Feeling Alive

I was at a professional meeting over 20 years ago where we were engaged in dialogue, attempting to support each other in learning "the Truth."  One executive said he had a simple rule about what to do in life: "Do what brings you to life and life to you."  When I've pondered decisions and remembered to do so, it has proven good advice for me.  I am amazed how often when there are two alternatives, almost always one sparks my heart, and the other leaves me feeling lifeless.

I think that what he was saying was to follow your heart because when I do, I am energized.  Even when I've had no experience with something before, my heart will point me in the right direction. 

As I faced the summer between the years of graduate school, I had two choices for internships. One was with a Fortune 100 company, would have paid well, and perhaps would have led to a permanent job after graduate school.  The other was unpaid and with an unknown company.  I sat with a counselor who simply asked me about the paid internship, "Is it a 'yes' or a 'no'?" In that instant, I knew: it was a "no." 

That summer was among the most joyful in my life.  In my work with the small unknown company, I was learning every day.  The work allowed me independence in solving a very complex problem.  What I learned that summer has served me well in the over 20 years since then.  As I've learned more about myself since that time, I know I would have been spiritually dead in the other internship.  Although it most certainly would have provided me a more lucrative and secure career track, it would have been a terrible mistake.

For my whole life, I've wanted to dance.  As a kid, when my family was out of the house, I'd pull the drapes closed and twirl like a dervish.  Nothing in my childhood brought more life to me.  For a lot of reasons, I never pursued dance until a health crisis.  When threatened with paraplegia, I knew the only thing I would have missed was dance.  I came through the crisis with healthy life and limb.  AND, I began to dance.  Never, ever have I had more joy than when I dance.  Time and space stop, and magic happens.

A torn hamstring has laid me low since September, and I haven't danced since then until last Sunday.  On my doctor's advice, I only danced one or two songs and then sat out the same amount of time...and I left after an hour.  That was really hard, but I knew that I needed to be prudent if I wanted to get back to a dance floor on a regular basis.  Yet even only dancing for 30 minutes, I was aware of how alive I felt.  Long after I left the ballroom, I felt like my heart was skipping a beat in a good way, and energy surged through me for a couple days.

I am going to give it a go again tonight...cautiously.  Even though I know I must exercise control, my heart has raced all afternoon with anticipation.  I truly do feel alive.  And, just as I intuitively knew all those years before I danced that it was calling me, I know that this evening will jump start my aliveness again.

For many years I was pretty good at following my heart; then, our overly logical world gradually eroded the receivers of my heart's messages while deafening control from my head has taken control.  As I contemplate an evening of dance again and how alive it will make me feel, I wonder how I soften the messages of my head while accentuating those from my heart again.  As they always did before, I am certain that they will not fail me, even when I do not understand them.  Somehow, they just know.