Finding Our Unique Playbook

I am writing this blog in Boquete, Panama where I am currently visiting my good friend, Lindsey Parry.

It has been an absolute pleasure to see the seed of an idea blossom into life.  Two and half years ago, Lindsey and I were volunteering as teachers in Guatemala, when she mentioned her personal dream of founding her own non-profit to help women and children in the developing world.  A little over one year ago, she arrived in Panama, hitting the ground running.  Today she is operating multiple projects under the umbrella of her non-profit, Sowing Seeds of Love.  She runs an education program with about 40 indigenous children, implemented and runs reading programs at the local orphanage, coordinates work projects at the local orphanage with incoming groups of volunteers, and is heading up an initiative to empower indigenous women through enhanced sewing skills.  Every day is full throttle, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.  She is fueled by God’s love and the plans that He has placed in her heart.

He has opened her eyes and heart to the needs that are around her and speaks to her through the desires of her heart.  With her, it is not simply about addressing the needs of the people that she helps; it is about showering them with more love then they may have ever known.  Like the kids that we worked with in Guatemala, the kids here have opened their hearts to her.  When she pulls up at the project in her old Jeep Cherokee (nicknamed Jeepito), the kids surround the driver’s side door, anxiously awaiting their opportunity to speak to their beloved teacher.  They quickly catch her up on anything she may have missed since they last saw each other and pepper her with new questions, yearning to deepen their relationship.

She was meant to be a mother figure to these kids.  She does anything within her reach to brighten their experience, whether it is loading 25 kids into a 15 passenger van and taking them to the park for monthly birthday celebrations (which always includes homemade cakes and juice), inviting them into her home to watch a movie and have a snack that she prepared, or making them lasagna because they have only see it in Garfield.  She is a soccer mom on steroids!

Getting ready to eat lasagna for the first time!

We each have a unique path that we were designed to follow, but it is still a matter of finding and aligning with that path.  Lindsey has found hers, and as a result, she lives in the center of God’s will for her.  She is only 26 years old, but she has known the desires of her heart for a long time.  That has not been my journey.  When I reflect on why my path was more winding, I can see that it is because I was not initially guided through a service attitude, whereas she was.  It was not until I placed an emphasis on compassion, kindness, and a greater love that my plan began to reveal itself.

Lindsey has been an important spiritual teacher to me in my journey.  I had the pleasure of being a witness to her life when we spent a year in Guatemala volunteering with children in an indigenous community.  I could see that I thought within the constraints of the volunteer program, whereas she did not.  Where my emphasis was on filling the role that the program had outlined, her emphasis was always focused on what more she could do to enhance the children’s experience.  She constantly came up with ideas that stretched the confines of the program and was unfortunately restricted in her ability to implement them.  She was never meant to operate within the constraints of an existing program; she was put here to run her own project, where she is free to move in the ways in which her heart leads her.

Our lives are not meant to be lived in accordance with someone else’s playbook.  We each have a unique playbook that houses the plans for our predetermined path, but we can’t get to it without opening ourselves to being moved by spirit.  In my experience, I have found that the best way to do this is to place the qualities of spirit (peace, love, joy, compassion, kindness, generosity, gratitude, forgiveness, acceptance, allowance, tolerance, faith and hope in a greater plan) as the primary focus in our awareness.  This serves to shift our focus from ego (selfishness) to spirit.  As the qualities of spirit become the predominant focus in our awareness, our consciousness is elevated.  Instead of seeing the world from the perspective of “I”, we begin to see it from a place of oneness.  The separation between “us and them” dissolves as compassion connects us to others.

Slowly, this transition in awareness began to open me to the plans that had been placed in my heart.  I began to see through eyes of love, instead of separation.  Even though the journey continues, an emphasis on spirit has allowed more divine love to flow through me as I work to stay aligned with where God is leading me.

This transition from ego to spirit is available to all of us and within this journey lies the greatest of plans…our unique playbook!

Much love to all,

Shanna

To find out more about Sowing Seeds of Love, please visit Lindsey’s website at www.sowingseedsoflove.org or “like” her page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sowingseedsoflove.