“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf”

Swami Satchitananda in “Wherever you go there you are”

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What are you waiting for? For the train to arrive, the dentist to call your name or for things to change so that you can move on.

Do you know that feeling as if you are in a waiting room not knowing what to do, or what decisions to make? No doors or too many doors. In both cases you are in there and don’t go forward, backward or sideward. You are stuck.

When you find yourself in a state of inertia it is often accompanied by low energy and a feeling of being overwhelmed.

For example, you might wish to feel better, to be happier, but don’t know where to start. All seems to be too difficult. “Being happier” is a big and abstract idea that is difficult to grasp.

It is much easier to ask yourself, what are the small things that make you feel better on a daily basis. For one person, it might be going for a walk, for someone else it is meeting a friend. I am sure you can come up with many small things for yourself.

Break down something that is too big, too abstract into small and specific actions. When you do that, you can get yourself out of the waiting room. Because all you have to do is do one small and simple action. You get yourself moving.

One small action, that is all you have to start with.

“Nothing will be attempted if all possible obstacles must first be removed”

Samuel Johnson

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Dream, Dare, Do

Image: Some rights reserved by Unhindered by Talent

When I was young, my mother read me bedtime stories. My favourite story was about a boy who didn’t listen to his parents and got caught by an evil man in a hot air balloon. The boy soon was able to throw this man out of the balloon and off he went on an adventure. On his journey, he encountered witches, magicians, demons, monkeys and the cold. However, none of them was able to harm him. In the end the boy, of course, returns back home in the arms of his mother.

As a child I couldn’t get enough of this story about the boy who wasn’t afraid to go on a journey, face those demons and who had seemed to have grown during his journey.

Fairy tales, stories and myths have been told throughout time. They played an important part in the development and growth of people. They carried wisdom. Stories taught human beings about the inner and outer demons and the importance of knowing the light and the darkness in our life.

A recurrent theme in fairy tales is the search of something the main character has lost or wants to find. Only when the main character gets to know and learns about every creature and situation she meets, can she move on and find what she was looking for.

It is often the shadows in our life we run away from. Instead, try to have a dialogue with them. I know it is difficult, but it will get easier. Just as the light also the shadow is part of us and worth knowing.

I am wondering which stories have guided your life? How would your stories look like?

“At critical moments in history mythic sense tries to return to awareness in order to indicate life’s inherent capacity for renewal.”

Michael Meade, “World Behind the World”

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Image: Some rights reserved by crackdog