Eight years ago, I was despondent. My work was slipping away, my income was abysmal, my opinion of leadership in my city that I cared so much about turned despairing. Every hope I had for my career and community turned against me. It felt like I wasn’t wanted for any help I could give. I stopped calling people and took a long time to call people back. The whole area around my heart ached. I didn’t know if time was dragging or stopped. I was cold all the time. It got so I could hardly lift my arms or pick up my feet when I walked. I didn’t want to walk anyway.

The only thing I could get interested in at the time was researching my mother’s father’s family. My grandfather was missing my mother’s whole life and she searched hard for him for many years, never getting answers. When I started searching, the genealogy expert at the library cautioned me that it takes a lot of time and patience to find ancestors and sometimes you never do find them. It only took 20 minutes.

From the librarian, I learned how to research online, how to evaluate sites, and I got a lot more help along the way. I found a historian, Sheila, of the hamlet my grandfather’s family had lived in and she sent pages and pages of news articles, pictures, documents, and sources.

I sat at the kitchen table in a sunny window reading everything Sheila emailed. When I read the obituary of my Great Grandmother, my mother was included as one of her survivors. Tears welled up at knowing my mother’s grandmother knew she existed and cared. She wasn’t missing completely even though they had absolutely no relationship. My mother counted and was counted. Then, I clearly heard my Great Grandmother say sweetly into my left ear, "Oh, it's so good to meet you!" with a sigh like she'd been waiting to connect for a long time. (I can’t tell you how this works. I’m only sharing my experience.)

With that dear-to-my-heart experience, I wanted to connect even more. I went to western NY to meet Sheila, visit the village where the family had lived and worked and danced. I found out something bad had happened to my mother’s father that damaged him. I also found out my Great Grandfather was an entrepreneur, starting three businesses and hiring lots of people, helping to bring prosperity into his community. For the first time ever, I felt like I belonged in my family because I, too, have started companies and work to help thousands of people get hired, helping to bring more prosperity into my Cleveland community.

I visited the cemetery where they are all buried three times. I made a grave rubbing with graphite on fabric interfacing of my Great grandparents’ tombstone. The expression ‘tearing myself away’ was invented for the struggle I went through to leave that place.

Shortly after I got home, I got the idea for The Job Search Center, joined a course for building businesses with other people, and began a new company once more, making new friends and engaging with people again.

The Blessing of the Father

The Blessing of the Father is You Are Worthy – to be part of this family, part of the world, and part of a profession your biological or adoptive father is proud of. For a man the blessing comes when he knows his father is proud of him. For a woman, it comes when the father takes action for her protection. In both cases, it’s not just about safety, it’s showing their worthiness.

My mother didn’t get The Blessing of her Father. He was in a different state, hundreds of miles away, as she was growing up. They didn’t see each other and there was no communication.

If we receive The Blessing of the Father, we base our choices on an important assumption: That we are worthy. This knowing is already in us, but may need uncovering – that’s why these types of blessings are so important. If you receive them, you know you are good, because you are worthy. This is an essential part of knowing you are needed in the world, that there is purpose to your existence.

For my mother’s whole life, the fact that her father was missing was blamed for everything wrong that ever happened in her life. No exaggeration. When I researched my mother’s family, I found that my mother’s mother had withheld a lot of information, including that she is the one who left. When I went to the community in NY where my grandfather and his family lived, I got part of my mother’s blessing – You are worthy. I felt affection. This is not an example of my receiving the Blessing of the Father directly – that would come from my father’s side. But in this case, I did get the sense of belonging on my mother’s side to a good family, of worthiness, that my mother wasn’t given.

Once I had these feelings of connecting, felt the blessing, I changed. My work, and the number of my friends and memberships grew. I made a new rule: I only spend time with people who like me and are nice to me. (A better rule is, I only spend time with people who like me and are nice to people because that's whom I'm engaging with.) And I became more creative - freed up - generating a lot more material and offering new workshops. My coaching changed, including saying more of what I was seeing. And clients loved it!

If you're seeking a blessing, you want to connect to where it's hiding. That's the issue; it's not missing - it's hiding in your family history. You need to feel your grief. In my case, in connecting to my maternal Grandfather’s family I felt belonging for the first time. I had not received this blessing from my mother, because she didn’t get the blessing from her father in her lifetime. But once I stood on the ground where they lived and worked and are now buried, in a way my mother got her blessing that she is worthy, because she has children who are blessed.

Magically, now I feel much more satisfied with my community, have more intimacy with my friends, am expanding work with other people, and connections to people in our community who want what I am contributing. That sure feels like a great blessing.