I think something we are all a little bit guilty of is waiting for our life to begin.
We tell ourself,
When I attain this thing,
When I achieve this milestone,
Then my life will start to have meaning,
Then it will have more purpose,
It will have a direction.
And that can be a really appealing train of thought because it promises some certainty.
It promises a clear path forward.
But there's also a cost in this.
A cost in inhabiting a life.
That always exists on the other side of something that is yet to be attained or achieved.
So I want to share a little story that I really like that helps me think about this.
And it's called the Navy Trail.
It's part of Tory Hartman's Chakra card collection.
And the short legend goes like this.
The oldest woman of a town decides that one day she's going to leave her home in pursuit of this elusive navy trail she's heard about.
And as she ventures out,
She comes across a young boy.
And he asks her where she's going.
And she tells him.
And he looks at her and looks at her feet.
And he points towards them and he says,
But you're already on the Navy Trail.
And with that,
She looks down and she finds the navy trail beneath her feet.
She starts to head home,
And with every step she takes,
The navy trail unfolds before her.
Now,
Tory Hartman has put a sentence with this card and this story.
And it is When I'm Somewhere Else.
My life will have meaning.
I think that's really powerful.
So I'll say it again,
When I'm somewhere else,
My life will start to have meaning.
And I think we can probably all relate to this in some way.
This sense that when I get to a different point,
When I find this.
Fantasy path that will fix everything.
My life is going to start to have meaning,
It's going to make sense.
And the danger here is,
Of course,
That we become like the oldest woman in the town.
We spend our life fantasizing about imagined versions of ourself and our life.
And by the time we realized that we needed to be in our reality,
Too much time has gone by and we've not got a lot left to play with.
So I think there's an invitation here to really reflect on some of the fantasies we have about our future lives and our future selves and identify what it is we really want.
Why life will feel like it has more meaning and purpose when we get to that point.
When we have warped exactly off.
When we are what exactly?
And use that as a compass for living our actual present day reality.
My name is Alex.
I am a drama therapist,
So I very much enjoy using stories,
Creativity and symbols to really wrestle with.
What this human life really is because I think it's very complicated,
Very uncertain and very messy and so anything that promises a quick fix or an answer or a solution I don't really trust.
But stories I do.
I think they tell us something.
I think they engage our imagination and allow us to.
.
.
Find different ways of moving our own story forward.
So if that sounds of interest to you,
Please do follow along and perhaps our Navy trails will cross paths again.
