One of the things that was most fabulous, but also very difficult for me when I spoke to Barbara Sher was saying, “No, I don’t want to go back to that,” when discussing whether or not my real wish had anything to do with my recent stint of comic book coloring and lettering. She’s clearly a tenacious woman, because she asked me twice. I felt exactly what she heard in my voice, resistance, as well as a little bit of fear. But I knew that this person would understand, so I stood my ground, and we came around to a better idea.

I think Scanners learn to hide their Scanning, or at least mask it from the non-Scanners in our world. I haven’t told very many people that I’m done with comic book work, at least for now, because they wouldn’t understand.

But that creates a boundary.

Suddenly you’re hiding things from people you care about. Because THEY WON’T UNDERSTAND.

I’m pretty sure I did that all *7* times I changed my major in college. And every little small business I started and stopped. And every hobby, interest and passion that I discovered, mastered and then put to rest.

It’s not easy to tell people about it. To most people, trying something, being good at it, learning about it, doing it for a while, and even getting paid to do it means this is WHAT YOU DO. They don’t understand that I’m done doing that now. It’s just who I am. But I’m not that strong, so I hide it.

Then someone comes along who finds out. An old boyfriend asked me about the comics work, which was something I discovered because he was into it. I tiptoed around it, tried to soften the statement but it still had to be said – nope, not doing that anymore. He seemed genuinely offended that I would move on to something else! His response was biting, and it still stings to think about.

WHO AM I to do something that doesn’t fit someone else’s idea of what I should do? How dare I WASTE MY TALENT? What could I be thinking?

Well you know what? This is NOT the only thing I’m talented at. I want to learn something new. I’m not looking for a new career, I have my good-enough job for now and that’s good enough. I want to experiment and try new things. It’s crazy, I know.

But it’s who I am. I’m a Scanner.

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Yesterday, I Skype’d with BARBARA SHER. No, really.

Do you know who that is? I do. She’s an author with an amazing gift for telling it like it is. No spin, no hype, no buzzwords. Just the truth. Her “About” statement on Facebook says – It is her mission to save as many geniuses as she can before she leaves this planet. I can’t tell you how honored I felt to be on her “worth saving” list.

I’ve been reading Barbara’s books for years now. I’m not rich and famous, but I truly believe that she has been the voice of reason for me, the voice that kept me truly GROUNDED through some mighty hard times. I always felt like Barbara really “got” me. And for a woman who has always felt a little out-of-the-norm, that’s a big thing.

So when the opportunity came up to do a Dreamfinder session with her, I jumped at the chance and immediately signed up. How fortunate that I happened to catch her message right away. I signed up, and then had a wave of panic and nausea.

What had I done?

Suddenly I knew. I was going to have to tell BARBARA SHER my dreams and she was going to tell me what she thought about them!

(Is the all-caps too much? You’re supposed to hear that like a big, echoing, EPIC tone, like God himself is saying it!!)

I said to Frank, “What have I done? I’m terrified to talk to Barbara Sher! And I don’t like to talk on the phone! Eek!”

(Yes, I pretty much sound like that in real life.)

He just looked at me calmly and said, “She’s just a person. She’ll think you’re awesome. Because you’re awesome.” Aw.

I hustled up and figured out how to use Skype, and tried not to think of it as a phone. Because if you didn’t catch the intensity of that before, I’m consistently afraid and occasionally terrified to talk on the phone. But that’s for a different blog post. I made a test call with my daughter, Maggie, who was a little bewildered by all this. “And what is this about again?” she asked. I tried to explain but it came out a little scattered. I decided to wait until after the call to try to explain it to anyone else.

I didn’t have any idea what to expect.

I watched the Facebook comments to see what others were saying, and it was positive, but not tremendously insightful as to what would happen when I called her. I wrote down a whole bunch of stuff about myself on a legal pad in case she asked, and I forgot WHO I AM. Wow, do I sound crazy or what?

I’m not crazy, I’m a scanner.

What is a scanner you say? Basically a person with many interests, who likes to learn new things and who doesn’t focus on one thing in their life. I’ll talk more about me as a scanner in later posts, but in this case it matters because as a scanner, it’s sometimes hard to define WHO I AM. And I really wanted Barbara to know who I am, in a short time.

When I got on Skype with Barbara, she immediately made me feel comfortable. She’s a lovely, gracious woman who I believe really wanted to help me. Wanted to help me HELP MYSELF, I think. I hemmed and hawed a little around some things then I got to the point, that I wanted to write.

I told her how in the last couple years I’ve done some healing. How I want to help people somehow like she does. But that I was afraid.

She gave me some logistical advise, very valuable. But somehow, even though I didn’t say it, she managed to find the heart of the matter. She picked up on my fear that I was not ORIGINAL.

I didn’t even realize I was worried about this. But afterwards I kept thinking about it.

She told me that I needed to tell the absolute truth. The absolute truth, MY absolute truth, would be what guaranteed my originality.

She told me that she could tell I needed to tell my story. And I tear up thinking about it now, just like I did on the phone. She told me I needed to write for the little girl inside me.

Those words were the heart of the matter.

We went on, discussed some actionable ideas on how to get there, and our 20 minutes were past being up. She said to me, “One last thing…your voice changed, when we talked about writing for the little girl.”

“I know.” I said. Because at that moment it was the most obvious thing in the world. She’d found something that I hadn’t been able to find, but once she pointed it out to me, it was crystal clear.

I thanked her and we said our goodbyes. Everything had changed.

I look forward to sharing my story.

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