Reflecting on the Yellow Brick Road

Reflections By Linda Sechrist

Over the past few months, I’ve revisited numerous articles that I’ve written for Natural Awakenings, a healthy lifestyle magazine. Yes, over the last 22 years, I saved all 264 issues, finally getting around to looking back on a little more than a quarter of a century of my life—at last throwing out the clutter. It’s been a sort of life review. What I’ve been most grateful for in the process is that it required me to reflect on the lessons I learned from reading, interviewing and listening to people who shared their stories. Whether it was national luminaries whose books had greatly influenced my life, such as Julia Cameron (The Artist’s Way), Jean Shinoda Bolen (Crossing to Avalon), Lynn McTaggart (The Field/The Power of 8), Jean Houston, Gregg Braden, Bruce Lipton, Deepak Chopra and the many others that I’d sometimes shared deeply interesting conversations.

A good example of how my life was impacted is that several years after reading The Artist’s Way, a friend, who was studying to be a life coach, invited me and another friend to join her once a week to complete the 12-week program outlined in the book. During weekly discussions around the kitchen table, we talked about what we had learned about ourselves and our creative potential in the writing of our mandatory 3-daily pages of stream-of-consciousness Morning Pages, written in longhand. We followed the weekly themes, completed the exercises and answered the prompts provided. We were serious about committing to exploring our inner lives. I’m glad we did as I would not be where I am today.

My outcome: I wanted to be a journalist. It felt more like wishful thinking. I was 55 years old and the only class I’d ever had on the subject was in 12^th grade. However, I intuitively knew that I was born with a knack for writing. Less than 6 months after our final meeting I had my first opportunity to write an article for a local magazine. My lesson was not only about the power of intention, but also about how synchronicity would later play a significant part in my life.

The years that followed presented many opportunities to write— Concierge’s Image, Holistica Magazine, Sulk Whelan Public Relations, Home & Design and finally Natural Awakenings. I was fortunate to learn about consciousness from the books I read, the people I interviewed, such as Byron Katie (Loving What Is), Peter Russell (Letting Go of Nothing: Relax Your Mind and Discover The Wonder of Your True Nature) and the articles I wrote. I needed to translate them into words that a 6^th-7^th grade readers could grasp and understand. Over 50% of Americans read below a 6^th grade level. I learned as much, if not more, from the necessity of brevity as well as using metaphors and simple words without complicated language.

My education on Consciousness followed the same pattern that author Lynn McTaggart did. The author of The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe did research and interviewed experts on the subject and then wrote books. I wrote articles.

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I landed in what felt like a magical place where I could satiate my curiosity about the things I was most interested in and curious about. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine what the Universe had in store for me when I followed the yellow brick road. I was afforded the chance to meet and interview spiritual teachers, live within walking distance of an ashram and learn from a guru, no longer merely intellectualizing, but grokking the things I had been reading about for years. I learned the philosophy behind yoga by enrolling in a course for yoga teachers and became certified in yoga nidra.

Reflecting gave me the chance to recognize that one of my greatest joys was to tell Julia Cameron, Jean Shinoda Bolen and Jean Houston, during our phone conversations, how they had changed my life. And, now in this chapter of my life, I’m learning even more about consciousness from books such as Consciousness Is All There Is: How Understanding and Experiencing Consciousness will Transform Your Life.

As Deepak Chopra writes, “When Awareness shifts, your path quietly reorganizes and as awareness expands, outer shifts tend to follow inner clarity.” I didn’t have to force change. Quieter opportunities presented themselves as consciousness awakened and was elevated. It led me to the decision to collaborate in founding this website with Carol, Bob and Douglas, who have been pursuing the same goal. And, for that, I am eternally grateful.