There’s a great beauty inside of you, an awesome truth, when all else is stripped away. It’s your authentic self, the one who came here on a mission. This may be the year you remember your impossible mission and realign your life to accomplish it.

The purpose of your confusion is growth and change. Once you change directions, confusion ceases and clarity slips in. The purpose of your pain is to strip away the trappings of who you’re not: to leave you bare and raw, naked as a newborn, clear about what you’ve come to do.

Have you had your heart broken by a lover? Felt betrayed by your own children? Watched your health fall apart? Been disappointed by a career that didn’t make you happy and wealthy? If you have, it ripped your soul jagged--on purpose.

When bad things happen, when all falls apart, there is nothing to do but feel it. Feel the pain in your heart, embrace it, weep it out, shed it through your pores until your spirit is cleansed and shiny. After you do, look into the mirror at your face now: open and surrendered, innocent and sweet. That is who you are, by the way: a naked, sweet soul who landed here on a difficult journey and got just a little lost. Try to remember who you were before the trappings, the titles, the successes and failures, the burdens and expectations.

Embrace that naked soul, that wide-open innocent face, and ask, “What’s the gift I came to share?”

Ignore anyone who tells you that sharing your gift won’t make money. Embrace your higher knowledge that says, “When I’m living true to what I came to do and working from my gifts, I attract abundance and success because I’m in alignment with divine order. I’m in alignment with divine order.”

Kiss those words as they slip past your tongue--in whispers at first, because you’re hardly able to speak them much less believe them. As you hear yourself speak them, open your mouth wide and shout louder and louder until the room echoes those words back to you.

Clean your house, throw out the furniture, open the windows, sweat out your past indulgences, and pray for a blessing of fresh air. Embrace the prickly tingle of a new dawn breaking through the shimmering snow of an icy winter. Take a timid step in a scary new direction that has beckoned you for lifetimes. It will feel like spring.

Who do you think you are to ignore the potential you set out to accomplish in this lifetime? Who do you think you are to believe your pain is greater than everyone else’s? Don’t you understand the hidden sorrow behind every perfect household, every career success, every accolade or boastful moment from siblings and friends?

We are all on this overwhelming journey together. We’re trying to evolve as a species, to reach the great unknown human potential. This requires effort.

You signed up for this tour-of-duty, so don’t go AWOL now. There still may be a child you can save from the streets, or a mother who needs your blessings. But you’ll never know until you follow your true work, accomplish your pre-programmed mission, quit playing it small and stop trying to be like anyone else.

Listen to your loud voice in the empty room shouting for everyone to hear, “I’m in alignment with divine order when I’m doing the work I came to do.”

Wake up from the slumber of your exhausting journey. Yes, you’ve had some setbacks. But you wanted to. You knew how far off-course you were. Pinch yourself. Take a big breath. Say, “I am a divine energy being, not a bumbling human in a body suit doomed to a pitiful existence. And now I will live like I know that.”

You brought powerful gifts with you from the highest realms in order to use them to make the world a better place, through your work. And you’ve known what these gifts were and what your mission was since you were very young, but you’ve been talked out of believing in it.

Getting your life lined up with your mission and gifts isn’t as hard as you think. Remember what and whom you’ve lost already, or sacrificed on the trail of your higher education. Your intuition is constantly trying to push you in a brave new direction; It’s probably why you picked up this issue of Nexus.

Ask yourself these questions:
When all else falls away, who am I inside? When I look back at the trail of my tarnished trophies and saddened memories, what secret lesson do I see?

This is your first step forward into new territory. Reckless as a toddler, unsteady on new legs, you will find your new beginning on this auspicious journey. You always knew it would be worth the great effort of a lifetime. And you, of all people, don’t believe in wasted time. This is your year to just do it.

When everything is stripped away, who’s left? That’s the point of your painful story. In those moments of deep, soul-searching surrender, walking alone on a beach contemplating life, what part of you do you find again? That stripped bare part of yourself is your holy grail, your pot of gold, the reason you came here, and the name of your gift.

Who do you remember being when you were young and free? Where did that person go?

When you turn off the TV, unplug the iPOD, put down the paper, and get quiet, who do you find in your head? Your higher self is still in there, you know, eager to help you find your way.

Stop defending, blaming, excusing, chatting, and doing--just for a little while--and turn your focus slightly inward. You’ll hear that powerful navigation code pulsing in your heart. It’s whispering, “Try this career, call that person, quit that job, take this class…”
Imagine if you just did one of those things today.

Author and Career Intuitive Sue Frederick’s work has been featured in The New York Times, Yoga Journal, Natural Health, Fit Yoga, and at venues like The Crossings Retreat Center in Austin. She’s the author of Dancing at Your Desk, I See Your Dream Job, and BrilliantDay. For more info or to schedule a session, visit www.CareerIntuitive.org or call 303-939-8574.