Are You Brave Enough to Live the Life that is Calling You?

The most honest answer is some days yes, and some days no.  I mean I live my life every single day but there are days when I am in my life, inhabiting it completely, living each moment as it comes, bravely, fully and in the flow.  Then there are the days that I am still here living my life but it feels more like avoidance, distance, or withdrawal from life.  I guess, both kinds of living are required for me.  I am not sure that on the days that I am less engaged, less bravely living my life that I am doing it badly or poorly or less alive.  I feel like sometimes, I just need to retreat a little in order to get back out there on another day.

I think living authentically is challenging. Being who you are day after day while also, simultaneously, attempting to grow, expand, deepen your living experience takes a lot of bravery, fortitude and resilience.  It is a lot to ask of us day after day.  I mean, there are gonna be days where you just want to pull the covers over your head and check the no box.

The last couple of months have been challenging.  I lost my dad and my job in the same month.  Neither event was expected or planned.  I mean, I knew both were possible, but I was not planning for either my dad’s life or my job to end.  Especially with the immediacy both left.  My dad has been gone about six weeks, the job about five.  And it has taken me a lot of fortitude and reflection to process both.  I feel like the job stuff has grabbed and demanded more of my attention which feels unfair and disrespectful to grieving the loss of my father.  But while I didn’t choose the job situation, it happened regardless.

I like linear processing.  I like to move from one thing to the other. I prefer to not have to do a whole bunch of different things at once.  But life isn’t like that, I mean, sometimes it is, you get one thing and then another. Allowing for a consistent stream of thought to be directed and targeting.  But other times it is like buckshot, it just scatters everywhere and you are forced to move forward in what feels like a lot of different directions at once.  And while sometimes they all seem related and you can grab a consistent thread, other times, you are grasping to find meaning in any of it.

I think it is easy to live the life that is calling to you when your life appears to look like the life you want.  You are motivated, energized and engaged.  But when shit goes down, I think retreat, avoidance and aversion tend to take over and dominate, leaving us to feel not brave at all.

But I think retreating with those harder emotions, giving them space and time to air themselves out, to allow for something new to grow from the ashes of what just burned down and up, takes a different kind of bravery...one that we tend not to call brave at all.  But it is and we should honor that as much as the days we rise and feel ready to conquer.  Rising when you feel like remaining lodge in bed, intent to avoid your life altogether but rising anyway, is courageous also.

Each day a new beginning.  Even if it doesn’t feel like it.  It may feel like Groundhog Day but we are never living the same day over again.  Ever.  We are living each moment fresh and new even if it doesn’t feel like it.  Even if it feels like the same old life that we are not all that jazzed about.  It is a new life in each new day and we are rich with options and opportunities.

I can see that the passing of my father and the absence of my job have given me a lot of things that I needed.  And the two things occurring in tandem were not an accident.  Losing the job shortly after my father has given me the time to grieve.  Yes, the causes and conditions of the loss of the job have tended to overshadow and detract from my grief while also augmenting the feelings of loss and lack of security and safety.  But the two life altering events happening at the same time, were not a cruel accident but an opportunity that I am doing my best not to waste.

I am walking through the endless days.  I am crying when the feeling arises.  I am feeling the feelings of loss, sadness, despair, heartbreak, anger, fear while I am also sowing the seeds of a new life, a different future, and answering the call of the life that is beckoning me forward.

Sometimes answering the call looks a lot like doing a great deal of nothing!  Sometimes answering the call looks like a lot of activity, busyness and action.  Both are vital.  Both are brave.  Both require fortitude and faith and a willingness to sit with hard things while also being willing for something new and unseen to develop.

So, for me, today, I am brave enough to live the life that is calling me.  Here I am doing it for fuck’s sake!  I don’t always want to but here I am, doing the things, living the life that is calling me forward...and while I don’t always feel brave, I know I am because facing your fears, living your life, especially as it unfold quite differently than you expected, is bravery in motion.

Again, still...