Gifts in Heart and Hand

reprinted with permission (Winter/Spring 2000)
Laurie Mattila, M.S.Ed., Career Counselor

I feel especially blessed to be offering the gifts that are mine to give and making a living, too. It took me years to uncover this work that I now care about and truly want to do. The path I followed became a convoluted, meandering journey marked by questioning, seeking, sinking, floundering, grappling, doubting, wishing, wandering ... I am thankful I survived.

Looking back, I usually wanted to believe, and sometimes did, that something worthwhile WAS happening and that SOMEDAY I might actually understand it. Much of the time though I really had no idea what was going on. Instead, I was vaguely aware of an elusive voice buried somewhere deep inside me that kept calling. Like the doll in the pocket in the Vasalisa story that said which way to turn, I’d pick up faint impressions which I didn’t fully understand or completely trust. Plus, they were things that didn’t seem to reveal enough of anything particularly helpful. Things like: Read this. Go there. Follow up. You like it. It’s you. You don’t fit here. It’s not you. It’s O.K. These are the little snippets of stuff that became my training ground in listening and in trusting. For me, there was no six-day seminar or advanced certificate capable of turning me into the listening, trusting person I needed to become. It was, and still is, an “in-the-moment process,” happening over time - always tested, always refined.

Now, on a good day, I care less about some “happily ever after” time because I can say to myself and mean it, “It doesn’t get any better than this moment.” I show up, with gifts in heart and hand. I pay attention to the work in front of me. I use my gifts: I listen, I trust. Maybe, I help set other gifts free. Afterward, I close the door behind me and head home, trusting. And like everyone else, on some days I close the door and just head home.

In this season of gift giving, I encourage you to celebrate and name the gifts of your own being; and to risk knowing the power and joy in choosing to release them for the good of the world and your own pleasure. There are so few easy answers in this work we do together. But there is this amazing process of awakening to self and joy and truth.

I celebrate the opportunity to live and work with love. Join me in sharing this blessing for a new year and a New Time - -

May you know deep joy
as you set free all your gifts
in a waiting world.