Have you ever arrived at a time or point in your life where you were acutely aware of growth out of hardship, accomplishments that came from walking relentlessly up hill, that specific feeling that you were just about to be okay? For me the feeling is that of being in between, an awareness as I shed into my future self, a piece of me still lingering behind, attached to what “was”. Even when parts of yesterday weren’t for our greatest good, I think we get used to what was. It becomes a comfort zone because at least we know what it was.

Stepping into Your Future Self

For me this feeling in between is, at times, tinged with fear because I can’t quite see what’s ahead (though I can sense it). The two sides of the coin intertwine, and I have to work regularly to unbraid them – meditation, quiet, reminding myself to stay inside of dreams, not doubts. In waves the stories that once held me back pour in, spilling doubt and disillusion. Do I really deserve to walk in these shoes? Do I have it in me? Is this real?

This time of year I fall asleep early, lulled by the fast approaching dark sky. Most nights I wake again around midnight, and for a moment my mind is alive with very real human worry – work, money, concerns, fears, responsibility – the worries that come with being physically alive on this planet.

My heart does not race, anymore, as it did when I lived more closely inside pain and trauma. I do not run to the bathroom, nauseous…anymore, as I did before for years before real healing occurred. In this way I know that growth has occurred, a deeply needed peace, some kind of arrival back into myself. In this way, I believe that my spirit is with me, calm, present. In this way I understand the twinge of fear is different. It knocks more faintly, and I don’t feel called to answer.

I am able to turn on a guided meditation, grateful in my heart for the things that I do have. I turn over and find myself half awake and also dreaming. Worries drop away as my spirit and mind dance to places I have never seen before, gifts from the subconscious. It is as though the more I worry by day, the more my spirit plays at night. The more it plays, the more the fine edge between awake and dreaming blurs.

What is Real?

In the morning sometimes it begins again – this old battle between the weight of the physical world and the light hope of promise and possibility. I find that the more I nurture my creativity the more I am able to live inside of it, the more that heavy feeling and fear shed away. The more I am able to see life without boundaries, the more I am able to live without them. When I am able to stay present in this exact moment, one toe in my unknown future, the lighter my spirit feels, the more I live in joy.

These three words wash over me again and again throughout the day . . .

Dream

Rise

Soar

In this way my spirit can play by daylight. In this way I am reminded that nothing is real outside of my state of mind. Fears seep in as we crack open and open, unsure of who we are becoming, only if we let them.