Once you’ve won the battle with your Storm that frees you from your past, you allow yourself to uncover your passions, build and unleash your superpowers and find joy in YOUR life!

Ned Lips – Author

Listen and watch, including my interview with Antwoinette Ayers, Founder and CEO of Visual Movements, on my YouTube channel, Resetting Your Life, http://bit.ly/NedLipsAuthorYouTubeChannel or listen wherever you get your podcasts by searching Ned Lips. I’m the only one.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about escaping your past. If you’ve missed it, go back. It’s the foundation. If you don’t truly free yourself, you cannot move forward.

Once you realize that you are freed of your own demons, fears, anger and guilt, there is a sense of release, of momentary joy. This is the beginning of the process of finding your passions and harnessing your superpowers. You likely have not forgiven yourself yet for your past, but you now know that you can and will in time, and that releases you to find your path in life. Sarah battles the living Storm in Reset. The Storm uses her own past, fears and trauma to break her. She uses her strengths and love to win. From that battle, she finds that she has new spiritual superpowers, based in nature, though she has no idea how to use them yet. When the Storm battle is won, she revels in the victory. This is from Rest pages 17.

“The energy of the battle she had won settled inside her, releasing joy, ecstasy and even an encompassing physical bliss that reached to every cell in her body like nothing she’d ever felt. Joy beyond joy. The spirits of the animals danced with her soul. They were hers.”

Reset page 17

So now what? I’m free of my past. I talked to people and spilled my guts, cried and let my baggage flow out into the universe, at least to the point where I know it does not dictate my future. I’m connected to my concept of God by listening to my heart of hearts, my soul, that voice that is always right. I no longer ignore it, and I do what it asks, as close to always and as often as my human self will let me. I do what I know is truly right for me, no matter what anyone else says.

So, passions. What the heck are those? We’ll spend the next couple of podcasts on this subject, because it can be a difficult step for many. We like to do many things. How do I know what I’m deeply passionate about?

The first piece of advice I’ve always given is to be real with yourself. Sarah finally gets real with herself in Entwined. A bit different sort of passion, but the same revelation.

“No one tricking you or me into love. Our souls are intertwined so tightly that we almost feel like one.” He tilted her chin up and gazed deeply into her eyes. “At least, I feel that way.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she melted into him and sighed. “I do. I do feel that way. I need to trust it’s right this time. I’ve put a lot of trust into things that turned out to be horrible lies in my life.” As he wiped the tears from her cheeks, she beamed, staring into those bright blue eyes, and said with more conviction than she’d ever said it, “I love you, Tom. I do.”

“I love you too, Sarah.”

Entwined page 135

Some people know what they’re passionate about. They’ve known for years, and probably their entire lives. They’ve never pursued that passion, other than in hobby form, because, well, that’s just crazy. I’ve known I wanted to write stories, novels, forever, but who in their right mind banks on that for a career? I wanted a family and the women I was involved with wanted stuff. I’ve never wanted stuff and give no value whatsoever to money, but that’s not how the world works.

I get that. Get a journal. Seriously, get yourself a notebook. It can be on your phone or tablet or on paper. Whatever works for you. Listen to yourself in life and write things down. What do I love? What do I dislike? Short, quick. Jot them down.

I like to walk in the part on a nice warm day. I hate to get my feet wet and I don’t much like ducks. I hate spiders and rainy days and cold weather. By the end of this you realize that working outside might not be in the cards for you.

Hopefully you’re doing this while your life is “good enough” so that you have time. If not, and you’re in an emergency situation, well, this weekly podcast might not be for you.

Ask yourself this question, “When you have complete control of your life, and are not totally exhausted from it, what do you do? What would you do if you could do anything?”

Try not to answer, retire to a beach and veg out, because while a nice thing for a vacation, that get’s old for anyone. Ask your spouse, best friend forever, closest sibling, mother. Get their opinions on you. They might be right, but you’d be surprised by how well they know the real you. They hear what you jabber on about for no reason. They know what you always want to do even though they hate it. They know where you lead conversations to, the movies you like, the type of people you date, the places you like to visit on vacation, and the like. Ask them and listen. Listen for truths that ring through to you.

When you’re alone and working on yourself, ask, “What sort of things do I do as hobbies and interests?” “What movies, TV shows or whatever to you watch?” Write all this stuff down.

Then look at the important things you do or have to do in your life.

“What aspects of your current job to you love?” “What do you like?” “What aspects do you hate or just dislike?” Make a list. Seriously, list all the things in your current job that you do, then rate them 1 being horrible and 5 being amazing. Be specific, but this will come. Don’t write, “meetings” if there are some you like and others you hate. That difference could be important.

Do this with past jobs. Do this as to your home life.

Once the lists are completed, look for similarities.

My Life

When I decided my passion was to become a novelist, I, like you, was unsure. I did all that journaling stuff and decided to give it a go. So, I tested out my theory. At first, I attended a Writer’s MeetUp. Then a Publishers meeting. A writer’s convention was followed by a Writers Guild meeting. Then I babbled a story out in well over 200,000 words, which is over 500 pages. It was the very early stages of the Reset series.

I met an editor at one of these meetings. He helped me with that monstrosity. I listened to veteran writers speak and talk, and refined my craft. I read others’ work and refined mine more. I met a female editor at another group and asked her to help me. She was wonderful. I was writing from a female’s perspective, so authenticating that was critical.

Numerous others read various versions of Reset and gave me feedback, which I used to edit it further. Finally, I hired my editor, Karen Tucker, who I met at another event. She was wonderful in helping me get my work to its final form. Beholden to all, the main point was that I listened to my heart, went to the right meetings, met the people I needed to meet and followed the guidance provided to me.

I believe that this path was provided for me to follow. I needed only to actually follow it. That part is on me. When I took those first steps, I found more and more joy in my life. I so love where I am today, and I can feel it only getting better.