348. A Gift for Drawing Out Uniqueness

“When I was a child, I remember being so acutely aware that I felt so much love and joy in my heart, yet it felt like the people around me—not necessarily my immediate family, but just people in general—seemed so unhappy, critical and depressed. I desperately wanted to give them the feeling of joy that I had in my own heart. I just wanted to grab it out of my chest and put it in their chest. My mother is a psychotherapist. For years she saw how people were drawn to me and how I would counsel and guide them and help them access their powers. She said, “You really should do this. You should go to school to be a therapist.” Emily didn’t feel drawn to that precise path, but she developed methods based on her own experiences and personal growth through life challenges.

As a college student, Emily took the Johnson O’Connor Aptitude Test, which measures innate abilities. Explaining her test results to her, the counselor said the average person scores high on four to six of the measures used. Emily scored high on 10 of them. The counselor’s words were prophetic: “What often happens is that you end up struggling to find a way that integrates all of your various gifts and talents.” Having struggled many years since then before succeeding, Emily looks back on the journey with gratitude, largely because along the way she developed the tools and methods she now shares with clients in their own struggles.

“From where I am today, I’m so grateful I went through that circuitous route to find my purpose,” Emily says. “My father, who spent his career recruiting and placing top talent at the heads of nonprofit organizations, once told me, ‘You need to find the principle that will integrate all of your various gifts and talents. See if you can find that.’ His advice was helpful, along with a comment I read from the actress Meg Ryan, who said, ‘Sometimes you don’t find your life, your life finds you.’”

1. Face your own inner demons rather than fight them.

2. Embrace all the parts of you without judgment or rejection. They will lead you to your true self.

3. Don’t believe the old programming that who you are isn’t enough, that you aren’t right or good, that there’s something wrong with you that needs to be fixed.

4. Listen deeply to yourself and follow the unique path that is right for you.