April 2008 Newsletter
Online Issue # 18
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The Front Page
After the Leap
With the return of spring many of us experience an infusion of welcome energy and the recurring thought to begin something new. This also happens in the fall when “back to school” sales appear everywhere, and at the New Year when the slate is wiped clean. It can happen too around the anniversary of significant events: a 40th, 50th, 60th... birthday, the ending of a relationship, a life-changing decision, a health crisis, or retirement. But a spring beginning is special; all around us the natural world is reawakening with contagious energy. Daylight hours lengthen, temperatures climb, colors return to the landscape, and enchanting birdsongs and sweet blossoms fill the air. Here in the Midwest, the cold and dark, so suited to hibernating and brooding, release their hold on us. A powerful convergence of inner and outer energies moves us.
Beginning something new can be fun, some might say the most fun of all. Although we work long and hard, it doesn't feel like work; it's more like love. We are intensely focused, motivated, engaged, and energized by what we are doing. We become mindful to the point that time is no more. Our imagination and our will enter a collaborative, self-feeding loop. There is a rare quality of seamlessness to our being and doing, often sought by spiritual seekers. Like happiness and the illusive butterfly, this seamlessness arrives as a byproduct of connecting to all that is whole, within and without.
This wonderful phase, beginning, is one of life's best medicines, reminding us that good work heals. All is potential, and so much more feels possible; we no longer dwell in doubt and fear. Our hearts connect with something that sends us scampering to the highest peak we can reach, where we adore the view, throw out our arms, and leap into the unknown, thinking or shouting “THIS IS IT!” Innocently, we imagine our leap to be a one-time occurrence—a grand finale after which we live happily ever after.
This leap is about as far into the creation process as many of us get. We soon regain full awareness that we've survived the leap and the landing, but circumstances haven't changed all that much. There is still much work to do, and some of it now feels overwhelming, time consuming, and difficult. It's not that the leap didn't matter; it did. Leaping marks a critical event—beginning—in the process of creating, but projects always stretch beyond.
After the leap, what needs to happen next depends on the person and the project, but it usually involves a series of deliberate choices: the choice to take a welcome break, to clarify what has happened so far, to consider what hasn't worked as expected, to ask for and receive helpful advice, to tweak things a bit, to return to the idea board, to try something else entirely, and always the choice of whether or not to continue. What often happens next is an unconscious choice to play it safe and cut our losses, to walk away from the mess and hope to get it right next time. We don't often consciously choose to stop or head off in another direction, which are completely valid options; it's more like we fail to show up anymore and hope no one notices. We go invisible as another beginning fades away.
The progression from a pregnant beginning to a non ending can happen in a few days or weeks, or it can take years. Regardless, it can be a completely disabling experience in which every disappointment, self doubt, and fear appears magnified. The loss strikes directly at the heart that wants to love what it does. After even one such experience, it's easy to understand why some people won't allow themselves to get too excited about anything and back away from beginning something new. Who wants to risk ending up feeling incompetent and looking like a fool, again?
But the human dilemma is that we are always beginning, always making the choices that create our lives, with or without awareness.
Every time we go conscious, rather than invisible, we recognize the ordinary moments of choice making, and create our lives with intention rather than by accident.
Happy beginnings ... happy spring ... happy, happy everything.
With gratitude,
Laurie Mattila
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