Category: Follow your intuition

How do You Know?

How do you know when you are on the right path toward achieving your life purpose?

This is a question I have been trying to answer for years. Finally, I have a received a clear example to share with you.

How Do You Know?

We have heard that Spirit will show you whether you are on the right path with signs. These signs are unique for you and delivered in a way that makes them apparent. Some delivery methods might be:

  1. A meaningful song comes over the car radio.
  2. An animal exhibits memorable behavior right in front of you.
  3. Someone you’ve never met starts a conversation like you’re an old friend.
  4. Clouds form an unmistakable animal shape.

I used these examples because they happened to me. I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comment section below.

Here is My Example

Relationships are essential in my life and how I will positively impact the world. So, it isn’t surprising that my example involves someone seeking me out. I’m using a pseudonym for this person. Let’s call him Charlie.

The Chance Encounter

I’m watering a newly planted flowerbed in my front yard on a sunny early summer afternoon. A young man in a red pickup truck pulls into my driveway, gets out, and comes toward me with a big smile. I’m intrigued.

“Hi. I’m Charlie, and I noticed that your lawn needs mowing. This week I graduate from high school, and I’m looking for customers for my mowing business to earn money for college and wonder if you are interested.”

This young man’s personality immediately draws me in. Unfortunately, I have someone who currently mows my yard. Charlie and I exchanged phone numbers after I explained that I might need his services if my current yardman doesn’t work out.

He Reaches Out Again

After a few weeks, Charlie texted me.

“Hi, this is Charlie. I stopped by a while ago asking about your yard. I just drove by, and it looked a little high. Do you need it mowed?”

Immediately, I knew Charlie should start mowing my yard. I felt warm in my chest, like my body was telling me, “Yes!”

There Was More, A Lot More

Before Charlie reached out the second time, I realized he was a suicide survivor like me.

Each week I meet him by his equipment trailer for a quick conversation. It’s easy to talk to him with the soil beneath our feet. This grounding effect in the pure country air creates a safe place for Charlie to talk about the events of his brother’s suicide.

Eventually, he starts talking about his parents and their grief.

And I realize my question, “How do you know?” has been answered. Charlie has shown me through his ease with me that I am in the right place. Embracing grief coaching is another step toward living my life purpose.

Coaching is Just a Conversation

Allowing Charlie to voice his thoughts and feelings is the beginning of healing his grief wounds. And when both the client and the coach feel at ease, it’s almost magic.

Next Steps

If you feel connected to the grief coaching process, let’s start a conversation by email at: Dawn@dawnlaurenanderson.com

Take your first step toward healing your grief wounds.

Do the Work

How often have you heard “Do the work” concerning self-discovery and healing? Our reaction varies depending on the circumstances. I’ve felt confused, angry, and determined. Now I feel a deep sense of understanding from digging deep into my shadow side.

A Piece of the Journey

Today I’m offering a glimpse into my experience that may provide hope. First, of course, it would be nice if I could hand you an action list for finding your direct route to do the work. But, for me, the trip has been circuitous.

As I started writing, I was sidetracked by a desire to look back at the first time I saw my natal chart. Then, I was drawn to reading my notes from the astrologer C. A. Brooks. Finally, I remembered to date my notes. It was June 11, 2014, in Denver, Colorado.

Pondering the phrase, be the teacher and student, reminded me how much I’ve learned by sharing here. Other words loomed; balance, refine, leadership, allow. When desired behaviors are challenging, they come up again and again.

How I Dug Deep

On May 5, 2021, I had a session with Katie Klein on using the Radical Forgiveness worksheet developed by Colin Tipping. Again, I felt the potential for deep healing during the process but also my resistance. So, like the organized person I am, I saved the file and didn’t think about it again until recently. Multiple times, I’ve heard references to Radical Forgiveness. So, I took action.

Over the last month, I’ve completed four worksheets with my most significant relationships. But I’m not finished. So there is a blank one sitting on the table next to me. It isn’t intimidating, but I like having it handy when my intuition says, “It’s time.”

How Did I Know it was Working?

