The Power of Designing the Career You Want
Since 2018, I’ve been studying the art and practice of Homeopathy. When I embarked upon this journey nearly four years ago, my eyes were wide with curiosity and my soul hungry to learn about this mystical medicine that had transformed my own health. I craved depth in my career and didn’t feel like I could find it anywhere I looked. I had dipped my toes into a few different career paths but didn’t feel like anything had deeply resonated with me.
About two years into my homeopathic training journey, I found myself amidst a pandemic, stuck at home in the middle of the winter, and working a couple different self-employed jobs to get myself through school. I had just started clinic and was focused on planting the seeds of building my practice but I found myself in need of a creative outlet. I have always been creative – a writer, and a closet artist – and because I was craving another form of self-expression, in the early months of 2021, I dusted off my watercolor easel and got out my brushes, and for the first time in nearly 10 years, I started to paint again.
My hobby unexpectedly took off. I started sharing my work on social media and much to my surprise, I had interested buyers. I kept going, continued to paint, improved my craft through much dedication, and within a year I had gone from hobbyist to an artist with a full-blown business, online shop and everything. I was able to leave one of my part-time jobs that had become disenchanting and since then have been living off my art.
This is also where the plot-twist comes in…
As I continued to paint and my art business became more successful, I became increasingly worried about what was going to happen with my career as a homeopath. Being an artist full-time and running a business is quite energy-consuming and after a year of this, I couldn’t see how the two would ever fit together.
For almost a year, I was completely undecided on what I was going to do. I was agonizing over trying to make a decision but nothing felt right. I couldn’t leave school. There was this deep part of me that loved homeopathy so much. I saw how it was changing the lives of my patients, and knew innately how much it had changed me. Homeopathy kept me tethered to Source, it had helped me heal on the deepest level, and I still had this desire to witness it changing the lives of others that came into my field.
After some time, multiple breakdowns, and a lot of journaling, I began to realize that this time in my life wasn’t actually about making a choice. Rather, it was about me allowing myself to believe that I could have both things. That both of these things were for me. I could express myself creatively and be successful, AND I could be a channel for the art of homeopathy. What I realized needed to change was my mindset. I had this attachment to keeping things constant – this belief that I had to drive myself equally toward both careers. That’s what was scaring me.
This is where nature became my greatest teacher. In nature, we see nothing is ever constant. We witness this through the phases of the moon, in the ebbing and flowing of tides, in our seasons. I began to let myself believe that there will be times where my homeopathic career expands and my art business contracts. Times where I blossom and grow as an artist and maybe in my practice see less clients for a while. There will be a time for abundance and a time for rest. When I was able to find peace in this, I was also able to see the beauty in the flexibility of both. I had this exhilarating epiphany that I have the power to design my own life, that I am the orchestrator of my own seasons, that life is an ebb and flow of both creation and surrender.
The lesson I learned is this: that I have both the power to create my own reality and the ability to allow things to be as they need to be. I now also possess the wisdom of knowing nothing is ever constant. It’s also a reminder to any of you starting your own practice that it can look and feel however it needs to, that you get to design it to fit your life, your passions and your goals. Within you lies the ability to flow, shift, and find joy in every season.
Hi, I’m Katie!
I’m a student practitioner in my last year of training at the Prometheus Homeopathic Institute. I also run our website and manage social media and marketing for PHI.
You can learn more about my practices as a homeopath and as an artist at the links below!