Welcome!

Welcome to "Qi Fulfillment." The closest we come to the meaning of qi is life force or energy. I believe each of us strives for fulfillment, and the only way to find it is to feed our souls and make the most of our gifts and strengths. As women, we have unique challenges simply because we are female in a male dominated world. Our relative value is constantly challenged to the point that we begin to believe our physical appearance, no matter how beautiful, is never good enough, always wasting our exceptional mental energy on trivialities instead of embracing the life journey we've been given.

Everyone is born for a reason, and many of us spend our lives searching for that reason or purpose. Our ability or inability to accept who we are and take responsibility for our own becoming determines how we live, how we raise our children, and whether we fulfill God's purpose for our lives. We may not be able to articulate it as children, but the moment we start to observe the world around us, we wonder "What about me? How do I make my mark here? Well, that's the main subject of this blog.

I'm Dawn, and I'm a life coach/educational consultant. I spent years working long hours, making just enough money to keep up (sometimes), getting married and divorced, going to school, even completing all but my dissertation in a Ph.D. program, wearing the many hats we wear, always pursuing a better, happier life. Like many are taught, I was working for the future. You know the old saying, "work now, play later." I thought I'd have time later to do all the fun things I was putting off.

In June, 2005, my life changed, and any illusions I had about living for the future crashed and burned. I was diagnosed with kidney failure and started home-dialysis approximately two weeks later. As soon as I got off the phone with my doctor, I called my mother. She said, "Well, we're not going to cry about it." I still remember my response to her when she gave me the traditional diva-queen calmness -  "Well I am crying 'cause it's happening to me!"

I can laugh about it now, but the grieving process started then and nearly overtook my life for a long time. In that instant, I realized that I couldn't depend on the future I'd always dreamed about. No matter how hard I worked, my life would not be the picture-perfect existence I'd foreseen. Many things I'd planned to do when I no longer had to work so hard were no longer viable options or expectations, so in a sense, I was grieving over the loss of the life I'd planned.

What I've learned since my journey took such a sharp turn is that it's still my journey, but God's plan. Often, we don't have control over what is thrown into our lives, good or bad, but how we handle it is what makes us unique - what we do with whatever we've been given. So, how will you make your mark here? How will you be remembered?

As a life coach and educator, my focus is to make my life and the life of everyone around me the best it can be - to make the most of what we've been given, and to live life as fully as possible. Growing up, I always heard older people say "just makes my soul glad!" Now, I understand what they were talking about. We strive for certain things, mostly inanimate, to make our souls glad, but reveling in our unique journey offers the happy, fulfilling life.

I hope you'll join me on this journey that actually begins before conception. Nurtured by proper love, spiritual guidance, education, character development, and acceptance, we thrive. My goal is to help others achieve these qualities en masse, from pre-conception onward and upward. How will you fulfill God's plan for your life?