this is the wildly authentic light and life you are here to give and the Work you are here to do. And you are here to give all you have to this world.

Well, almost none of the choices before you are wrong. Let’s look at that for a moment.

A wrong choice is possible and there are two versions of it. Both have to do with abdicating the uniquely You spirit inside of you, either by ignoring your interests and natural talents, by giving