The Nudge....

"How did I get here? Somebody pushed me. Somebody must have set me off in this direction and clusters of other hands must have touched themselves to the controls at various times"~ Joseph Heller, Catch-22

We all need a nudge sometimes.  Someone to suggest, mention, and sometimes, actually push us to action.  Where does it begin?  Start with the WHY.  Contemplate the goals.  Write. Journal. And then let go!

We are all a collection of  the people who have impacted our lives.  Some of them have nudged us and we thanked them, others nudged us, and we wonder "how did I get here?"  Brings us right back to my first blog, "Wisdom given by those who have justly shaped our lives is worth passing on".  So the question is, are you willing to accept the nudge?  To set your dreams free? To acknowledge and then to let go of fear?

Sometimes we underappreciate the value of setting goals.  Of taking out a piece of paper or opening a journal and writing. It can be done now, at the beginning of a new year.  It can be done the moment you think of it.  But it has to be done and "tomorrow" and "someday" are not days on the calendar.  The beauty of who we are and of creating goals, brainstorming lifeplans, thinking we can plan our futures is that "IT" is already inside of us.  There is no "secret ingredient"  that we don't already have within us.  But, when we allow the process of expressing our dreams, regardless of fears, to take flight, we set what is within us, our dream waiting for us to realize and have the courage to acknowledge into action.

I met with a college student the other day to help with her goals.  She came to me for her fitness goals.  I saw more than that in her and gave her the nudge.  A call to action.  She may have heard it as a whisper.  She may not have heard it at all. She might journal or jot notes or write out goals and have it in the back of her mind as a nagging reminder.  It might even sit in her subconscious mind for awhile. A month, a year, six years.  When the time is right, because she can't try to "let go" of what she doesn't know she is hanging on to, she will discover that thing within her that was always there waiting to be expressed.  The thing is, we can't try to hard.   It's then, in our vulnerability, in our raw honesty, that it might manifest.

I taught my first t'ai chi class on New Year's Day, thanks to David Dorian Ross!  To get a group of people who have never done t'ai chi to flow is a very difficult task.  You have to let go to flow.  And asking any one of us to let go, when we all have the sanskaras, or blockages, within us from all of our past experiences, is a huge endeavor.  It was absolutely beautiful.  I was not perfect in my teaching. And after my daughter  who watched me practice through the night and then reminded me that I would be fine and that I already knew what I was doing reminded me,  I let go of hoping to be perfect. And found the flow.  So did most people in that full class on New Year's Day.  People want to let go. Our bodies want to be healthy.  We do not want to live in fear. But if our stories are so wrapped up in hanging on to what we know and retelling them again and again, we become our fear. Our stress. Our bodies riddled with disease and illness.  Because we need to hang on to something.

Instead, let go.  Flow. Believe in our goals.  They are our dreams. We honor each other and each others' full potential with a nudge.  It is ok. Do it. I nudge every day because I see the effects that take place when people let go.  I see lives changed, fulfilled.  I have seen fear. I have even heard more people than I can count express their fear and not even know it, even when they say it out loud.  They are so used to it being there, they would not know what to do without it.  Try flow. Try t'ai chi. It is beautiful.  It works. It feels good. And it is OK to admit that you feel good!