Rediscovering Your Vision and Voice

It was a cold Autumn morning, much like the weather today here in Perth, WA. I had a little newborn baby and a story that made my throat tighten. I sat in our little apartment by the sea and my heart heaved with grief from letting go of the season that had just passed.

My husband walked in the door with a sneaky smile and glint in his eyes. With a Tiffany bag hidden behind his back, he presented me with the gift of necklace with a key on a long chain, that has become my constant companion ever since. As he gave me this gift he whispered: “Babe, the best is yet to come”.

I wasn’t ungrateful for the season of Motherhood that had been sprung surprisingly into my life, it was the letting go of the person “who I was in a previous season”. The girl with the career, the titles, expectations, responsibilities and the car parking space. When I worked full time, I understood what my role was. I thrived with my KPI’s, I strengthened under mentors and leaders, it was where I really found my voice.

What happens when the season shifts and we let go of everything that held us secure?

Your big shift could be chronic illness. Your season’s end could be redundancy. Your career change could have been burn out.

My question for today is this…

Have you ever felt the silence and grief of letting go of a season that was?

I have had and it nearly broke me.

Here are three ways that I have learnt to rediscover vision and voice in seasons of change.

Firstly,

We need to realign our reliance on others to give us our sense of security. It is so easy to base our perspective on what others think of us to get our confidence and voice. In this new season of rediscovering my vision and voice, I have had to readjust how much I rely on others to affirm my sense of purpose. I love it when Paul a writer from the New Testament says it this way.

Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.

Philippians 4: 11-12

Contentment with our little or a lot is an ever-shifting balance. We need to ask for feedback and we all need encouragement to step into our greater tomorrow. When we rely on these voices, however, to be our anchor, in times of storm and change, when those voices are no longer available, we are like a boat in rough seas, trying desperately to find the shore again.

Secondly,

We must be willing to constantly reinvent believing that the best is yet to come. I have seen many people become extremely stuck when a season ends. Unable to reinvent what the discovery of their purpose and voice looks like for tomorrow, because they are facing the past rather than the future. When we can only see the fulfilment of our dreams and promises by the way it was outworked in our past, we become very stagnant.

This quote challenges me deeply.

When we make a change, it’s so easy to interpret our unsettled ways as unhappiness, and our unhappiness as the result of having made the wrong decision. This is normal. This is natural. This is change.

Jeanette Winterson.

Any change is relentless in its overwhelming unsettledness. However, every time I have surrendered to the power of change in my life positively I have rediscovered my voice and vision in ways that I have never before. Are you willing to reinvent your life? I mean everything? Then maybe on the precipice of this awakening, your voice will be strengthened like never before.

Thirdly,

Who do you rely on to begin again? For me and my house, we seek a Greater voice. Every time I have stood at a door wondering whether it will open when I seek the perspective of a higher power, the peace that surpasses understanding is always overwhelming. That is the power of inspiration. A breath of wisdom coming from a greater knowing of the future and its power. I believe strongly that the best is yet to come because I believe that my life and its vision and voice was designed with purpose.

Rely on God to begin all over again, every day as if nothing had ever been done.

CS Lewis

The key that my husband gave me reminds me daily that there is never a dead end in the Kingdom of God. It is an unfolding, miraculous journey of hope and discovery. Every time that we think something has ended, it is the seed that brings the beauty of tomorrow.

Are you in a place where you can see no beauty in this season?

Firstly, realign your reliance on what others say about you. Take the time to strengthen and remind yourself of your strengths.

Secondly, reinvent your perspective of the power of change in your today.

Thirdly, have the courage to believe and trust in a greater perspective, one that designed and perfected you, before you were even conceived in your mother’s womb.

These three simple truths will profoundly shift the way you enter into seasons of change.

What if this season could be the greatest shift and adventure of your life?

With love

Amanda

Ps- If you are in Perth and have a couple of hours free on a Saturday afternoon, come and join me with this small, personal workshop. The whole idea is to spend a couple of hours, working on our vision and ideas for the future in a super creative and fun way. Come and have coffee and cake with me, I’d love to meet you.