Your Spiritual Call is Lifelong Part 2: Early Adulthood

Jul 10

As noted in Part 1 of this article, we often view our spiritual calling as a onetime life event. Unfortunately, this approach to your spiritual call is very limiting because you mature physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually over your lifetime. For this reason, a onetime, one size fits all approach to calling does not work for individuals. Instead, you need to approach your spiritual calling is a flexible manner that allows you to adjust your calling as you grow and develop overtime.

Viewing a spiritual call as a lifelong, unfolding process is perhaps one of the healthiest approaches to spiritual calling. You're no longer locked into one path and one purpose. God uses your talents, gifts, and abilities in new and flexible ways. This flexibility responds to the needs of an ever-changing world.

One of the best ways of exploring your spiritual calling is to explore the tasks we accomplish at various life stages. These stages include early childhood, later childhood, adolescent, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and later life (Erikson, 1950; Zastrow & Kirst Ashman, 2010). Each of these developmental stages have their own unique opportunities and challenges to form you spiritually.

Part 1 of this article focused on your experiences in early childhood through adolescents and how early life experiences provide guidance to your spiritual calling. This article will focus on how your spiritual calling changes and grows with you as you develop into early adulthood.

Title: Gallery Forest (1), Author: Nicholas A. Tonelli, Source: Flickr is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Your Spiritual Calling in Early Adulthood:

Because of the overemphasis of calling in relationship to career or vocation; you may become more focused with defining your calling during your 20s and 30s. There is social pressure in early adulthood to pick a college, a future career track, or form a family

During early adulthood, you focus on establishing your own social world beyond your mother, father, and siblings. You value relationships with others, both on the intimate and friendship levels. Picking a life partner, exploring the development of a family, or purposely remaining single are important choices during this stage of life.

Your twenties and thirties are also a time of firsts. You will rent your first apartment, your employed in your first serious job, and make active choices regarding what you want your future life to look like. You are the author of your life course for the first time. As a result, you become more focused on your calling.

For some, the fear of making wrong decisions about their future begins to creep into their thoughts. The "what if's "regarding the future plague your thoughts. What if you chose the wrong career? What if you choose the wrong romantic partner? What if you don’t finish your degree? These questions lead to feelings of dread leaving you feeling overwhelmed.

Managing the Fear of Pursuing Your Spiritual Call:

One of the most important things you can do is to stop focusing on fear. Not that you don’t acknowledge your fears. In fact, suppressing your fear will lead you to an increased sense of overwhelm. Instead, you need to view your fear as a teacher and coach. Your fear can be used a tool of change instead of an obstacle when it becomes your teacher.

Actively listing your fears on a piece of paper is the first step in clarifying your spiritual calling. Your fears cycle repetitively in the carousel of your mind, resulting in the inability to identify them, let alone address them. By listing out your fears, they become tangible rather than imaginary.

After listing your fears, think about each fear as either real or imagined. Real fears threaten your well-being (physical, emotional, social, spiritual, or financial) within the next year, five years, or 10 years. Real fears are measurable, predictable, and you can manage them by planning for them. Imaginary fears exist only in your mind. Unfortunately, our imaginary fears pose a greater risk to our spiritual calling then real fears.

An example of a real fear is running out of money for tuition as you plan to attend University. This is a real fear that poses a risk to your plans. This fear is measurable, in that you know the cost of tuition and your current resources. You can develop a plan to address any shortfall you have between your financial need and your resources.

The good news is you can plan for a fear that exists. Don’t let the fear stop you from pursuing your spiritual call. Instead, develop a plan. You become empowered by identifying and planning for the challenges associated with your fear. When you strategize a satisfactory plan to address a real fear; you will often find that power of that fear weakens.

Imaginary fears are much more subtle. They center on our own weaknesses, inaccurate beliefs about ourselves and our abilities, or are based on mistakes we have made in the past. Imaginary fears have no real existence; they exist simply in your thoughts and our feelings.

