In response to my last post Elysia commented:

Wonderful news! Many blessings on your journey. Trodding the same path of seeking career transformation, I would LOVE to read about HOW you made the decision - pragmatically as well as spiritually.

Thanks for the well wishes and for the question!

For me, career transformation has been somewhat sudden and also long in coming.  It has been the result of deep integrative work. I, like most of us, learned to fragment my life – work life, home life, spiritual life. I learned to think of myself as the set of roles I played – priestess, mother, boss, employee, wife, sister, daughter, friend. Because it made people comfortable I learned to really keep those roles separate.

A lot of the work the SBT has done over the last several years has been work of integrating our parts. We came to that work accidentally. As a priesthood, we are charged with specific work. Our gods and guides knew we could not do that work successfully while trying to live as fragmented people. So, the work we started with was deep work around integrating those fragmented lives we’ve built. This is hard work. And it results in a lot of life changes. Things that we’d learned to manage as long as we lived in a dis-integrated way were not tolerable anymore.

For me, everything from my daily practice to my food and level/regularity/type of exercise changed. It wasn’t convenient at first, but it was healthy. The last holdout was work. Why? Because I was hopeful that I could be myself fully integrated in the job that I had. That wasn’t even close to accurate. Instead, I found that I had bent and stepped back, and compromised so much at work that the person I had to be while there was someone I could no longer tolerate being.

When I hit that point, the universe bent to help me. My choice was not only an obvious one for me (though far removed from the career I’ve practiced for 20 yrs), I had people saying to me “you should do that!” All the things needed fell into place very quickly. The entire situation was made available to me and required me only to be willing to do the scary thing of leaving a job with which I was familiar and being willing to work out not earning the kind of living I earn now while in school. All that is scary, but not a reason for not doing it.

Does it always work so smoothly? I don’t know. But I do know this. The career for which I will start training in September relies on me using the senses that are integral to the work I do as a priestess and seer. It’s different work, but it focuses on using many of the same senses and being open with the people with whom I will work. It requires me to be all that I have come to be and not to twist myself into unrecognizable shapes. It offers me the opportunity to live as a whole and integrated person doing work I can be proud of.

This doesn’t sound like practical advice, but look closely, I think in many ways it is. Step by step is easy to get, the spirit of change is what can be hard to approach. The older I get the more I rely on a single piece of advice for most things – relationships, jobs, living situations, etc.  Does it make you a better, more whole, stronger version of you? My job was taking me in a direction that made me lesser, smaller, and in many ways even meaner. My new career already makes me feel more open. Stronger. Better. More whole. When I interviewed at the school with the president of the program I was able to reference my spiritual work without it being a negative thing. I was applauded for walking a path that is mine. I was told that this school would give me the tools to create a practice that allows me to serve in a way that is my way. I have the opportunity to live in a more integrated manner.

One of my guides told me this recently, and I think it applies: All things must return to their essential nature. An oak tree cannot succeed by trying to be a rose bush.

In terms of career, we are often forced down a road of trying to fit into a shape that is contrary to what we are at our core. While we may be good at it, we can be incredible at something that doesn’t require that sort of compromise.