Puzzle Pieces

Have you ever done a puzzle, picked up a puzzle piece and toyed around trying to figure out where it goes for what seems like forever only to set it down until later when its place suddenly reveals itself?

Considering I love doing puzzles, this happens all the time. Not just in physical puzzles, but in the puzzle pieces that come together in my life. Sometimes it's people, other times it is things, websites, names, information...

Most recently it has been knowledge learned from the last four years. When I completed my teaching degree I came home and decided to take the opposite path of most of the people I had gone to school with...although I tried to get a teaching position, I was also trying to make a go of something different that involved helping kids without being in a school. I had ideas galore...puzzle pieces in abundance, but no framework in which to put them. I didn't know this then, but looking back I can see clearly I was just trying to fit it into something so I could build a bigger picture!

Once I finally surrendered to the brick wall I kept hitting, I just allowed myself to take in as much information as I could knowing that it would serve me at some point when I needed it. The other thing I did was I kept mental note of the things that resonated most with me, the areas in which I put a lot of attention and the things that seemed simple enough to execute quickly and inexpensively. For 3 of those 4 years I struggled to figure out my place in the world, who I was, what I stood for and how I could be of service, but I failed to acknowledge that those puzzle pieces already existed in my life, but I had chosen not to look at them. I gradually started reintegrating some of those elements of myself, those puzzle pieces and quickly the puzzle began to grow and become clearer, as did my own confidence, clarity and personal power. These were the internal puzzle pieces. The external puzzle pieces were the topics like internet marketing, training, writing that created a framework for my inner puzzle to attach to when the right pieces were in place.

Lately I have been looking back to those framework pieces that I knew I would need at some point and I am realizing just how many resources I have to make my dreams a reality. And I am also realizing that I can take exactly what I feel would work for me, implement it and adjust as I go because I know that some things are going to work swimmingly while others may not...then again, being this patient and conscious of the information I have taken in, maybe it will all work out swimmingly for me :)

Either way I can see that I have rediscovered some puzzle pieces that now have a place in my life and I am super excited about figuring out exactly where they fit and how they might contribute to the bigger picture!