A post shared by Elephant Journal (@elephantjournal) on Aug 6, 2017 at 5:03pm PDT

I fell hard this summer. Crazy hard.

It was like I was 18 again: My heart beat faster, my stomach fluttered, dopamine streamed through my veins. It was that addictive, palm sweating, flushed cheeks feeling of being in love.

Not the conventional love between two people, but another kind of love story, just as worthy.

“The minute you choose to do what you really want to do, it’s a different kind of life.”
~ R. Buckminster Fuller 

The things we dream of are calling us for a reason

Since I was a little girl, I dreamt that one day I would be a professional writer. I spent hours head down writing furiously in my journals. One day that all came to a standstill and the journals fell to the bottom of my desk drawer.

I stopped writing on paper but in my head I scribbled thousands of thoughts down. Stories accumulated about the people I met, the places I’d been, and the life I was experiencing.

There was always a voice in my head beckoning me, “write, write, write.”  There were signs along the way pointing me toward creating and writing. It was exhausting to fight the voice off—not having the time or substance to fulfill the dream. Ignoring it became worse than meeting it head on.

Timing is everything.

I had to let it rest. I had to be at ease. The pressure I was putting on myself to carry out the dream was a strain on my creative flow. So I kept my journals in my head and every time I heard the voice, I met it with the mantra, “All things happen on their own accord, in their own perfect timing.”

Looking back, I know now I wasn’t ready to write and reveal myself with vulnerability. I hadn’t developed the esteem to carry my voice onto paper fully. My words and authenticity needed maturing and only time and life experience could offer me that.

When a door opens, walk through it.

And then one day, I was nudged—quietly at first.

While following @elephantjournal on Instagram, posts about their Apprentice Program began popping up. First, I ignored it. I felt this familiar hankering toward it.

Slowly, that relentless voice got louder. The mantra couldn’t kill the voice this time. I knew it would never let up—so I enrolled.

Being scared is human and awesome if you look your fears in the eye.

I was committed to the course for three months. Worst case scenario was that I’d add it to my resume and put a lid on that voice.

Not knowing what to expect, I took the plunge and jumped in. In a span of five days, I was given the task of managing the Elephant Yoga page on Facebook for a 12-hour window—a page with nearly 250,000 followers. Sh*t. It took courage to do my first public post, but I did it. Sometimes my posts failed—sometimes I had great successes.

I started submitting my work to be published. The first time I pressed “send,” I felt a rush. I waited impatiently to hear back. When I got the reply, I was asked to “dig deeper” from the editors. I cried. I thought the voice was wrong. But I put that doubt to bed and carried on.

Things worth having are worth working toward.

The idea that we simply have to think good thoughts and things will just manifest in life is fanciful and untrue. It’s not that easy—we have to show up and do the work.

At the beginning, I was green in the writing world. I thought the fourth estate was a mansion in some rich neighborhood. I had to google definitions every other line. It was daunting and exhausting.

But then there was a crack of light. I went back to my first piece and I did dig deeper.

The more I applied myself the more I saw my inner writer developing and my skill set widening.

My piece got published. The voice said, “Told you so.”

My heart is brimming with gratitude—I finally started my writing journey. Listening to that voice has never felt so good.

I am just on the cusp of this learning opportunity and my cup runneth over.

Thank you elephant journal—I will forever be madly crushing on you and this experience.

~

Author: Kristen Dobson
Image: @elephantjournal Instagram & Flickr/simpleinsomnia 
Editor: Sara Kärpänen
Copy editor: Nicole Cameron
Social editor: Leah Sugerman