What is my next great step? It was just before the summer really kicked into gear. I had the opportunity to listen to my colleague Kurt Hoelting, author of The Circumference of Home, tell his tales of a year lived differently. He spoke of his decision to live a year apart from his car. The realization that his impact on the earth was too great for him to not somehow do something differently directed him to make a substantial alteration in the way he was living his life. So he did. His life for one year was lived with a new compass and as a result, his life will never be the same. By writing his story, he also had a significant impact on many of his readers, inspiring them to heed their call to take their courageous next step, and I count myself as one of them.
What is that something that brings us to realize the imperative for us to take a “next step”, and that by not moving forward, we are cheating ourselves of something great? Next steps are not always Hail-Mary-football- passes with two seconds left in the game that go in the record books. Next steps can be the next logical sequential movement forward that is uncomfortable and sometimes frightening and is easy to rationalize avoiding. I think that true next steps never really go away, they keep returning to our consciousness until we take some action on them.
However you personally describe “your greatest self inside of you”, it calls you to be courageous and it instructs you to follow your truth. It will push you towards your next step. If you do take the time to listen to that inner voice however, be ready to pay attention and take action, because once you know your right course of action and you choose not to pursue it, it is difficult to be happy knowing that you did not stand up for your greatness.
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This stepping out may concern what you most need to do, but have resisted, regarding your health and well being. You may have been a smoker that had quit and felt your best ever, butdue to some stressful life circumstances you fell off the wagon and started again. There is a part of you that will never forget what it felt like to have more energy and more breath. This will nudge you towards that feeling again and again. This persistent nudging might pertain to your weight, your sense of fitness or many other aspects of health as well as relationship, work, spiritual fitness and more.
I think that direct experience more than anything else brings us to the brink of next steps. It is the witnessing and feeling of something that runs against our personal grain that sets the stage for the necessity for change.
Once you know and have felt or experienced prejudice, can you ever really be at peace treating another in the same way? Once you have experienced being in a relationship that is mutually supportive, can you ever really be happy in one that is not? Once you have seen an island of albatrosses choked from plastic garbage remains, can you ever buy plastic bottles for your family without knowing the consequences? After working in a job that inspired you to be creative can you ever be really satisfied with a 9 to 5 menial task environment?
So my question has been…what is my next step? What am I being called forth to pursue that the pursuing of will increase my passion and excitement and life force. And what is it that the putting off of doing will keep me in a place of mediocrity, void of synchronistic experiences that remind me of how fabulous my life is and can be. Where am I living outside of that personal integrity? As I have personally explored that question, I am finding my next steps being laid out clearer and clearer for me. I am finding my choices getting stronger and the opportunities for me to write and teach expand for me. As i pursue that question, I am receiving clearer answers. I also know for myself, that if I do not heed the call, if i do not pursue the opportunities laid out before me, they will likely wither away because I am in essence telling the universe a lie. “Please give me a chance” but by refusing to dive in and instead stepping back down off the ladder, I am really just giving the universe lip service.
So my question to you, as always, is what is your next step? What are you avoiding, the avoiding of which is keeping your life smaller than you deserve? I ask you to take a moment right now and contemplate this question and see where it takes you.
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Craig Weiner, D.C.Free monthly free enewsletter Creator of the Transformational Dialogues Free for Your ListeningFind the Chiropractic Zone on FacebookFind Craig Weiner DC on Facebook, Linked In and Twitter Craig Weiner, DC has been in the health care field for 25 years, as a doctor of chiropractic, certified massage therapist, EFT practitioner, health coach, workshop leader, and creator of the Transformational Dialogues. Together with his wife Alina Frank, they are the creators of Path2Passion, a 6 week webinar series supporting couples in creating a powerful and intimate relationship (www.path2passion.net). Together they have also created a series of EFT mentoring CDs.