LETTING GO, MOVING ON
Perhaps you could choose the path that is safe and known, but maybe you could choose the narrow path that leads to growth. Maybe you were meant to be the one to brave the deep trenches in the forest in pursuit of the rushing river. Maybe you were not meant to wait another moment, and you were meant to start right now, daring to look with a wide-opened heart and sincere mind into the present moment and say, “this is my time. This is where I am choosing to come alive. I am going to do the brave, faithful thing. No matter what others think.”
You may not be able to paint a perfect picture of the “life you want,” and that’s okay. Maybe wanting to live a life that is full of grace and love is more than enough to be who you are meant to be. Perhaps life is less about having answers for everything and trusting and believing that when you choose to live a life for what is greater than you, that’s when the Lights get through, showing you through all that is broken what is beautiful, whole, and true, and ultimately, through the uncertainty, worth living for.
In one way or another, everyone is searching for something. Everyone is searching for their rhythm and “flow,” whether that’s safety, security, freedom, peace — it varies from person to person. And oftentimes, we can become so preoccupied with trying to get into our flow and pattern of life we forget that life is anything but predictable. We forget no matter how much we crave what is safe and known, we have to be willing to go deeper, whatever that looks like for us. We have to be willing to trust that even when life doesn’t look the way we want it to when we make a choice to be brave by being present to whatever season we are in, we will grow.
In Joan Didion’s 1968 collection of essays Slouching Towards Bethlehem, she writes these words about leaving New York, and moving to Los Angeles, after many years.
“...I was very young in New York, and [at] some point the golden rhythm was broken, and I am not that young anymore. The last time I was in New York was in a cold January...many of the people I used to know there had moved...” – Joan Didion*
I share this bit of Didion’s story here because I think it is important to highlight that it is also okay if rhythms, even the “golden” ones come to an end. You are free to make peace with them, even when you are seeing the end of them. You are free to move on, even though you don’t know what’s ahead. There are times in life where we have to exchange “golden rhythms” for new ones. For some, it’s leaving the city. For others, it’s staying a little longer. It’s hard to let go, especially when you remember what was good.
Whatever “letting go” is for you right now, trust: change is okay. In fact, it’s more than okay. Change is an invitation to expect that things won’t always be the same but you can still find peace. The future is unknown and at the same, you will become who you were meant to be.
May each of us soften our hearts to look for moments where coming alive means going beyond what is comfortable, safe, and known. May we allow ourselves to see that when we open up to the possibility of how things could change, we grow.
(This post here is an excerpt from the Storyteller App series called "One Day AT A Time ", available to download for iOS and Android! Free Daily Encouragement Notifications (no subscription required) plus premium features: Longer reads, device wallpapers, journal prompts, affirmations and more included. Free trial - no credit card required.)
Word of the day: Exchange “an act of giving one thing and receiving another in return” (Oxford)
Journal: Have you ever had something good end, and it was hard to let go? What have you learned since then?
Affirmation: “I am courageously accepting rhythms of change.”
Sincerely,
Morgan
@thestorytellerco
@morganharpernichols
