People I Love

I recently made a big decision to get back into the engineering world. What does that mean for you? I'm not so sure. I'm still goin
g to teach yoga. I'm still going to write. I'm pretty sure that it won't change your world in any drastic way.

What does this mean for me?? It means that I need to earn PDHs again to get my license back to active. It means that I need to plug myself back into a network that I removed myself from two years ago. It means meetings and luncheons and busyness. Oddly enough, I'm doing it all with a huge smile on my face. You see, I recently read a book that put everything into a little more perspective for me. It's called Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna. It put enlightenment into a totally different perspective for me, and made me realize that the things I thought I was looking for were actually there all along, and the things I thought I needed were not necessarily true. It made me question all of the things I was doing to find myself and my purpose and encouraged me to look at the world as a play where everyone was playing their roles. It made me realize that I stopped playing my role while I was trying to figure out what my role was.

The dream I had last week confirmed that for me. I dreamt that I was driving on the interstate and suddenly had the feeling I was going the wrong direction. I drove over the grass in the median to get to the other side only to drive a little ways before there were cars and trucks coming at me. I dodged all the cars and trucks, got myself turned around and was to the break in the median where I could get turned to the other side when I woke up. The right side of the interstate, though, was on the other side from where I originally started. I feel like this has something to do with me being in the engineering field before but for the wrong reasons. I took a detour off to a path that was going against the grain but one that I had to take in order to know the direction I needed to take to get on the right path.

When I was in engineering before, if someone were to ask me why I was an engineer, I would have said that growing up I was good at math and science, so Dad said that I would be a good engineer. I had no purpose in my engineering career. I was there because someone else told me it would be a good idea. That's one of the big reasons that I left engineering. I needed to figure out what it was that made me tick. I needed to know why I was here. I needed purpose.

I recently started meditating a lot more. I thought I was meditating before, but I started practicing yoga at The Ivy House in west Nashville and learned that the guided meditations and yoga practice that I had before was not really getting me where I needed to go. It wasn't getting me to my truth fast enough. I started praying for more clarity in my life. I started becoming more aware of the answers I was seeking. In an Awareness Yoga Immersion last month, I learned how to meditate and learned a particular style of meditation that ended with the questions, "Who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose?" The more I've meditated with those questions, the more I have become aware of what it is that I truly want. It's been stewing in the back of my mind for the last couple of years, but the Awareness Yoga has helped me really ground it and figure out the next step I need to take.

So, what I've known for a long time that I want is to help people. I just didn't know exactly how before. I can only help people through what I've been through. I can only teach the lessons I've learned. I've been through grief from death and grief from divorce, and I want to help people going through what I went through. I want to open a house similar to The Ivy House where people who have gotten a divorce or who have experienced the death of someone close to them can go to heal. I want to have on hand a financial advisor. I want to teach them the things I've learned through life experiences and yoga, and most of all, I want them to have a safe place to live and sleep where they can heal. So, what's stopping me from doing this? I need the space. What's stopping me from having the space? I made some poor financial decisions after my divorce. What am I doing now? I'm healing my financial life. I'm attending Financial Peace University. The next step is to get a job doing something I'm good at. What would that be?

I'm actually good at a lot of things. Something I've realized recently while helping Beck out with his homework is that I'm good at engineering. I actually get it. I'm not even embarrassed to say that I enjoy talking about it. I've come to find my love of engineering again. Pair that with my newfound purpose, and I'm ready to get back into the world of engineering again. So, what does this have to do with People I Love?

A couple of days after I came to the realization that I was ready to get back into engineering, my dad reached out to me and asked if I wanted to go to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) luncheon that day. His coworker wasn't able to attend, and I was going to be able to take his place. I didn't have any plans, and refer back to the first paragraph where I mentioned I need to get PDH's in order to get my license back to active status. Twenty-four to be exact. I need to get 24 hours of professional development in order to be able to work in the field of engineering again. This led me to say yes to my dad's offer to attend the ASCE lunch. As I drove to lunch, I had butterflies in my stomach. I hadn't seen most of these people in two years.