Imagined fear has no less impact on your calling. Remember, imaginary fears have no ability to harm you because they only exist within your thoughts and feelings. For this reason, you do not plan for imaginary fears, but treat them as a coach, teacher, and mentor.

Pretend your fear is a guide! It is there to teach you more about yourself, your relationships with others, and how you engage in the world. It might be important to journal about what your fear is here to teach you. It may also be helpful to talk about this fear with a trusted friend or counselor to objectively identify what it is there to teach you. Through using your fear as a guide and identifying the lesson it is teaching; your fear will slowly fade away.

Pursuing Your Spiritual Calling with Love and Compassion:

Once you have listed your fears and embraced them as a teacher; you are now ready to move into spiritual calling with love and compassion. When you experience fear in pursuing your spiritual calling, it is often because of an inability to have faith in a God that works everything into your good. Due to the presence of fear, you cannot see how the love of God and your love for others creates good. The antidote to fear is always love for yourself, others, and your calling.

Instead of allowing your fear to imagine the worst for you; allow love to dominate your thoughts about your future. Don’t imagine the worst-case scenario, instead sit quietly, and imagine all the positive outcomes. Think in the possibilities of love versus the limitations of fear. Please know this won’t come naturally to you; especially if you have lived a fear-based life. Yet, the more you engage your belief in a loving God who seeks your highest good; your thoughts on limitations and risks will become less important.

Your imagination and thoughts have the power of creation. You will either create a vibrant and loving path with your thoughts or you will allow fear to dictate a dark future. When confronting fears regarding your spiritual calling, get off the negative thought carousel and actively imagine a blessed future. Look at how you heal others through your spiritual work.

Spiritual Calling in Early Adulthood Example: Aaron

Aaron was a 24-year-old who had recently graduated from college with a degree in business administration. While attending college, Aaron had met his girlfriend, Lisa, and they got married shortly after graduation. Aaron and Lisa agreed that they both desired to have children; however, they felt torn as Lisa wanted to pursue her career in marketing and staying home with a new baby would be a detriment to Lisa’s career path.

Aaron enjoyed working but felt called to a more active role with children. He enjoyed mentoring children as an assistant coach on a little league team while in high school. Aaron also worked at the college day care center to earn extra income during summer breaks. After much discussion and determining Lisa’s job paid more, they decided Aaron would stay at home with the new baby when it arrived.

Aaron was initially ecstatic about the decision, but over time, fears settled. He worried about wasting his education by working as a stay-at-home dad. He also feared not going directly to work would hinder his career when he desired to return to the workforce. While Aaron was emotionally secure, he dreaded how others perceived him for being “Mr. Mom.”

The fears Aaron experienced magnified in his thoughts, and he became more fearful of his future. He felt like a failure as he imagined job interviewers criticizing him for have “no real-world experience”. He questioned his ability to care for a new infant. His fears evolved into depression and eventually despair.

One day, Aaron took a personal spiritual retreat to a nearby forested park to clear his thoughts. He identified his fears and realized his fear about caring for an infant was a real fear. To prepare for their new baby, he developed a plan to take parent education courses regarding caring for a newborn infant.

While listing his fears regarding work, Aaron noted that his fears about future employment opportunities posed no immediate threat; the criticism and negative perception of others was all in his mind. He started imagining positive ways he could stay up on trends in his field while caring for his new infant. In addition, he explored the ideal of part-time self-employment and owning his own business. He envisioned himself as a positive father, husband, as well as an entrepreneur.

Activity: Managing Fear in Your Spiritual Calling

By: Heath B. Walters, Ph.D.

Reference

Erikson, E.H. (1950). Childhood & Society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

Zastrow, C.H. & Kirst-Ashman, K. (2010). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole-Cengage Learning.

***Case Study Disclaimer***

The case studies are purely fictional and do not reflect the experiences of any known person to the author. Any similarities between the case studies and your own life experiences are purely coincidental.

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