Recently I’ve been losing a bit of the fire that stokes my creative engines – it’s been more like a lazy smoulder. When I started questioning why this is I realised that I’ve been trying to push myself down a path that I didn’t really feel comfortable with. Sometimes I find it good to set myself out of my comfort zone (and grab a hold of Bea’s hand!), but usually doing so brings a new spark. This time it didn’t, it just slowly continued to smother the flame.
Light your true spark
So I picked up our Bhoomie calendar book of the month, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World by Martha Beck and read the introduction again (it really is worth more than one read when you’re questioning your path). In it she tells about her first face-to-face encounter with a rhinoceros at a game reserve in South Africa, where she inevitably ended up in a thorn bush with twigs in her hair. This nature-ruffled state took her back to her four-year-old self, when she wanted to become Robin Hood and live in the forest, a dream that no one else forced onto her.
‘This felt not only like a normal life ambition, but like the one, inevitable occupation of my core being, my “true nature”.’
Her words blew straight through my engine, lighting new sparks and I found myself asking questions about my own “true nature”. The one thing that I’ve always been passionate about without anyone forcing it onto me, and it was surprisingly easy to answer within myself. I think the answer came so quickly because I didn’t put any pressure on planning the outcome and I tried to keep it within reason as Martha advises in the book. I just thought about the thing that made me smile more than anything else, and for me it is helping others through self-empowerment (which is one of the reasons why I love to write this blog).
Follow your guide
This life you’re living now is a one-time journey. If like me you find that you have lost your way and stumbled onto a path that you feel isn’t making you want to jump up with joy, then think about your “true nature” or as Bhoomieland likes to call it (thanks to Martha Beck), your inner rhino. The one thing that if you were faced with it, even if lethal, you would still take the chance and go for it, because it makes you indescribably happy.
Think of your inner rhino as a map for your pathfinder Bea, a true map that will help her plan a course if you happen to wander off. If you reveal to Bea what makes you truly happy, then she’ll be able to show you the quickest way there.
Guidance will always come as long as we stay true to our inner natures. So what would you face, even if it was lethal, what is your inner rhino?
Sending you a rucksack of joy to put your map into!
Zellie