When Everything Changes...Change Everything

This is the book I'm reading right now, and its funny that it was given to me, because this has always been a personality trait of mine. I'm a newness freak, I've said it before, and I absolutely love the notion of reinvention. It is, in itself, the essence of being human; the ability to be whatever it is you can imagine yourself to be. The best part is whenever you need to be something different, you can switch up - just by changing your mindset. The author, Neale Donald Walsch, has 9 steps that a person should follow in order to 'change everything' as a response to devastating life changes. They are:

1. Change your decision to "Go it alone".
2. Change your choice of emotions.
3. Change your choice of thoughts.
4. Change your choice of truths.
5. Change your idea about Change itself.
6. Change your idea about why Change occurs.
7. Change your idea about future Change.
8. Change your idea about life.
9. Change your identity.

Now, personally my newness addiction has me going straight for the last part, changing my identity. I dont necessarily not want to be the person I was before, however. I really just want to find out who I am - or better yet, who I will make the effort to be. Neale has the reader analyze who they were before the change, who they are during the change, and obviously, decide who they want to be after. This is the part that is the most pressing to me.

I know who I was before I got married and had kids. I know that being married made me feel secure and happy, and fulfilled as far as I knew. I remember being worried, however, that my purpose was not being filled, and that there was more to me than being a mom and a wife. I began to chase it, and just as quickly as the success came, thats how quickly it died when he died. Now the person I am feels like a blank slate. I have things under my belt that help, giving me more tools to create on my slate than I ever had before. Maybe before, when I had no writing experience, never did a thing on my own, no ambition to get out into the world and take what is mine, maybe I had only crayons.

Now, with published articles, a novel underway, the patience to wait for a renter for my first home ( that I own, dammit! lol), the slow growth of what it takes to be a single parent, and a growing ambition to get out of my parents house and purchase my 2nd home... I feel like maybe I have a whole art studio to work with, on this blank slate of mine. What I want to create on it... that is the question I'm still formulating an answer for. Here are the certainties:

I'm certain I want to be a professional writer.
I'm certain I will finish and publish this book, and more.
I'm certain I will be the best mom I can be, if I have to be the role model I seek, then so be it.
I'm certain I'm afraid to fail, but I'm also certain that my fear doesn't matter. It will be there regardless, if I win, I'll still be afraid to fail when I try again; if I never try the fear just grows. I may as well go for what I want, fear and all.
I'm certain I have a purpose, and that I'm special, and that God wouldnt do all this for no reason. So I'm going to give it what I've got.

So now, with my blank slate, these certainties are parts of the picture I want to paint on it. I have all the tools I need... I still dont know what this is a picture OF.. but I'm hoping that painting the peices will help me figure it out.

What is your picture of? What's on your slate?