My first article submission for Elephant Journal was spontaneous.

It wasn’t something I had premeditated or planned.

It happened after I had been teaching one of my mindfulness courses and I said something that I thought was significant to my students about 3 Things Mindfulness is Not. When I got home that evening I wrote it down, found the link to submitting to Elephant Journal and pressed send and bam! I was hooked on writing for elephant journal.

Now one year and 80 articles later, elephant journal turns out to have been the exact catalyst I needed for me to have found the life I always wanted for myself.

I am now writing regularly, blogging, working with clients all over the world with energy healing, developing online courses—and all from the comfort of my Northern Canadian home.

And the only weird thing about any of this is that my success surprises me.

Because recently I found an old file on my computer mysteriously titled Vision which I put together an entire year before I submitted my first elephant journal article.

And what is in this document titled Vision is all my 2013 ideas about what my dream life would look like.

And it turns out my dream life as I saw it at the time included doing something exactly like writing for elephant.

I wrote:

“I will be writing non-fiction about topics I am passionate about. I will be influential about topics I loved. I will be engaged in the world on topics I am passionate about.”

Last week when I found this two-year-old file and I couldn’t believe it.

I had no recollection of writing these words or that two years ago I knew that this was what I really wanted.

But now it has come true.

I get to write about topics I am passionate about.

And a whole bunch of you read the articles and get in touch with me to ask questions or tell me you appreciate my words and…

I love it!

Now this might not have been instant manifestation but two years to get from point A to point B isn’t too shabby.

Because in-between these two points there was a lot of darkness.

A lot of clearing out of old pain, shame and self-hate had to happen to get here.

During these two years I meditated hundreds of hours, studied healing modalities and went to see many healers myself.

Because the thing is when we are down, when we are at our lowest, it is so incredibly hard to remember that there is light and love and that we will experience it again in massive doses.

Personally, I didn’t really know it would be possible for my life dream to come true.

I certainly didn’t think it would be possible without making drastic changes to my life.

But somehow I still live in the same place with the same partner and the same kids and generally the same life schedule. The outside of my life looks very much the same as before. But on the inside it is much different. More different then others could possibly see.

So, this article is really a thank you.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to care about their personal journey of growth and change and then takes the time to scroll through elephant journal. And I so appreciate that whenelephant journal readers find themselves touched by what they have read that they take the time to share, tweet and comment.

We are lucky to have each other.

 

 

 

Relephant:

 

To Toot or not to Toot? The Art of Self-Promotion.

Write for elephant, Get Paid. (+, March’s best Writers!)

 

Author: Ruth Lera 

Editor: Renée Picard

Image: via elephant journal 

 

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