Teach Only Love

By Amanda Mossing

     I want to be a social worker. I want to contribute to enhancing the quality of life, one person at a time. I want to be a teacher to others, as well as the student to new experiences. I want to connect. I want to raise the vibration within others and myself by connecting with them. I want to love and to teach love. I have accepted this calling to help others, raise vibration, and to teach love by stepping in fully to the light of becoming a social worker.

     There was a time in my life, six and a half years ago, when I was a very unhappy and empty little girl. I sought happiness in all the wrong places: in drugs, alcohol, toxic relationships, my physical appearance, food, overworking my body, and many other things that were outside of myself. It all brought me pain, sadness, consequences, and, eventually, a messy bottom that broke me physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I had no choice, but to rise up from that place and climb up out of the deep hole that I had dug for myself in this search for happiness and love. As much as I did not want to admit it, I needed help climbing out of this hole.

     Admitting and accepting that I needed help were key parts to my healing. For so long, I tried helping myself, and it took me nowhere except further down. Finally, after digging long enough on my own, I was ready to ask for some help and guidance. I was ready for someone else to step in and do my thinking for me for a change. I was ready to let someone else take the wheel. I was ready to rebuild my self worth, which seemed to be broken and scattered in little pieces around me. I was ready to find myself. I was ready to know love.

     This is when the social workers, therapists, healers, and teachers of all different walks of life stepped in and intervened. They stood me up, brushed me off, and loved me until I could love myself. They helped me to create my own “tool belt” to cope with life on life's terms. They cheered me on and showed me how to believe in myself. They showed me how to build a foundation to grow a life upon. They linked me to the proper people, places, and things that I needed to get my life in order. They were role models for me for my relationships. They held me up and showed me how to live. Most importantly, they showed me how to connect to the love within myself. All I had to do was show up and say “yes” to what was being suggested to me. They encouraged me to recognize where my thinking was off and suggested new thought patterns that were productive, loving, and supportive to my healing.

     Little did I know that my journey to self-love, happiness, and a beautiful life would begin with those initial interactions that I had with those social workers. What is even more groovy is little did I know that I would enroll back in college, accept the social work calling for myself, and help others.

     The gratitude that fills my heart is so great for the social workers who ,took my hand at such a dark and scary place in my life. I want to be a social worker so that I can pass along this love that was given to me. I want to be that person who sparks the light of self love for another individual, guides them through rebuilding what they may perceive as broken, and believes in them until they learn how to believe in themselves. And although every person I come into contact with may not successfully follow through, I can still be available to plant the seed, cheer them on, and teach love.

     That is what I have found out I am here to do anyway - to teach only love.

Amanda Mossing will graduate in May 2014 with her Bachelor of Social Work degree from Florida Atlantic University. She is a proud social work student, kids' and adult yoga teacher, plant-based enthusiast, blogger for www.soulfeatherinspiration.com, and creator of the Soul Feather meet-up group in Palm Beach, Florida.