{"id":1504,"date":"2014-09-29T06:00:50","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T10:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=1504"},"modified":"2014-09-12T15:47:25","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T19:47:25","slug":"finding-the-way-home-to-my-self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html","title":{"rendered":"Finding the Way Home to My Self"},"content":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t any kind of special moment when it happened. It wasn\u2019t my birthday, for instance, or an anniversary of anything. It wasn\u2019t even a family reunion or a great community event. I was just sitting somewhere, gazing into space, doing nothing whatsoever of significance or importance or even of any particular kind of enjoyment. I was just sitting, on an ordinary day in the midst of the ordinary things of life, waiting for a friend to arrive. And then it happened. The gentlest sense of wholeness and down-deep satisfaction came over me that I have ever known. It enfolded me like a warm mist and calmed me to the core. Every ounce of taut energy so common to the demands of daily life in a technological society had been drained, it seemed. Only the feeling of being totally, quietly, completely alive remained. Then I realized what it was: I was happy. Happy. That\u2019s all. Just happy.<\/p>\n

It felt within me like the stillness of an inland lake. I looked back over all the open meadows and tangled underbrush of my life and knew in an instant, like the snap of a shutter on a digital camera, that whatever had been, it had been right. Where I had been born was right, how I had lived life had been right, even all its wrong parts had been right.<\/p>\n

But it has not always been thus. There were hollow, gaping times of uncertainty on the timeline of my life when the direction seemed wrong or the path it promised was at best a dull and dreary dead end. Those were not happy times. They were times that were productive, even successful by some standards, perhaps, but not happy.<\/p>\n

Later, still quietly touched by the experience, I read a line that made me pause. \u201cLife,\u201d the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote, \u201ccan only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.\u201d Clearly I had lived life forward long enough to understand how it is that we can get to feel such a moment of righteousness, to know such satisfaction, to come to such happiness.<\/p>\n

\u2013from <\/strong>Following the Path: The Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose and Joy<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Joan Chittister<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* ***
\nDonna Henes is the author of The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em>.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n

The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t any kind of special moment when it happened. It wasn\u2019t my birthday, for instance, or an anniversary of anything. It wasn\u2019t even a family reunion or a great community event. I was just sitting somewhere, gazing into space, doing nothing whatsoever of significance or importance or even of any particular kind of enjoyment.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,6,11],"tags":[410,13,96,68],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-self-esteem","category-spirituality","category-wisdom","tag-happiness","tag-holistic-living","tag-peace","tag-self-love"],"yoast_head":"\nFinding the Way Home to My Self - The Queen of My Self<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Finding the Way Home to My Self - The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It wasn\u2019t any kind of special moment when it happened. It wasn\u2019t my birthday, for instance, or an anniversary of anything. It wasn\u2019t even a family reunion or a great community event. I was just sitting somewhere, gazing into space, doing nothing whatsoever of significance or importance or even of any particular kind of enjoyment.…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-09-29T10:00:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-09-12T19:47:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Henes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Finding the Way Home to My Self - The Queen of My Self","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Finding the Way Home to My Self - The Queen of My Self","og_description":"It wasn\u2019t any kind of special moment when it happened. It wasn\u2019t my birthday, for instance, or an anniversary of anything. It wasn\u2019t even a family reunion or a great community event. I was just sitting somewhere, gazing into space, doing nothing whatsoever of significance or importance or even of any particular kind of enjoyment.…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html","og_site_name":"The Queen of My Self","article_published_time":"2014-09-29T10:00:50+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-09-12T19:47:25+00:00","author":"Donna Henes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html","name":"Finding the Way Home to My Self - The Queen of My Self","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-09-29T10:00:50+00:00","dateModified":"2014-09-12T19:47:25+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2014\/09\/finding-the-way-home-to-my-self.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Finding the Way Home to My Self"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/","name":"The Queen of My Self","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Henes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a","name":"Donna Henes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","caption":"Donna Henes"},"description":"Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, ritual expert, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/author\/dhenes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1505,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions\/1505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}