The Journey Of My Life

For those of you who have been following along with this blog faithfully you may have sensed that I am on a journey of self-discovery. I began this journey a long time ago but it had a lot of faulty starts and a lot of distractions and false turns. This, I think, was were I was headed all those many years ago when I decided I was going to write my life story.

I don’t really think I needed to write my life story for any particular reason. In retrospect I think it was my excuse to look into my own history and examine it. I needed to write it in order to read it and understand it. I tried multiple different times to write that book. After I got started I lost sight of the purpose and couldn’t figure out the ending. I lost my way.

And I put it aside. I was distracted and found other things to do, only to pick it up again a year or two or three later. I’ve been working on my autobiography for about 20 years now. And I have nothing to show for it. No book. Not even a rough draft.

My first clue to the real purpose of that book was about 5 years ago when I discovered that there is a name for the extra sensitivity I feel. I am an empath. I never knew what that even was until I found I am one. Everything seemed to make sense once I realized what was going on with my crazy emotions, which sometimes aren’t even mine.

It was while I was researching empaths and all that they are that I thought that was the reason I felt a need to write my story. I realized that maybe writing the book was more for my benefit than that of society. I had always told myself I just needed people to understand me. Throughout my life I never felt understood by other people. Always I felt different from them.

Satisfied that I had fulfilled the need to write my story without actually writing it, I put the idea aside. After all, I knew what I needed to know, didn’t I?

However, my journey was far from over. I read what I could on empaths. I took the Meyers-Briggs Personality test again and came up as an INFJ. There was a new topic to research and I did. Identifying with the INFJ was easy for me.

I signed up for an Amazon Unlimited subscription this year after buying a tablet so I could do more reading. It didn’t matter if the authors were best selling names. I wanted books to read on all different topics and in all different genres.

There was a book that struck my eye immediately and I “borrowed” it on my subscription. Ultimately I bought the book. It was called “The INFJ Writer” by Lauren Sapala. That book is amazing for those of us who are both INFJ and writers. Especially those of us on a journey of self-discovery.

And tonight I read a blog post she wrote that struck an immediate chord in me. http://laurensapala.com/why-infjs-have-trouble-writing/ She pointed out that we who are INFJ like to study a subject to death before we dig our nails in and get to the actual writing part.

This was me to a T! It’s what I have been doing for the last twenty years. That nagging itch to write my story is still with me, so perhaps there is still a reason to write the book. I just have to quit researching me and start writing about me.

Today I am going to make reminders to place around my work area. Reminders that say things like: “Quit researching and get to work” “Write now and edit later” “Use your time wisely”. Hopefully I won’t need these reminders. But just in case I forget they are there for me.

I feel a new sense of purpose and a new desire to write again. I feel an energy for writing I haven’t felt for a while now. That blog post might have been the kick in the pants I needed to get moving. The desire and the dream are back again.

If I don’t know enough about me by now to write about, who has been living my life?