The Journey
Your vision will become clear when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.
—CARL JUNG
Responding to the Call
My calling to the healing arts unexpectedly came to me when I was still a pre-medical student aspiring to pursue a career in medicine. It was both a knowing and a gift that were discovered while I was attending to my two-year internship at UC Davis Medical Center in Northern California.
Those two years of many life-changing moments and soulful connections with children and adult patients had introduced me to a whole new way of being and seeing humanity. They also unveiled the stepping stones that led me to the noble profession of Social Work, which served as the catalyst for my own healing journey and my profound transformations thereafter.
As I answered that call, I made the difficult decision to change the trajectory of my career path. And it was one of the most freeing experiences in my life.
Life in Transition
I knew the decision I made to follow my calling and my choosing to walk this path would come with their own challenges, and require personal sacrifices. But I was unprepared for what was about to unfold.
During an exhausting period of time many years ago, while juggling a stressful full-time job, a part-time internship, and graduate coursework for my master program of Social Work, I was faced with a great sense of disillusionment, disenchantment and unbearable heartbreaks, as I grieved many major endings and painful losses that took turns showing up in my life. But the deeper and dearest loss of them all, the one that was invisible to the naked eyes, was the loss of myself.
Although I managed to pull it together and push through to complete my graduate studies during that extremely difficult time, my spiritual crisis was too big to ignore. It’d further propelled me to set out on a long soul-searching journey—to rest, to heal, to search for answers, to find meaning for my struggles, and to chart a different path for myself despite not having a map and not knowing where my next destination will be.
Without anyone to lean on and with only pieces of my writing, I was forced to reach deep inside my own internal reservoir for the strength to carry on, and hold on to my only center within, hoping upon hope, believing that if I stay the course and walk within my path of truth, this small light inside of me will know the way and guide me forward, that there will be something more soul-fulfilling waiting for me ahead if I keep on with the journey.
The end is where we begin again
This stage of my metamorphosis continued through the following year before I slowly found my way to the shore of a new chapter in my life. While it may seem that I have reached an external destination, in truth, my internal journey has never ended, and it has no destination. And although there was no outside witness or ceremony to commemorate my personal transformation, what I know for sure is that the entire universe has since shifted within me.
As a natural process following my awakening, my physical life and the old structures that I knew quickly became dismantled, and I couldn’t go back to who I was. As if the door to my old self had been dissolved behind me, I had to shed my old identity and let go of the old way of living, along with the things and people attached to it, for they were no longer in alignment with my heart and soul, so as to clear the space in my path for my true Self to emerge and create an open channel for new beginnings to come through.
Lessons from the Journey
In reflection, I’ve realized that the true essence of this journey is to return me to myself, to that mystical and magical place within. It has helped me deconstruct the walls I had built around me, for the sake of protecting my own heart, but at the same time, also hiding my own truth and dimming my own light.
Most importantly, it has taught me to be present and intimate with all of my pains, to transform my wounds into wisdom, and to fully experience both life’s beauty and chaos without being engulfed by them. Above all, it has taught me to accept and honor all of myself—both the old and the new, both the strong and the soft, both the beautiful and not-so-beautiful parts of myself, regardless of the outside noise or the external changing landscape. By accepting and honoring both of my light and shadows, I’ve learned to accept and honor the same humanity in you and others.