Follow
Your Soul
“There
will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell
you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans,
and may seem crazy to others. When that happens, you do it. Listen to
your instincts, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just
go for it.”
Judith
McNaught (Remember When)
I have a friend who left
home when her daughters were teenagers, and went to live in India for
a year. She knew no one there. She was simply following her gut.
Today, she is a happy grandmother with deep ties to India, and Indian
friends who come to visit her on a regular basis. This woman, who is
an art therapist, has spent significant time in Africa and Haiti as
well. She has created labyrinths all over the world, and now owns a
cave—yes, a cave—in northern Alabama, which she has managed to
restore and open to the public with the help of the Cherokee Nation
and many, many volunteers. She is my age, when most people retire,
downsize and settle into their recliners in front of the TV. Where on
earth she gets the energy and imagination to do all that she does, I
cannot say, but she is a moving object in space and nothing much
slows her down. I watch the trajectory of her life and simply marvel.
I have other friends who
just sold their big old house in the North Carolina mountains, where
they lived for more than forty years and raised their children. They
retired, bought a motor home, and hit the road on a trip that will
cover at least the lower forty-eight. There are daily postings on
Facebook—leaving Kansas, heading to Oklahoma—and beyond. This
week, they met a couple who had been doing that for twenty years!
Now, I have to say, that would not be my chosen lifestyle, but I
admire folks who simply do what they're called to do.
Another friend of mine,
who is now in her eighties, has terminal cancer and is actually on
hospice, complete with oxygen tanks and concomitant pain, flew on
Thursday of this week to San Francisco for the wedding of a niece.
She took her two young grandsons with her. I asked, “How can you
possibly do that?” and her response, “What else am I going to
do?” It hasn't yet occurred to her to lie down in bed and die. She
says she doesn't have time for that. She plans to live her life until
the very last moment.
People too often allow
fear of the unknown keep them from listening to the callings of their
souls. “It's just not the done thing,” they say. “I wouldn't be
safe; who knows what might happen.” Safety is an illusion. And,
doing what calls to your soul will extend your life. Who wants to get
to the end with regrets about having failed to live the life they
were called to live? There is nothing so sad as a dying person
saying, “I wish I had...” followed by a long string of things
they let fear keep them from doing.
One of my favorite
characters on television is Mark Harmon as Gibbs in NCIS. My friend,
Sally, gave me a t-shirt that has his picture on the front and the
question “What would Gibbs do?” Gibbs believes strongly in his
gut, in his intuition, and he operates from that regardless of how
bizarre others find him. He is not conventional. He is fully and
apologetically himself. We should all grow up to be Gibbs.
Soul will lead you if you
let it. It never gives up, from birth to death, in attempting to move
us past our fears, past our inhibitions, past all the cultural and
social norms we allow to box us in. Soul will show us what is truly
and uniquely our own. But we have to listen and we have to follow.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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