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Many of us want to change our lives, for ourselves, loved ones, the world… and just so you feel ok about it (and someone is giving you permission if you still need it) it’s ok even if it’s just for you. The best thing you can do in the world is be the best you for you. Everything else is built from there. Your foundation of you.

Lives & Lies of Desperation

Henry David Thoreaux said, ‘The mass (of men) lead lives of quiet desperation’. ‘What is called resignation is confirmed desperation’. (Walden 1854)

As I was typing the quote from Thoreaux, ‘lead lives’ was misspelled to lead lies… when it feels like we are leading lives of quiet desperation — our lives can feel like a lie. A lie we’ve chosen not to challenge. A lie we’ve chosen to believe to stay small. To stay in the uncomfortably comfortable familiar. To not ‘rock the boat’. To not dream too big. To stay in our lane. To not get too big for our britches. To not want more. Although, want is just another form of lack.

In a quest on MindValley, Vishen Lakhiani, the CEO of MindValley shared that (according to Gallup) 87% of people around the world dislike their jobs, going on to mention that if you are in the 13% consider yourself lucky. In the United States, at least, many people identify who they are from what they ‘do’. If they identify as what they ‘do’ and 87% don’t like what they do… you see where I’m going. Lives of quiet desperation, of settling, of staying small lead to people who don’t like who they are. What if it’s not the truth of who they are? What if it is the LIE of quiet desperation — not the life. 

Out of Balance

What happens in reflection when, the more personal ‘work’ you do, the more you realize your habitual patterns, see your conditional programming, recognize your trauma triggers, all the things that can have led to lives of desperation and yet… if you really think about it — your foundation, wonder, is the base you started from the same one that has been built upon from childhood? Is it some kind of fun house teeter-totter, that with one more weight, one more pressure, might collapse at any moment?

So I’ve been pondering… is it possible to dismantle an unstable foundation while holding up everything that might be good that sits upon it? Do you build a new foundation and get some kind of emotional wide load truck to move everything salvageable or preferably good to the new ‘pad’? One of my colleagues mentioned that you just expand. That sounds familiar. Is that right? We are after all expansive beings. Wouldn’t we just need to expand or ‘grow’ our foundation? And, that sounds good in theory. But what if we had the courage to really take it apart? What if we had the strength and the fortitude to rebuild, truly from the ground up? What might that look like? Choose the foundation we built or moved the parts of life we loved to — a more grounded, chosen foundation. What might that look like? 

The stories We Tell

What if it starts with the stories we tell? What if it starts with the filters we’ve been seeing our lives through? What if it starts with removing the brakes from the starts and the stops and the should’s and the can’ts? What if it is in celebration of who we came to be in this life. The version of us that was excited or curious or happy when we were very small. What if we could shift our memory to those places — celebrate the deeper truth of who we came as and are here to be? What if it starts with growing belief? Belief in what’s possible. Belief in what’s miraculously impossible. Belief in something greater. Belief in the best version, the truest version of ourselves.

When I began writing this, I saw an image of a giant Victorian looking house sitting on a foundation the size of a pin while next to it a newly constructed, loving, solid foundation was being built by a diligent, hard working, dedicated team. I happened to catch one of their eyes and I saw this magical twinkle and sensed it was an angel in disguise, just as they gave a little wink. What if that’s possible? What if there is a sort of spiritual heavy lifting team, waiting on stand-by, with the tools and the skills and the best foundational expertise? 

Often when I’m doing a guided meditation I’ll recognize angels, guides, ancestors, loved ones who hold sacred space — the same ones that are there waiting to be asked to assist in life. The ones who are waiting for us to ask and will not tread on our free will. Who do you feel may be in your soul support team? The key is, you have to ask. Do you know what to ask for? Are you willing to ask? You have to seek to find. You have to have a belief in something greater than the small life, the settled for life, the diminished life, the quiet desperation life. You have to be willing to take a risk on belief. 

Daring to Dream

You have to be willing to take a risk on yourself. You have to be willing to believe that you are worth it. That you deserve a solid foundation, one that can hold the deepest desires of your heart. Desire… now, desire can be delicious — and a drive for desire, true heart-fire needs a bigger, firmer, richer foundation. Now, what might that look like?

What if you dared to dream? What if you awakened to the longing in your soul? What if you felt into what actually lights you up and started to make new choices from there? What if you ‘asked and it was given’ and learned to recognize when it was given even if it looked like the unexpected? What if the unexpected became the familiar? What if you started saying yes. Yes to the life your heart and soul was calling you to. What if you started seeing the synchronicities and the patterns of possibility that already exist to support you, the true foundation, your true foundation, as you live into a life you love? What if what started as organized in your shift to something better, something truer, became as organic as breathing? What if every breath was a whispered prayer of gratitude for honoring your soul?

What if breath became the new foundation? Gratitude the concrete ground. Your soul, the foreperson. And life an extension of your divinely vibrant creativity.  

A new Choice

What if you recognized it was a choice? A choice to choose you. A choice to choose a life you love. A choice to honor your soul. A choice to take courageous, heart-fire inspired action. And if you don’t know what that looks like yet… a willingness to be curious. A willingness to wonder. What might it look like if you chose you?

What might it look like if you remembered what you loved when you were a kid? What did you love to spend time doing? What you could lose time doing? What if you were willing to take a chance? Sign up for a course you’d always wanted to take? Learn to dance? Volunteer in your community and build a community that you are truly part of? Maybe serve through politics and following your heart to help enact change that benefits many? Go skydiving? Take up gardening? Go back to school for something you were always curious about? Even the seemingly small choices that answer a longing. 

Every soul driven, intuitive action fueled through the courage of your heart that you take actively LIVES you into a more vibrantly possible future — yours. Learning to listen to and honor the voice of your soul, learning to even remember what it sounds like and make choices from that space are decisive, real actions with faith, with belief in your best, most fulfilled self.

Soul Fire

Think of curiosity as the kindling for igniting your soul fire. Gathering the curiosity kindling together. Seeing the pile of possibilities grow. Feeling accomplished as you warm to an exciting task. Picking just the right pieces to rub together to start a spark. Using your breath to breathe life into the small embers. Sensing the warmth… the excitement. Watching the flames catch and begin to reach heavenward. Smiling. Breathing deeply. Feeling a satisfaction that floods your body. Feeling it even more deeply as this is soul fire.  

You can start small. You can start with being curious. You can start with being willing or even being willing to be willing. The more you lean into it, the more you answer from your heart the more vibrant your life will become. With every step you are willing to take to shift from a colorless life of mediocrity and desperation to one of vibrancy and possibility you ignite and stoke the heart-fires leading to living life soulfully lit-up. 

What if in honoring our soul, offering our spirit freedom, we begin to remember that somewhere, when we went from Soul Beings to Human Beings we forgot we could fly?

Set your soul on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.

— Rumi