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Manifesting Life Purpose–The Dilemma of Wild Oat

Posted by admin on May 3, 2009

©2009 by Sheryl Karas, Maker of Mama Love Products

Certainly, you’ve heard the expression “to sow your wild oats.” Similar to the expression “to play the field,” it means to have your fun, try a lot of things (different relationships, different occupations), before it’s time to get serious and settle down. Wild oats grow everywhere! In good soil, sandy soil, clay soil. In dry or moist conditions. In shade or semi-shade. The only place it’s rare to find it is in bright sun at the top of a hill where it wouldn’t be at least partly shaded by the surrounding scene.

 At one time sowing your wild oats was considered a positive thing to do and was even encouraged… at least for young men. But those days have fallen by the wayside. First, it was deemed sexist to encourage young men to behave in such a manner and not women. And, second, encouraging women to sow their wild oats was so antithetical to what feels acceptable in this culture as to be sacrilegious! So the idea of sowing wild oats on purpose was left behind at least when it comes to thinking of it as a positive growth-filled phase of development. When a person is going through a Wild Oats period they don’t accomplish much, at least from society’s point of view.

wildoat-karasPeople who choose a more Wild Oat way sometimes wind up looking lost on the career track a lot. They try one thing, find it unsatisfactory for some reason or another, try something completely different. The problem with Wild Oat people is that we have too many different directions beckoning us to come hither.
On my blog masthead I describe myself as a “spiritual counselor, healer, organic flower essence aromatherapy perfume designer, artist and writer.” I’m sorry, there’s no one single compartment I can fit myself into. That pretty much sums up the Wild Oat person’s dilemma to the max! Imagine trying to find a regular paid job incorporating all that.

What’s great about the Wild Oat phase of development is that it allows a person enough experimentation and room for development to be able to either define more precisely what it is they really want to do OR it allows for the creation of something unique that combines what is learned from multiple fields of endeavor in one piece. In the Wild Oat phase of life you try one thing, discover what’s great about it and what isn’t, try something else and do it again, try another thing, etc. until you either give up on finding what you want outside yourself or find an institution that accepts your unique set of life experiences as exactly right.

It gives you breadth, an ability to think outside of the box, flexibility, and a great capacity to change direction according to what’s happening in the present. Adaptability is essential to success in a changing environment and our world is currently changing rapidly and without cease. But it’s easy to lose your focus, your overall sense of life purpose, your mission or essential identity, under conditions like that–especially if you don’t recognize your essence as unchanging despite the change in capacities you use as you grow.

Wild Oat is all about that.  Wild Oat is about finding yourself and recognizing your essential unique ability to contribute to the greater community we live in whether that’s in your family, your neighborhood, on the job or, perhaps, via the worldwide web.People who don’t choose a single compartment to fit themselves into and stay there for the rest of their lives are not very unusual.
We just don’t get much respect or support for the paths we find ourselves on unless we do these explorations on our time off while keeping a respectable day job doing something else. People who can maintain the energy for these explorations after a 40 hour work week, however, are VERY hard to find, especially if a partner and kids are in the picture. That’s why the Wild Oats existence used to be encouraged in one’s youth.

Today, when young people are taught they HAVE to pick a career and stick to it right away in order to succeed, there’s too much pressure to give up what is needed to find one’s way. And too much shame if what you want to do doesn’t create “success” according to parental or societal expectations. The energetic disconnect this situation can create  cannot be emphasized enough.

If people believe they won’t be allowed to follow their inner callings (or mustn’t allow themselves it), they can’t be their true Wild Oat selves. They hang their heads like the Wild Oat plant does — can you see that in my illustration? And they hide their inner light from the sun. Wild Oat is the key ingredient in my Manifesting Life Purpose flower essence aromatherapy perfume. It’s available through my Mama Love website or through my shop on Etsy.com.

ART CREDIT: Sheryl — herself an avowed Wild Oat type — is also the artist for the illustration used here.  For this and many other prints, she has an art and writing website at http://www.sherylkaras.com. She says, “That site is still under construction and the Wild Oat piece is not up but a person could contact me and I’d figure out how to make it available at a reasonable price.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: SHERYL KARAS has a Master’s Degree in Transpersonal Psychology and has explored a wide variety of healing techniques including Flower Essence Therapy, aromatherapy, herbal medicine and Master Level Reiki. She uses everything she knows in the creation of her healing perfume oils. You can buy some through her online shops at Mama Love Products.com, through Etsy, or http://www.mamaloveproducts.com. And all of the brick and mortar stores that carry her perfumes have it as well.  You’re also invited to visit her blog at http://healingcommunication.blogspot.com.

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