My phone conversation this morning with Yong-Il, my journalist brother in NYC, revolved around our mother.  We often talk about her in ways that only siblings can:  we both know about our mothers’ warts, we both know she loves us in her own way, and we love her, too, although we may not always walk the path that she wants us to be on.

Yong-Il said: “I talked with mom yesterday.  She sounds happy because you’re doing something that makes you happy. But she is worried. She asked, ‘How will Jung make money doing what she’s doing?’”

When I heard this from Yong-Il, I smiled because I immediately thought of how I was grappling with this very question a little over two months ago.  I heard my internal voice saying, “Mom, this decision to leave the corporate workforce and start my own thing didn’t happen overnight. I thought about it long and hard.”

The following is my journal entry dated August 26th:

Exactly two months before October 26, 2011!

Why is October 26, 2011 a significant date for me? It is the date that my intuition told me is my exit date from Microsoft. Now I say “Microsoft is MyCrownShift.” 

Depending on one’s vantage point, two months can be a long time, or … a very short time. Two months to be D.E.A.D. (Dragging Everything Already Done) day-in, day-out, can be a long time. But two months to get ready for a brand new venture into the unknown isn’t a very long time. In the grand scheme of things though, two months is a blink of an eye.

Perhaps because it feels like not enough time to get ready to jump off the cliff, I feel this new texture of energy creeping in. It isn’t nearly as buoyant, high-floating, and uplifting as the energy I experienced when I first saw a brand new horizon that made my heart jump with joy, optimism and freedom. Is this sticky, slimy, slippery feeling ambivalence, fear, insecurity, or the plain old strategic mind meddling with my heart’s desire to leap ahead for adventure, vitality and expansion of my soul? The heavy, dull, gray voice inside is bellowing:

1. How are you going to make money to pay the bills, mortgages and kids’ tuition?
2. How can you be so irresponsible as to quit a job that pays well, provides great healthcare benefits, retirement funds, and most of all a “guaranteed” bank deposit every two weeks like clockwork?
3. You’ve never run a business, let alone been an entrepreneur. What got in your head?
4. Listen to me (your head), not your heart—didn’t your mom tell you that long ago? What will she say?
5. Where is your business plan including revenue projections? What is your business model? How do you know it will make money?
6. What if all this is simply just a figment of your imagination?
7. What if you fail miserably?

I am very familiar, more than I’d like, with this whiney, nagging and annoying voice. However, I’m pleasantly surprised that its grip is no longer as tight as I’d felt it in the past.  The truth is that there is no going back. MyCrownShift isn’t a whim, an emotional outburst, a vague wish for the future as in “Someday I will…” or a fed-up quitting as in “I’ve had enough! I am going to take my marbles and go home!” I’ve been seeking and longing to live out my true inheritance for a very long time, at least two decades of my life. It is now time to honor my soul’s longing to reclaim my birthright to live as SoulCreateur—one who makes soul at work and weaves soul at home!

Most of all, for me it’s about living my values (Creativity, Humanity, Integrity and Authenticity) so that I can embody L.O.V.E. (Light, Oneness, Vitality and Expansion through Exploration, Experimentation and Experience) to receive Life’s gifts: Joy, Abundance and Gratitude.

This is what I know. Not what I think, not what I believe, not what I wish. This is what I Know in the depth of my soul: I am, and I reclaim my true inheritance of being: a free spirit, an artist, a creator, an adventurer, a poet-philosopher, and a visionary.

I hear my inner authority gently but firmly reassuring me that I am on my path, no one else’s; that I am supported and held in both visible and invisible hands; that all those hands have come to make a solid ground for me to step onto when I walk out the “MyCrownShift” door into the Great Unknown (also known as the “Great Unlimited Potential to Create”); that I will befriend the unknown and the unknown will befriend me for the rest of my life and beyond. I hear the gentle, firm and reassuring voice, “Have no fear, Authentic Jung! You have already done most of the heavy lifting and laid a solid foundation to launch your life’s works of art. Remember:

You are whole.

You are complete.

You are fully ready, trained and equipped to live life fully to your authentic pattern that is unique in the entire human history, past, present and future.”

Almost 20 years ago, I read a book by Marsha Sinetar, Do What You Love, The Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood. I remember thinking then “If only I knew what I love to do, what my passion is, what my dreams are made of, I’d do it no matter what!”  I now have the answers to what I truly wanted to know. It took me two decades to apprentice myself to myself to learn and claim my unique pattern as my true inheritance for this life. There is no more excuse. Quite the contrary, it is no longer an option for me to stay stagnant, stale, and sterile for the sake of security and safety. I can choose to either FLY or SOAR at the edge of my cliff in two months. Either way, I will be swimming in the sky, reaching for my star, in perfect company of my winged friends, and practicing my art of making and weaving soul, full-time, starting on October 26, 2011! Hummingbirds and hawks, here I come!

It’s been 2 months plus one week since I wrote this journal entry. I really didn’t know how it was all going to come together. When I wrote this, I hadn’t even let my employer know of my intention to leave the company by October 26th; neither Charles nor I had any idea of how (it would all unfold) or what (we’d be doing the day after October 26th)!  And here we are!  Experiencing JOY, ABUNDANCE, and GRATITUDE as we practice flying with our new-found wings. This is the place I had wanted to be,  and live in: a place of exquisite mystery, magic, and manifestation.

(Continue to Part 2 of 2: Conversation with Madam Secure Rita)