A SURE SIGN YOU ARE ABOUT TO SUCCEED BIG TIME: SOME PEOPLE TRY TO CUT YOU DOWN TO SIZE

I wasn't planning to become a yoga teacher. I was in a Ph.D program in Medieval French, for God's sake! I wasn't planning to move to a different state, set up a healing practice, write books, get noticed in major magazines. I just wanted confirmation from the "Higher Ups- God, Angels , that sort of thing" that I was on the right path for my soul. Apparently I was , and am. 
Although I question it from time to time.
There I was , minding my own business . Working part time, struggling with the endless cycle of exhaustion and terror due to every other day dialysis treatments. I wanted to know God loved me and still cared. I was desperate to find a career I could actually do well, especially because, due to dialysis, I had to WALK AWAY FROM MY DREAM of becoming a professor.
It was in the midst of my troubled sleep that the ancient yogis with funny names began to appear to  me in my dreams . They used words I had never heard of , and chanted tunes to me in a language I did not know....but I did, somehow.
I would go take a yoga class. That exact tune would be chanted in class. Or there would be a picture of "the guy in my dreams".
One day, I even had a "presence"- I'll call it an angel, literally stop me in the hallway and somehow tell me " You need to be a yoga teacher."
"Okay". I responded sheepishly. Those were the days when yoga teachers were hard to find, when you went to an ashram to study with long time yoga practitioners.
I had to organize 6am mandatory yoga classes every day around my dialysis schedule at a local hospital in the evening. I also have an artificial leg. 
I never thought of my yoga studies as difficult. I'm a great adjuster to life circumstances, as wearying as it can be. I just followed the call.
Now almost 20 years later, I am finding it fascinating how many people I run into ,now that I have been well entrenched in my teaching, my practice and my visibility, either belittle my experience and knowledge, challenge me with telling me of their own amazing successes or 'how much more they know than me', or dismiss me out right with comments that are, well ' catty'. 

I've found the same in the healing arena. I have studied many healing modalities over the years. None was more soaked in ego bravado than my shamanic studies. It shows up in conversations every once in a while with some different healers I meet. It doesn't seem to be about the client. It seems to be about the healer, if you know what I mean. That's okay. I wasn't planning on becoming a healer either. I just had a few dreams, with specific people with specific names , show up to tell me I needed to be a healer. And then of course those people would materialize in real time. I still had to choose to say YES.
Even more fascinating is how easy and comfortable I feel around the directors of major medical centers, CEO's, the leaders at the "top" of their game. Again and again, the conversations I have with them seem peer to peer, full of mutual respect and enthusiasm for the work at hand. I know they have been on the journey I am on right now. My observation? They are comfortable with themselves. I believe I am too.
What to do... What to do???? 
"But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."
If there is some backlash happening for you as you step into your calling in a bigger way, do not react or respond. Say thank you silently.  Hold your radiant self in your heart and hands. Stand still.  Open your palms. Smile on your own behalf . If you have a spiritual practice, surrender to the One who called you.  Your sacred service is the only thing that matters. Amen.