As I walked up to registration, my eyes focused in on the man standing just behind the registration table. Mike Kusch of Sherman Dixie was one of my favorite people in the industry, and he was standing there with the biggest grin on his face. That was the kind of greeting I needed to wipe the butterflies from my belly and send them flying out around me. I smiled as I hugged that amazing man, and then started to look around the room, meeting the eyes of several other people I loved. I had forgotten how many people I know and love in the engineering industry. These people I just left without so much as an explanation two years ago still lit up when they saw me.

I found out later that people at other tables were asking if it was me as if I was a local celebrity or something. This was the kind of greeting I wanted but never even thought about as I was figuring out how to get back into the field of engineering. These are the people I helped without asking anything in return and who would do the same for me. These are the people who make engineering fun. These are the people I love, and I was reminded last Thursday that they love me back. I'm so grateful to have more clarity in my life and for it to have led me back to these amazing people! I'm grateful I have the opportunity to continue to learn and grow, and I'm grateful that I get to meet new amazing people every day to add to this beautiful network of people. I'm also grateful for you for joining me on this amazing journey!

Love,
Emily Rose

NaNoWriMo, Yoga, Booch and Vacay

Wow! It's been a while since I wrote anything, and it's been a full month since I wrote 50,000 words with many others at NaNoWriMo.org. If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, it's short for National Novel Writer's Month. It's a month (November to be exact) where writers and aspiring writers and maybe even non-writers set a goal to write 50k words of a novel. It can be toward a novel they've already started, a novel they've been planning to write or if you're like me, a novel you had no idea you wanted to write. They even have a word for people like me who go in with no clue and no plan. We're called "pantsers" as in we write by the seat of our pants. That's definitely what I did. I went in with no idea what I wanted to write or where to go with the book and somehow ended up with over 50k words. It may not surprise you that I am now wading through a crazy somewhat jumbled up mess of words and thoughts trying to figure out what I want to expand on and where I want everything to go. There's not exactly a flow to the book...

I have to say that I actually looked forward to sitting down at the computer and letting the words flow out of my fingers. It's not really surprising that this came on the heels of me seeing Liz Gilbert at Salon @ 615 and reading Big Magic. Now I just have to overcome the fear of someone else reading my book. It's amazing how much fear there is around that. What if people judge me?? What if people don't like it?? Even worse, what if no one cares?

I've gotten a little practice on not caring if people care through this blog. I want people to get something out of what I write, but if it's not part of their path, it's not my place to force it on them, right?  So here I am with almost 65k words at this point and no clue where to go from here. If you have any advice, I would love to hear from you!

Meanwhile, I have other news to share. I went through yet another yoga immersion weekend at The Ivy House in Nashville. It was an amazing and eye opening weekend, and I met some really amazing women in the process. I've spent much of December processing the yoga I absorbed over that weekend, and my favorite takeaway was a more regular yoga and meditation practice. I'm meditating at least an hour every day now, and practicing awareness yoga on top of that. Add that to my energy work, and I'm getting closer to my bliss every day.

Another thing I got out of that weekend is a new friend who makes Kombucha. I've had several friends who make it, and I've been curious for a while. This one just happened to hit me at the right time. So, I've become one of the many with a science project on my kitchen counter. 

I had my doubts when I took the first sip of my new Kombucha on Christmas Day. After all, I don't know the first thing about the things that are growing in that jar other than that it came from a long line of Boochers before me who passed down advice and a quick lesson on how to booch in my friend's kitchen. It ended up tasting pretty good, and I feel pretty good, too, though, so I think it was a success! If you want to try some or if you have some good recipes, please send them my way!

And finally, I hope you enjoyed your holiday season! I spent mine on the beach, and it was warmer than I expected it to be! We slept with the door open so that we could hear the waves crashing on the shore, ran on the boardwalk and enjoyed some amazing local food. We even got to see some horses on the beach which was amazingly beautiful!

We even took a little jaunt up the coast to Ocean Isle Beach where my family vacationed every year while I was growing up and down the coast to Charleston. It feels like home to be in that area! I think my favorite part of the whole trip was the traveling Christmas tree that Beck's mom gave us to take with since we wouldn't be home on Christmas to enjoy our real tree. If you haven't already seen the photos, you can check them out on my Instagram with #travelingchristmastree. 

I'm so grateful for this amazing trip and that I got to share it with one of my favorite travel buddies. 

It feels good to be home, though! I've already been back in the studio teaching and am offering free energy work and private yoga during the month of January, so reach out if you need some love this month!

Much love,

Emily Rose