Excerpted from Take the Leap, by Heather McCloskey Beck
In our quest to live a life that we really love, we are often met by a resistance created by the very environment we are born into. Within our families and communities exists a defining structure of beliefs and traditions that has served as the guiding light for how we are supposed to live a good life. The problem is that the ideas and practices embraced over the expanse of many generations no longer reflect what the current rhythms of life call for. Instead of feeling supported and encouraged to be our most creative, exuberant selves, we often feel stifled by these outdated guidelines, thwarted from developing into the brilliant, creative beings we so naturally are.
Imagine the young man whose father has groomed him to become a part of the family business, when all he has ever wanted is to be a park ranger and live out in the Arctic tundra, photographing wolves. How do you think he feels each day as he dons suit, tie, and briefcase, running from one corporate meeting to the next?
When we are born, we Leap into families that are part of an already established social structure that over the decades has developed a rhythmic heartbeat of its very own. If we were to place our finger on the pulse of contemporary society, we would surely discover that many of these old rules no longer apply, no matter how much they still dominate culturally. When we Leaped, we came in with our own ideas, desires, and needs that perhaps did not fit within the confines of what was expected of us. Within our Tale, we were advised that we might forget in entirety that we had created our own plan, leaving us vulnerable to the persuasions of the family story lines of the lives we were leaping into. So how can we create a change within ourselves and within our world that allows us to live a life we love, without yielding to the pressures and standards that do not work for us at all?
Perhaps if we come to understand the nature of resistance, it might assist us in creating new pathways that will lead us in the direction we desire. It is important for us to fully grasp the fact that this is entirely doable, but first we need to loosen the grip of old behaviors and ideas that serve to keep us in a holding pattern that we now need to disrupt.
When we live a life of meaning, this creates a sense of joy, happiness, and pleasure. At a very simple level, doing activities that are fun makes us feel happy and light, and that's great. But when we tap into those things that Call to us and begin to do them, this deepens our happy feelings and we experience a dynamic energy that drives us into a more resonant joy. We tap into the collective Wave of energy, the Essence of everything that physically exists, and we begin to expand.
When we live a life of meaning, this creates a sense of joy, happiness, and pleasure.
When we deepen and touch into our Essence, we begin to create, as we shift into a place of Streaming. And when we shift our attention and perspective and begin doing things that make us feel really good, we are able to push back against the prescribed framework, and create our own joyful way of being.
But the longer we stray away from that which we love to do, the more our lives take on a manner of mediocrity, leaving us feeling uninspired and flat. Our days become cycles of repetition, which invariably lead to gnawing pain and the temptation to engage in aberrant and self-destructive behaviors, if only to feel something, to spice things up and feel alive, when all they really succeed in doing is tearing our lives down. Mediocrity is insidious and deadly, lulling us into a dull place where we resist responding to our Calling, simply because it seems too hard to do anything about it. When we are caught up in the malaise of not-doing, altering the familiar patterns seems to require too much effort. When we live within the confines of mediocrity for too long, we begin to resist doing something other, resist doing anything at all, that could give us a lift back into ourselves, back to where we were when we Leaped into these lives in the first place. It is this malaise and mediocrity from which we'll be breaking free through the process I outline in Part Two.
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Please be sure to watch for the release of
TAKE the LEAP, publishing on October 1st, 2013. Currently available on Amazon.
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Take the Leap Page: http://www.facebook.com/TaketheLeapBook
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