Find Focus As You Attract Opportunity

It smells like rain. The temperature has dropped 20 degrees or more in the last 3 days. Yay for a little more spring!

The title of this blog is taken from the monthly thoughts in my journal that frame the month - this one seems eerily appropriate. As have most of them so far this year, actually...

Already opportunities seem to be knocking at my door since I've arrived here at Bass Lake - midwife apprenticeship, hypnotherapy, massage, jury duty, water safety, book club... not to mention cooking like crazy. Upon my arrival to Fresno a couple weeks ago I was picked up by the husband of our new bookkeeper. He happens to be a no longer practicing MD (disillusioned with the healthcare system and lack of patient/doctor time) and a hypnotherapist! I was thrilled to chat about alternative medicines with someone who also has the knowledge and experience of working as a family practice doctor for many years and sees the value of holistic healing. I shared with him my interest in learning more about hypnotherapy and my pursuit of midwifery. THEN he offered a new duplicate copy of an anatomy atlas that he had recently received!! beautiful.
Since then I've learned of a local midwife who is losing her apprentice soon, another friend of some friends who is currently pursuing doula certification and another local midwife who trained in a program in the Philippines that I had once looked into.

Also, I came here interested in offering massages to my coworkers once a week as a way for me to get practice at it while offering some healing and relaxation during hard work of the summer. And I've discovered that a friend here is pursuing massage school with interest in having a retreat home/massage business for missionaries on furlow or anyone who may need it.

THEN, I got jury summons. Thanks to my convoluted mess of recent addresses, I am known to Madera county to be a resident and have been called to jury duty on the second day of our staff orientation... excuse number 5: lack of transportation!! woohoo, no car, no can do!! hopefully they accept.

During staff orientation I've been asked to collaborate ideas for what might be pertinent water safety information for our staff while working with people up in the high mountain lakes and near rivers :) It'll be fun to get to use some of my other interests/skills here!

And last but certainly not least... I've found lots of inspiration in having to offer devotionals for the kids on our course last week and in thinking and talking with friends here about this summer. It was good to dive right into being in an instructor role, facilitating discussion about gratitude, hospitality and the Kingdom of God even though I'm out of practice and not always sure of my convictions. I'm learning through these experiences of being in leadership roles, even as a swim instructor, how okay it is to risk making mistakes if you give it your best effort and offer yourself sincerely and keep trying. I'm getting better at cooking, for example :) Made the best damn pie of my life last night.

I've also been thinking about love...mostly about how I'm tempted to make relationships work to my advantage and how desperately I want to keep trying to learn to love without thinking of how I might gain from it... to love people for who they are, love people by happily being myself, love because to do so is healing and freeing to everyone involved.

A wise and perceptive friend recently told me that I can't keep (subconsciously) expecting other people to tell me or show me how to be myself. Maybe this doesn't make sense to you, but it made all the sense in the world to me...I'm always looking to other people, thinking...maybe that's who i want to be, maybe I'm like that person, maybe that's what I should say/do/think...

I'm excited about an opportunity to read Nonviolent Communication with a friend here. I'm not sure all of what the book holds, but even the glimpse I've seen of learning how to identify and name emotions so not to wallow in them but be free of their control sounds like something I could benefit from trying. We're also going to be reading Jean Vanier's From Brokenness to Community for our orientation. I feel strongly this is a season of deep healing growth and being freed from destructive thought habits, bitterness and self-doubt. Some lofty ambitions, but it's time.

So hopefully I'll find some focus for all these opportunities that seem to be falling on my lap... well, I'd rather just avoid the jury duty, though.