Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I love September and have always considered it the beginning of
the year – not the calendar year, but the learning, growing year.
As I watch the children around me ready themselves for the grade
to come, I find myself packing new questions: Who will be my
teachers this fall, winter and spring? What is my curriculum? Who
will enter my circle of confidantes, friends and colleagues?
Asking these questions with earnestness, I am filled with
anticipation and a fresh sense of possibility. When shopping with
my daughter for school supplies, I threw in a slick new pen and a
spiral notebook for myself. What new lessons will fill the white
pages? What new things will I have to say by the end of this
learning year? Who will I be? Who will you be?
This inclination to plant deep questions and work the fields
with a pen is as second nature to me as twirling the ends of my
hair when I am deep in thought. Since my earliest memories, I have
been enchanted by and drawn to the world of words. I remember
collecting proverbs and spending recess propped up against the red
brick wall of St. Patrick’s School expanding upon them and
conjuring up my own. I recall one autumn just after the release of
“The Sound of Music”, passing day after day writing my own verses
to the song, “My Favorite Things”. During the same time period I
came down with the mumps and wrote feverishly for two days about a
young girl named Abigail who walked with a limp, but once she
ventured into the world on her own, found that she had wings
folded just beneath her cardigan sweater. I remember thinking that
being sick was a wonderful thing because it gave one time to just
write and write and write…
While I never considered myself a “good” writer, I knew from an
early age that I was “keen” on writing. Writing was like walking
or breathing or eating – it was essential to my being, feeling
more like a necessity than a gift. I never imagined that I would
later employ the craft of writing to my livelihood. As far as I
knew I would be a nun, (I thought Sister Mary Catherine would be a
nice name), and I would teach little children with the same fervor
and magic as my beloved first grade teacher, Sister Ann Marita. I
have to smile as I recollect how I held that particular dream so
fervently for many years and I am grateful that the blossoming of
adult life is not tied to the limited images we hold as children.
How I ended up entering the world of job development and later
became an author and a trainer is a story for a different time.
But while I, like many, did not follow a well-planned and linear
career path, I followed what Carlos Casteneda refers to as “the
path with heart” and have been blessed with a livelihood that
continues to call upon and stretch abilities inherent in my
nature. In some real sense, it is as if the writing of this issue
of the newsletter began some forty years ago in a schoolyard. The
evolution of our lives is folded within our gifts which are folded
within our nature. It is a myth that some people are born with
talents and some aren’t. As I assert in Chapter 3 of “The
Wholehearted Journey”, it is impossible to be born without natural
talents, without a song to sing and the soul’s desire to sing it!
The greatest challenge is in recognizing and honing those gifts.
As one reader wrote to me, “Thank you for the affirmation that I,
too, am gifted – n ow if only I could discover that for myself.”
How often in our lives do we question what our real gifts are?
How many people have we met who claim to not have any natural
talents at all? To a person who says they have no particular
talents or gifts, I would ask them to complete open-ended
statements like the following with the first thing that comes to
mind:
I have always been good at …
I am a natural when it comes to …
People seem to readily compliment me on …
People in my life seem to praise me most for my …
Friends and family often ask me help them with …
If I were to be called a master of anything, I would have to be
a master of…
I find myself intensely focused and involved when I am …
Even as a child I was drawn towards …
I am often appreciated for my …
Something that comes easily to me is …
I am pretty brilliant when it comes to …
If I were to receive an award, it would have to be for …
One of my gifts that continually demands expression is …
I have always had a knack for …
As it is in the nature of the bird to fly, I know I must …
What we may find by responding to such prompts is that we are
not in fact without natural gifts, it is more likely that we don’t
know where our treasure lies or we have simply not bothered to
mine it. In considering the ongoing journey of recognizing and
honing our gifts, here are a few important things to keep in mind.
1. Sometimes a gift comes so easily or naturally that we either
assume everyone can do it or that it has no particular value. It
is so much a part of who we are and what we do that we take it for
granted as simply a part of our nature as opposed to a “gift” of
our nature.
2. Our most natural gifts may have more to do with the spirit
with which we approach our work than with the amount of skill and
talent involved in performing the duties of the job. (i.e., The
waitress discussed in last month’s newsletter on “Rethinking the
Concept of Genius” who prided herself on remembering the tastes of
individual customers.)
3. Every talent we have eventually surfaces as a need.
Our unused capacities have a power of their own and will cry
out for recognition – they want to be given a name. They will
disturb our sleep and interrupt our peace. In the same way that a
muscular person must use her muscles in order to feel good, so it
is with every capacity within us – they clamor to be used – not
just for fun but as a necessity for our growth. As we become aware
of our gifts and listen to their demand to be exercised, they
enlarge us, they give depth and height to our inner world. And
like muscles, natural gifts that are not used will atrophy,
diminishing our experience of the world and our part in it.
4. Life offers us multiple ways, places and means to use and
discover our gifts – employment is only one of them!
We need to leave in the dust the idea that “the only skills
that matter are the ones we get paid to use” ! What does that say
about our ancestors who never earned a paycheck in their entire
lives – were they simply without talent? Or did they in fact find
numerous ways to employ and grow their gifts in the context of
family, community, leisure, church, cultural and social events, as
well as the realm of activity that kept bread on the table? We
need to consider every realm in which we participate in the world
as fertile soil to sow our gifts!
5. We will never discover or uncover our gifts pondering them
over in our minds – it will only be through the plunge into
possibility that our gifts have an opportunity to unfold.
In our competitive culture we like to be “finished” – we like
to be good at things. Unfortunately growth and change and the
risks that come with any transformation (or evolution) invite our
vulnerability. Perhaps our unknown potential and budding talents
can only be brought into existence through the exercising of our
gifts. We cannot use our gifts without having unknown chords in us
played upon in a hole range of effects that bring us alive. Let’s
worry less about being “good” and focus more on bringing all of
what we are to the light of day!
I love being alive in a world where gifts never cease
unfolding. From the young apples hugging the branches of the tree
outside my window to the question of life purpose that recently
sprouted in the heart of my seventeen year old, I am in awe of the
ongoing dance of creation and our part in it. I sit here writing
this newsletter with as much delight and “inner necessity” as the
small girl writing verses for a song. I feel the gravity of my
gifts as they pull and hold me toward the ground of my being – the
gift of reverence for the power of words and the gift of awe for
having something to say. How lucky we are to be alive with the
responsibility and privilege of employing what the divine has
seeded in us and to have a hand in nurturing what has been planted
in others.
In the words of Voltaire, “we must cultivate our gardens”, and
always, with the sweet anticipation of our unique blossoming.
- Denise
© Denise Bissonnette, September 2003
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