Leaps of Faith

You’re afraid of heights. Yes, I said it. Now, you’re either thinking, “Ummm does this lady work for the NSA? How does she know my life?” Or you’re thinking, “This lady is a terrible psychic. I’m so happy I didn’t shell out 19.95 a minute to hear her advice.”

Well, hear me out. We’re all afraid of heights; rhetorically speaking that is. Throughout life, obstacles come in all different forms and challenge us in ways that test us to the extremities of our human existence. In some way or another, we have to get over our fear of heights, jump off that cliff, and make a leap of faith into the unknown in order to conquer the problem we have been handed.

My personal fear can be embodied by a little country. You might have heard of it, it’s called Germany. Well, the country itself didn’t scare me; the language might have but definitely not the country. How could you be scared of a country with such a love for soccer and beer? No, it was the opportunity that led me there that kept me awake at night.

Right after I graduated college, I was so overwhelmed with all the choices I had to make. After being in an educational bubble for my entire life, it seemed that at the end of May 2011 the whole world was at my feet. I had so many options I didn’t know what to choose. How could I apply for jobs when I really wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do? Should I take the first job I get? Should I wait this economy out and get my Master’s degree? Should I change my identity and just go live in the woods?

At the time, I only knew of two things I really loved to do and that was to meet new people and travel. This passion of adventure and travel was sparked when I got the opportunity to study abroad my sophomore year of college. I moved to England for the better half of a year and fell in love with not only the country and its people, but with the friendships I had made across cultural barriers. And since that time, I had been looking for a way to reignite that feeling.

Well, how could I travel if I didn’t have a job? I needed to finically support myself because I knew these student loans were going to kick in over the next several months. So, I asked for advice from my personal mentor. She was the woman who helped me get abroad in the first place so I figured she would have an idea about how to get me there again.  After a long conversation in her office, she not only supported and encouraged my choice but she gave me my options. And trust me, as a young, unskilled worker they were pretty limited. I either had the option of becoming an Au Pair (a live in nanny) or I could teach English as a second language.

Through a little bit of soul searching and a lot of thinking I decided that for me personally, becoming an Au Pair was a better option. The summer after graduation I searched and searched for the right family. I interviewed over Skype with at least a dozen families trying to find the right fit. I talked to families from Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, France, England, Spain, and Italy, you name a country in Europe and I can promise you that I at least looked into them.

After a while I started to lose hope with the idea that I would ever find the right family. Until one day when I received a message from a small family that was living in Germany outside of Frankfurt. During our first Skype interview we talked for almost two hours and I felt so comfortable with them. After we stopped talking I knew that if I wasn’t going to work for this family, I didn’t want to be an Au Pair. Luckily, things worked out and they offered me the job on the condition I started work two weeks later.

After the excitement of accepting a new job wore off, reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to not only tell my family I got a job and would be moving on such short notice, but I would have to literally move in with this strange family and take care of their children in a country that wasn’t my own, using a language I didn’t know. What did I know about taking care of kids full time? The most I ever watched kids was babysitting in high school. How was I supposed to watch out for their safety and well being when I could barely take care of myself?

From my previous experience with moving abroad, I learned that there are some things you can’t control so you can’t worry about them. So, in order to live my dream again I had to take a leap of faith and tackle my problems head on. I told my family, took the job, moved abroad, lived with this strange family, became accustomed to a new way of life and thinking and in the whole process of it all I not only got to travel and make new friends, but I got to discover myself on a very personal level. There is no price I could ever place on my experience, and if I got the opportunity to do it all over it would be exactly the same. Every misstep I made or chance I took led me to become the person I am today, and I like to think I’m pretty cool.

For you, maybe a leap of faith literally is your trust in your faith. My leap of faith is to understand that everything is going to be alright. By taking that jump off of that cliff into the unknown I discovered not only who I am but what really matters in my life. Maybe joining a Chiropractic coaching group will relight your love for chiropractic but you’re too scared to take the financial and emotional chance that comes with doing something you’re uncomfortable with. Whatever your leap of faith is, take it. It will bring you to a better understanding of yourself and the personal power you possess.