Walking Life’s Tightrope

Have you ever felt like the person in the picture above?  Trying to go from one side to the other without falling off?  What helps you to take the first step?  What propels you to the other side?  Starting with this issue of “Changes Inside & Out” I am going to begin a series of articles called “Journeys From the Tightrope”.  I want to explore what it is that allows us to get on and move through to the other side.  What keeps us from taking the first step?   What happens when we can hardly catch our breath and are sure we are going to die if we don’t turn around and run back to our comfort zone?

I am walking the tightrope in my life right now.  Going from one place in my life to another. Huge transition.  In the process of walking this tightrope so much has come up for me:  Fear, Excitement, Doubt, Joy, Freedom, More Fear, More Doubt and lots and lots of questions.  Do I really want to walk this way?  Do I deserve to go across?  Will I be happy when I get to the other side of this?  Can you relate to those questions?  How about these:  Why does everyone else seem to do it so easily?  What is wrong with me that all of this fear is coming up for me?  Why can’t this just be easy?  It must be wrong if it’s this hard?

So what is it that makes us even think we want to walk the tightrope?  What is so appealing?  For me, I have a voice, I believe it’s my intuition, that says go.  It literally says to me, GO NOW.  I trust my intuition so much that I go and then feel the process on the way.  It hasn’t always been like that. I can remember not too long ago when I didn’t trust myself AT ALL.  I didn’t risk even thinking about going on the tightrope.

So why?  Why do we get on?

What I have found over the years with myself and my clients is that there is something that we are either yearning for and that motivates us or life at that moment feels so hard, unfilled, frustrating, unimaginable in some way that getting on the tightrope feels like a relief even if we don’t know what or where the tightrope will lead us.  We just know in that moment it has to be better than where we are at.  I have been in both of those situations in my life more times than I can count.  Can you relate?

Why don’t we get on?

Why do we sometimes not risk getting on?  I know for me that the thought of risking sometimes feels so overwhelming that I would rather stay stuck than feel that feeling.  The good news is that I have risked enough over the years now that I have built up my muscle of trusting myself and get on anyway.  I now hear that voice I told you about.  GO, GO NOW.  What if you just can’t bear the thought of getting on?  It takes a certain moment, a moment only you will know, that is either 1) Way too hard for you to stay any longer in the place you are at that you are willing to risk it all to get out of where you are at. Or, 2) You do not want to die knowing you didn’t try to get to the other side and see if what you were yearning for is actually there.

Now that we are on the tightrope “What The Heck Do We Do?” Stay tuned….

Let me know how it is for you.  Have you been scared to jump on the tightrope?  How does it feel for you as you are crossing over to the other side.  Can you relate to anything I have written?  Let me know by leaving your comments below.