11 Signs That You’re a Lightworker and Writing Is Part of Your Calling
The first time someone called me a “lightworker,” I thought there must be some mistake.
Ninety percent of my wardrobe is black or grayscale. I have a cutting sense of humor that sometimes makes it difficult to know when I’m joking. I love horror movies, dark fiction of nearly any kind, and my music library is made up of depression songs and singers who yell a lot. Putting it bluntly, there has never been anyone more allergic to the new-age “love and light” blessing than me.
So when I found myself sitting cross-legged in my first women’s circle getting my third-eye opened (it was already pretty open) and my aura cleansed (hooo, that took longer than it should), the last thing I expected was to fall deeply in love with a worldwide circle of complete strangers who identify as Lightworkers.
But I did fall in love with them. And they weren’t strangers. Because being a Lightworker isn’t weird at all. Lightworkers are everywhere, I just never noticed them before.
What is a Lightworker?
A Lightworker is a person who feels called to live their life in service of “the light” or higher consciousness. I could get into all sorts of flowery metaphysical explanations, but that’s really the simplest way of putting it.
A Lightworker is a human being, a work in progress, an eternal soul in a body on this planet we call Earth. This means that despite the seeming specialness of the title, we’re not special, and we know it. We’re just people with a mission, and our mission is to hold “the light.”
Some of you know right now reading this that you’re a Lightworker. You can feel it in your Soul in a solid certain way that says you’ve always known this, you just forgot for a little while.
Others have already left the chat, writing me off as crazy, and that’s okay. I’m not here to change anyone.
The rest of you are sitting there on your couch or wherever you’re reading this, with one hand in a box of Cheez-Its and orange dust covering your black blouse, wondering, “AM I A LIGHTWORKER? OR DO I JUST REALLY NEED A NAPKIN AND A FIZZY DRINK?”
So for you folks, who are clearly my kindred spirits, I offer you this handy list of 11 signs that you are, indeed, a glowy little sunbeam on this sometimes very dark planet:
You feel called by a higher power to make the world a better place with your writing.
This is the number one sign, in my opinion. People write for a lot of different reasons. And it’s more than okay for them to write for whatever reason they want to. But if you’re a Lightworker and your mission is your writing, you know it deep down. Don’t let ANYONE talk you out of it. They don’t have to believe in you or your calling for it to exist. Your calling can involve teaching, editing, organizing events, reviewing books, working part-time in a dusty little bookstore, opening your own dusty little bookstore, or just plain WRITING. Don’t overthink it, okay? Callings rarely involve overthinking. They usually just kind of evolve out of the makings of your life.You have experienced (or are currently experiencing) a spiritual awakening that has rocked your paradigm and changed the way you write.
My awakening was very gradual. As a child and in my teens, I was one of those Old Souls people like to talk about. I wrote a poem about an environmental apocalypse in third grade (I think). It won some award. This was not the usual thing kids thought about in the early 1980’s, but the point is that I was on my soul path even back then. I stopped writing almost completely during college and picked it back up again after the birth of my kids. My spiritual path has included Christianity, Wicca, a mystery school initiation that was pretty wild, lots of Reiki, shamanic healing, a priestessing journey I will never forget, crystal healing, divination, and so it goes. Gradual. Continual. For other people, it’s like having an anvil dropped on their head and coming to a whole new person. When you undergo a huge shift in your awareness, your writing will evolve, too.You are an Empath.
This is *slightly* different from having a strong sense of empathy. Everyone who wants to can become more empathetic. But an Empath feels everything more deeply than the average person. It’s called clairsentience—clear feeling—in the spiritual community. You feel the pain (and joy) of others as if it’s your own. You might even pick up on a sort of feelings residue in certain places. Like when you enter a room and two people have been arguing… even if they’re pretending to be fine, you KNOW something happened. You can feel it. This can be quite hard to shut off, and can cause a lot of problems in relationships. Some Empaths can’t even watch the news without absorbing panic. Some completely shut down their feelings or shut themselves away from others to avoid feeling. If this is you, it’s paramount that you learn to manage this gift.You feel like you don’t quite fit in with the writing community as a whole, or any community really, despite getting along well with others and genuinely liking just about everyone.
Maybe you’re like me and you fit in on the fringes of a bunch of groups. You’re pretty involved and always invited to the things and you love people, but when you go, you don’t quite know why you’re there. Everyone seems to be speaking a different language. Until you meet other Lightworkers. And then you feel as though you’ve found a family that speaks your language. Because you have. That language is Light.Gratuitous violence, sex, or trauma in literature or movies may bother you as much as it does in real life.
Or, if you like horror or other “dark” genres, you often find some deeper truth within it. Some Lightworkers work primarily with the concept of Shadow and transformation through the destructive cycle. You can be a Lightworker and appreciate that the darkness has a purpose.You feel deeply connected to animals, nature, and the Great Mystery, and this finds its way into your writing.
Again, this goes beyond just liking these things. It’s more like a feeling of kinship with the animals or the elements, or even outer space. You might even resonate with the concept of starseeds or star people.People are drawn to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets.
Even people who aren’t ordinarily inclined to trust others somehow trust you. This can be quite overwhelming, especially if you’re an Empath and you haven’t yet learned to manage your boundaries. Boundaries are a MUST.You have a knack for finding the “gift in the garbage.”
You’re probably determined to grow through your own adversity, no matter what, and the characters you write about do the same, even when it isn’t pretty. You do know the distinction between positivity and toxic positivity, and you do your best to mind that line.You have a gift for helping other writers find value in themselves and keep going when they are feeling low.
You always know what to say or do to perk someone up and you can be found in the comments dropping little heart emojis, high fives, and love bombs on everyone’s rough day rejection-letter posts.You are drawn to service and causes in the writing community.
You see injustice and want to right it. You want to protect marginalized people and help them break into a system that you worry is closed to them. (It’s not actually closed, but your service and your writing is still very much needed.)You intuitively understand there is a mind/body/spirit connection at play in this world, and your writing life is not excluded from this law.
You understand that people write (and read) from where they are at, and that a disempowered writer (or reader) may have difficult time writing (and interpreting) empowered characters. You understand what role projection plays in reading and writing, criticism and praise. You also understand the impact your physical health can have on your writing and vice versa.
This is not a complete list by any means. And you certainly don’t have to recognize all these signs to be a Lightworker. We all have our own unique spiritual journey and mission in this life. If you feel it in your Soul, then so it is.
My calling has shifted over the years. When I was in my twenties, I had no idea I would still be writing in my forties, that I would have a terminal degree in creative writing, that I would ever become an empowerment coach. Empowerment coach? HAHA! WHAT is THAT? PLEASE PASS THE MARGARITAS AND SALSA. I would have laughed at you if you’d predicted I would start a blog like this. But even back then, I was still on my path as both a writer and a Lightworker. I was writing my first book. I was supporting and empowering young women in an international leadership organization. I was exploring and broadening my concept of spirituality. It just had not occurred to me to join my passions yet. But now, it seems so obvious that I don’t know how I could have missed it.
So tell me, are YOU a Lightworker? Did you recognize yourself in these 11 signs? Which ones spoke to you? How do you see yourself carrying out YOUR unique Lightworker mission as a writer? I'd love for you to tell me about it.
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Love and Light (and some Cheez-It dust, probably!),
Celeste