It was emotionally and physically painful. As I read each step on the worksheet aloud, the answer came to my mind. Then I surrendered to the deep emotions. Between the tears and gasps for air, I vocalized my feelings and wrote them down.

I’m not alone in this. Fellow healers Meredith Johnson, Migdalia Rodriguez, and Mary Toland Shaw support my shadow work with personal healing sessions and spiritual coaching. Their insight, compassion, and comfort brought me more profound healing of old wounds.

In the past, I’ve sought clinical therapists who also helped me through more obvious turning points; post-menopausal depression, the suicide of my spouse, and sudden public emotional outbursts.

Please, don’t give up. You deserve happiness and fulfillment. Your unique experiences are gifts to open, appreciate, and move forward with the universe’s support. Each step brings you closer to the life you are meant to enjoy.

Discover Your Uniqueness

I invite you to click on any healing modalities I’ve mentioned. Or, if you feel too overwhelmed, follow this guide to calm your anxiety and further explore your next step.

With love and compassion,
Dawn

Dealing with Profound Sorrow

When dealing with profound sorrow, we notice anniversaries of the day they left our lives. It’s not something we easily ignore. Nor should we. This week I marked the first anniversary of my husband Wayne’s death.

This is Not Easy

Every event in our lives has the potential to help us understand ourselves better. I’m taking small steps forward in my grief, gently buoyed by the stream of my tears. Today’s step is a review of what I’ve learned in the last year.

The biggest lesson I learned was the importance of listening to my intuition.

I believe intuition is how God answers you when you pray. We pray for help. We pray for change. We pray for courage. But sometimes, when we pray, we ask questions. We understand that the end of life is inevitable for all of us, but we still ask why.

Although I believe that our time on Earth is predetermined, our choices can affect the number of times we stumble and fall along the way.

Forks in the Road

How do we move forward when approaching a fork in the road? Do we go right, left, or blaze a new trail through the woods? Those are our choices to make.

When dealing with profound sorrow, it might be time to sit at that fork in the road for a while. Then, even turn around and lovingly look behind us at other life choices, choosing to soothe ourselves by wrapping our arms in a self-hug when we believe we took the wrong path.

But was it the wrong path? Or was it simply one of two choices that return to the same place you are today? There were times when if I had listened to my intuition, the path would have been smoother.

There’s another thing I’ve learned about grief. It doesn’t follow a prescribed trajectory. It doesn’t have the same peaks and low spots as the last life sorrow. It can be so different for each person and each experience. It seems the reason is self-evident since every experience changes you.

I have finally learned there is wisdom in looking back and examining your choices, not by self-deprecating, but in understanding yourself better. How can we change if we do not question our lives?

An Exercise

So I invite you to look back on a defining sorrow in your life

How do you do that? You take out some paper and a pencil or a pen and start writing about it. Here’s a question to help you get started.

What did I feel when I first heard the news of their passing?

Write about this as long as you want; cry, scream, punch some pillows. Get it out onto the paper, and let it go.

Remember that the soul of your loved one is free. They are not unhappy because emotions are something that we feel in our bodies, and they no longer have a body. But I believe their love and care for you is never-ending.

Thank them for their love.

Feel that love.

Take it One Step Further

And then remember something they loved to do. Choose a happy moment that you remember. Perhaps they loved to hold their dog, take a nap, or walk in the woods and marvel at the wonders of nature.

I was thinking about when Wayne and I were in La Garita, Colorado. Wayne had permission to fish in a pond stocked with trout. He came home with a beautiful catch and asked for a photo before I made trout almandine. Then, he extended his arms to make the fish appear even more prominent. I laughed then and again now at the memory. It was so Wayne.

Returning to the here and now, I raised my coffee mug and said, “This one is for what you taught me. This one is for you, Wayne. I love you. Thank you for being in my life.”

When I finished my toast, I saw a cute little snowbird looking down at me from the gutter outside the window. And I thought that was a sign that Wayne was laughing too. Why? For native Floridians like Wayne and me, winter visitors from the North are called Snowbirds. But, unfortunately, they were not Wayne’s favorite Florida reality.

I hope this article gave you solace and eased your experience dealing with profound sorrow.

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With love and compassion,
Dawn