“Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.” – Irish Proverb
It is another cold and overcast morning. A beautifully typical morning for winter time. There are a few people scattered around the coffeehouse this morning. A few early students who are either working on projects or possibly getting in that last minute mind expansion of information for an exam that will come and go. Quickly the exam will be forgotten along with the information that memorized for it. The information that we so diligently studied will fade away along with the short term promise that we will never wait until the last minute again. It is a dance that we all do at times. We know that there is a project, an exam to prepare for, and a race to prepare for or possibly…. the next chapter of our life that we are wanting to write but our mind is not willing to find the words or action to start it.
There are a few of us in this room that have asked this question to ourselves… “What is that I really want to do?”
There will always be the response of…
I want to head to the slopes to go snowboarding/skiing…. I want to go somewhere where it is warm and the beach is right outside my door… I want to find love, again… I want to spend more time with my family…. I want to…. um, I am not sure. Can I have a moment to think about it?
We have desires. We have expectations. They are all a part of being alive. Do we ever sit down for an extended period of time and not think about something that we want to do? It may even be as mundane as paying the bills. It might be at adventurous as exploring a place like Machu Picchu. It may be as relaxing as finally reading that book that we have thought about for months and never had the time nor the quietness to do it.
We all have an inner need to move. We would like for it to be a forward progression.
What stops us?
Is it that we feel like we are too old… or too young? Do we feel like we are not ready to take that “next step”?
What is it?
Is it that we look at our lives and say that there are too many obligations already? Do we look at our physical capabilities and wonder how we will finally be able to have enough strength to breathe let alone move? Do we look in the mirror and all we see is a person that has unfulfilled dreams? While we are looking in the mirror are we looking at the greatest enemy of them all… ourselves?
Why is that we long for and we dream of moving; yet we are emotionally paralyzed. We see all that is moving around us and yet inwardly our wish to move is met with a “body” that simply… can’t…. move.
What is going to make the difference? Enough of a difference that we are able to move a finger… to slide our foot forward… to breathe in the air of possibility so that our spiritual lungs are filled with the oxygen of opportunities. What will have to happen so that our inner spirit breaks down the walls of self-defiance?
It might be that we need to look at ourselves in a way that we never thought was possible. We have to stop just seeing others moving and see ourselves doing the same. We have to have a faith that comes not just from hearing you can do it but a faith that is built in the belief that you will do it. We have to have a foundational shift within ourselves that no longer says I can’t… I am not… I wish I was…. to an inner voice that says I am even though I have no idea where this wave is taking me. We have to place ourselves in an internal state of peace that says that no matter what happens… I have moved. A place that is decorated not with dreariness of dreams never acted upon but a vibrant room that is filled with the spirit that says you are valuable enough to change.
What if the present moment does not match up with the initial plan? Guess what… they never do. A tree that is growing will never look like it did when it was a sapling. A stream bed is slowly but constantly changing. So, why do we think that our dreams will be the same as they were when we started? We seem to get either discouraged with or defeated by what is a simple law of nature. We begin to see that the life plan that we had six months ago doesn’t look exactly like we imagined. The relationships that we were in have either deepen or are a part of our memory. This is the way of life.
The Irish proverb says, “Your feet will bring you to where your heart is.” It doesn’t say that our hearts bring us where our feet are… but our heart will tell us if we are where we truly want to be. It is in the act of being that we find out where our passion and love of life is honestly residing. And this act of moving does not always mean that we will have a straight path… a path that is flat…. or doesn’t seem to go backwards at times. We will begin the hike…. a trail that may seem arduous at times… we may encounter an illness or a loss or some other kind of significant change. We will see a field of boulders that we need to cross over and wonder if they will shift and take us down the mountainside. We will also find a shady respite from the heat of the moment. A place that we can hide away but yet still move in. If we are present enough on this journey, we will see little columbine flower like moments of beauty. A flower growing where it would seem impossible to grow roots but yet…. there it is. A symbol that life has some small moments that will remind of the reason that we are alive… to see the beauty in the midst of the journey.
When we think about where our heart is maybe an even better question is this. Is our dreams an illusion or are they the beginning of a life that simply… breaks script.
See you on the trails…
Breaking script…. Namaste.
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