Passion – What Drives You?

Originally written for the New Moon Women’s Circle website

It manifests in many different ways: from a small quiet voice to an overwhelming burning desire. For me, passion visits me as a persistent achy feeling in my heart and my gut. But what do you do with it?

When we moved to New York, I saw that there were so many opportunities to sing that I figured I might as well go back to voice lessons and see what would happen. Five years later, I’ve done two full cabaret shows, including a MAC (Manhattan Association of Clubs & Cabaret) Award nomination for my debut show. I’m currently working on my next time and having more fun than I thought was possible. I get to share this joy with the people I care about and with a wonderful community of talent.

So easy, right? Wrong. Most of us our raised to be “practical,” but unless your passion is accounting or litigation (and bravo to those who have those passions), it might be harder to give your passion the time and attention it needs. Does it become the devoted career of our life or just a significant hobby or something in-between?

The most important part of passion is that it can’t be is ignored. I’ve found that any time when I’ve completely ignored my passions for singing and/or helping people, I would get anxious; or worse, after a while, I would get depressed. Life stopped being about living and was just about existing. And existence without attention to our desires is like seeing a world of color, but being stuck in a prison of black and white.

So, we decide. Are we going to live a life or merely exist? For myself, I had to find a way to satisfy that passion in rather a dramatic fashion, but I also needed to find some way to help pay for that. The answer to that was my other passion: helping and teaching people. Reiki has offered me the perfect blend of those desires, so that I don’t have to compromise. It’s not always possible, but your passions do need to be satisfied in some way.

If I was a different person, it might be through a community choir or volunteering, but for my lifestyle this is what I needed. Ask yourself, though: what are your passions? Are you paying them their due attention? How can you fit them into your lifestyle in a way that’s comfortable for you and your family? Above all put a little color and joy into your life and find out what drives you.

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