16 October 2015

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.  ~Rumi

From early on, my parents raised me to think of other people and put them first.  To be practical and sensible about my desires.  As a woman, to not stand out in the crowd.

As I explore creating a satisfying life, I find these well-intentioned messages have dumbed down my awareness of my own dreams.  I’m accustomed to tuning out my own voice and going with the flow.

But creating deep satisfaction with my life requires I pick up responsibility for myself, for my contentment, for addressing my own yearnings.

So, I’m ready to try letting go of some of those messages.  To listen inwardly and honor the small voice that is still patiently, persistently, giving me clues about things I want to explore and ways to lean more fully into my moments.  Giving more space and shape to these urges feels awkward and unbalanced, like arranging my body in a new yoga pose.  It’s a dynamic process of groping for and stretching into that leading, growing edge.

I don’t know precisely where I’m going.  I can’t see how these venture will turn out.  Those messages I received were all intended to help me chart a known course with safe, reliable results.  Many of those routes are still guiding me in good directions, but there’s also small side roads, unmarked, unpaved and not at all well-lit, that call out to me.  Here, see what’s down here, they call.  Come this way, they beckon.

I’ve a hunch that walking off the edges of my known maps might lead directly into some challenging territory.  Yet, my small voice is undaunted.  She pipes up cheerily as my feet head across the uneven terrain, already straightening into the spicy scent of bay in the crisp fall air and humming along with the babble of the river moving within.