You know, a while back, I realized while I tended to make “smart” choices, I was not always practical. This was a revelation to me, as I had always assumed making thought out plans meant I was a practical person. The truth is, though, I slowly became more and more led by my soul and my heart than led by my mind.
The mind is the birthplace of practical. For me, as life swirled around me in my twenties and thirties, the more I was led by my mind, the more I abandoned myself. The mind loves the known, the previously experienced, and it is scared to death of where it has not been. There is some beauty in this, but our minds desperately need our whole soul to help guide us. To recognize our selves can be trusted. I connected deeply to this in recent years through work with my spiritual healer & shaman, or “coach,” if you will, but in looking back I realized I had already begun my journey to sometimes chucking “practical” out of the window long before.
I took calculated risk over and over, I adapted, and I changed more than I stayed the same. At the time, I didn’t think much about it. But some of those calculated risks paid off big: the starting of the blog, opening my stores, writing the book, filming the pilot were all pivotal moments for me as a person and a woman at work.
A New Season for Impractical
Years later, in the middle of my divorce, I began to feel pulled to take those same calculated risks in life and not simply at work. There had to be more. I needed to start over. I needed to do something different or I was going to die. I leaned into my heart, and comforted my mind by telling her to trust me. I am still doing this.
I might need to close the stores. I might need to shift my career path entirely. I might need to get the puppy for the kids, even though the timing was “stupid.” I might need to dye my hair or get the new MacBook before I was ready. I might need to spend more time alone than I had ever in my life. From small choices to huge shifts, all this rewriting of a life called for some impractical detours.
What I found in the end of that time, and what I am still learning, is that by letting my tight grip around practical loosen, I began to find myself again. I began to sit very presently in my choices and in my life, and I began to be less afraid. Reckless? No. More free? YES.
I learned I could make my own magic. Some days I craft that magic with ease, and others I trip and fall and all but drown in a deeply un-magical potion. But I keep trying. I will keep trying. I hope you will, too.
Love to you.
