I must confess that I have trouble letting go of the demand to know exactly where I am headed.
I have realized recently, once again, that I am dealing in the world I call Nuance of Change.
Maybe you know this place? For me, it’s where change and shift in my life doesn’t happen in big swishing, obvious movements, but rather in very tiny alterations like my pinky moving a half a millimeter. Shifts so small that they are easy to miss.
I am in free fall, holding my breath and losing the battle of trying to keep myself from the agony of the descent.
And while I am involved in this battle, I miss that the helpful shift is just a simple, tiny, nuanced shift.
When you feel yourself falling fast and furiously, it doesn’t seem logical that this nuance of change is the answer.
Especially because how can something so tiny and simple answer the loud and enormous demand to know precisely and immediately?
Under pressure and under stress I want so desperately to KNOW the direction of my path, to feel certainty about where I am going.
Sometimes I feel I know with certainty, sometimes I have a picture in my head.
Sometimes there is no clarity other than a list of all the this-didn’t-work.
Yet in the free fall of shift, letting go of this demand to KNOW is amazingly difficult until the pain of not knowing becomes so overwhelming.
When the tension and pain hit a crescendo and there is nothing left to lose, the nuance works its way in, leaving me to decide that I might as well give it a whirl. The worst that can happen is that I add another to my list of this-didn’t-work.
For me, the nuance of change always comes in realizing that the most helpful shift is about letting go of the demand to know exactly and immediately where I am going.
When my intention is for the deepest possible shift and understanding, I only have my sense of truth to guide me, I know not where.
The journey of a 1000 miles begins with one step. This step right now, right here.
Here’s the question to focus the nuance:
What step feels truthful to me now?
The question is not: Where am I going to end up?
Instead, letting go of the demand to know shifts my attention from a demand for future results to awareness of present possibility.
The nuance of change lies within the truth of my heart. And in this nuance is where Shift Happens.
Shift happens when I let go of the demand for certainty, releasing into the motion of truth for me here and now.
The journey is not about all the other 999 miles but about this step before me now.
Tension leaves my body, allowing me to hear my heart tell me about the truth of the step before me. And in this one step, I continue my journey.
About a month ago, I realized that I had allowed my life to become dominated by what I think of as the 10,000 things — all those things that aren’t really me.
I was allowing the 10,000 things to get in the way of the exercise and expression of my creative BE-ing.
In asking about here, now, I realized my nuance of change was one step: Write.
One by one, I am working at letting go of whatever stands in the way of this step. I am narrowing my focus to only what I can do and creating room to receive help on those things others can do better than me.
Maybe this epiphany is bigger than a nuance, but either way letting go of the end result seems to be the place where I find relief and my body lets go of tension.
Letting go of results allows me to follow the truth of my next step.
The 10,000 things are still hanging around, but finally today I cleared the decks enough to write. Woo Hoo!
Most of the changes have been on the inside, but I know some outside changes are in the works. I’ll keep you posted.
For a deep dive, begin with What is Spiritual Practice?
