#WhatsYourStory Featuring Donna Montoya

I am a single mother to a beautiful son, living and working in the Pacific Northwest. I am an Assistant Director of Career Development at a small, private liberal arts college, where I get to help my students pursue their career paths, whatever those may be. I was born and raised in the PNW, and have lived in Singapore and Mexico – which has shaped my world view and helped lead my career and life journey.
Through my “day job,” I conduct career counseling, work with community members, and develop career prep, networking and experiential programming to serve students and community. As my “other day job,” I am the founder of Montoya Media | Translations through which I serve individuals and business with translating, interpreting, and marketing in both English and Spanish.

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Why I Write.
Why do I write? What a wonderful question. For whom are my words? For what are my words? I believe in vocation – that visceral calling towards finding meaning, an internal voice you were born with, and a journey through life that, through deviations, over hurdles, into the mist, guides you closer with each step, even before you know where you are even headed.
Through my position in career development, I get to help guide students through these ideas, and I also believe strongly that we are “natured” and “nurtured” into how we interact with the world, how we process our surroundings, and how we find meaning.
So, why do I write? I find that three reasons drive my writing:
I write to process. Writing is my reflection.  My way of making sense of my world. The way I make cross-disciplinary “discoveries” and learn something from my own experiences. My blog is titled “What I Learn from my Son” because I learn so much from raising him. But if I don’t stop to ponder little moments, or to remember a vignette in my mind’s eye, or to just stay still and watch him be, the moments pass and I move on. It is through my blog posts, and through other writing, that I have realized some incredible life lessons, or that I take a step back to reflect on a hardship, or that I find strength and optimism in sometimes either painful, frustrating, or just plain annoying situations. I believe I am a better person for it, and I hope my writing helps me become more well-rounded, more grounded, more inspired, and more inspirational.
I write to share. I am a single mother of one 4-year-old son. I have a very strong family support system. My mom is my best friend, my brother and sister-in-law are my partners in crime. I have a couple close friends and supportive colleagues. This makes me feel loved, safe, and supported. They know most of my life.
But I feel alone. I often feel like all these wonderful things that my son does, and that we get to experience together, will evaporate into memories and no one will “know” us. Writing through my blog is my way of sharing “us” with the world, of sharing little moments, of funny blunders, of how he is growing and learning and becoming himself. Of how I am learning and growing as a mother. Of reinforcing that we are part of something outside of us. I write to connect with others and feel like I am connected with them.
I write because I have to. More specifically, because I am called to. It is part of my nature to use words and language and writing, no matter where and no matter what. Have you ever taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator analysis (MBTI) with someone who can help you process your results and the meanings of the types? Or perhaps have you tried to uncover your passions and core strengths through story-telling and reflection? This is what I do much of my time with my students, and of course I believe in this, myself. My MBTI profile partly reflects my way of “being” as an introverted thinker – as I reflect on these two facets I realize that, for me, thinking + introversion = writing to process, writing for peace, and writing to connect with others.
One of my core strengths and meditation activities is writing. I uncovered this realization through story-telling methods to dive to the core strengths (called the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process). I realized that I have always written. When I was in third grade I started writing my first chapter book. Yes, I still have five wide-ruled notebooks full of an 8-year-old’s handwriting about a girl mouse in 4th grade and her adventures with friends, school, and a new house.
When I was in eighth grade I won a writing contest for my poetry and got to spend a day at a local university in a clinic for budding writers.
When I was in ninth grade I read a poem and a short essay I had written in front of my church congregation, about my reflections from a two-week long service learning-based mission trip to northern British Columbia.
Now, I write through my work, and I write through my blog. I have shaped almost every job I have had so that I get to write as part of it. I have been told by countless students that I should “write a book on all of this.”
Writing is drawn out of me. I have to do it.
Maybe one day I will write and publish a book. Until that day –
This is why I write.

Where to See Donna

View Donna's LinkedIn Profile

Check out Donna's Blog