A Leap of Faith

The 21 day period is drawing to a close. I thought I’d be writing like a demon morning, noon and night, but I haven’t.

A few days in I hit a bit of a crisis point. It was a moment when deepest feeling suggested nothing was going the way I wanted it to and yet intellectually I knew it wasn’t all bad. I followed the feeling anyway, and in a moment of despair silently urged the universe to throw me a lifeline…

Within 2 hours a relatively new acquaintance popped up online and I entered into a general conversation with him. Within another hour I received an unprompted, spontaneous offer of help with the book. I now feel I have someone to work with, who can be sounding board, offer publishing support and advice, help me keep focused and establish useful connections.

So my focus switched as a result of that new connection. I wrote a status report on the project and my intentions with the book, along with things I was currently finding challenging. Panning back to look at the bigger picture I could become more business like again, and in turn feel more solid and comfortable with the value of the Leap project and how I’m investing my time.

One of the things I realised, despite the amount of work I’ve done, I’m still hampered by self-doubt and perhaps fear of failure. I do believe that if you do what you love the money will follow. And to a certain extent I’ve already proven that to myself, although not in the way of a solid income. And to live in this world in the way I desire, that is what I need to do.

Also, despite knowing that my best inspiration and creativity flows out of stillness, I still wake up with a gnawing sense that immediate action is needed, that I need to be productive every waking moment. And any writing I do feels effortful.

So today I decided to embrace nothingness, to allow my mind to drift and imagine how I want things to turn out. Investing time in picturing the end result  and allowing inspired action to flow out of that. And that if I was to actually ‘do’ anything, that it would only be because I was drawn to. In other words, stepping into flow where everything is natural and effortless. This is the state I’m most likely to receive insights about steps to take now or in the future.

I picked up a 2007 edition of Puzzler that was lying around and took it outside to sit in the sun and do a crossword or two. Feeling quite pleased with myself for electing to do ‘nothing of value’ at a time when I’m feeling the pressure, every hour of every day, to earn an income. Must be something to do with being back in the UK…

The first page I turned to was called double cross. You complete one grid with answers to clues and then transfer the letters into another grid to reveal a quotation. I only filled in a few answers before having a bash at the quotation. The first word of the quote came out as ‘Nollow’ – strongly suggesting something was a bit awry with my answers. It was enough however for me to work out the proper answers, and reveal possibly the best synchronistic message I could’ve received today:

“Follow your dreams, believe in yourself and don’t give up and you will achieve success in what you set out to do.”