Mapping Your Best Life

            Finally! We seem to have a reprieve from the rain! I look outside my window and see glorious blue skies. Normally, this would excite me to no end, but now I find myself resisting it. I find myself not wanting to walk at all.
            Feeling like this sets me to panicking a bit. Is the depression returning? Or is it just a case of ‘the blues’ that we all experience at one time or another?

            Have you ever found yourself resisting those things that you know would bring you joy if only you took a step toward it? Know this: if you are telling yourself that you just don’t have the time, then you are resisting the change and transformation that comes from those joyous activities.

            Whenever I resist walking, I know I am shutting down inside. That feeling of not wanting to walk or engage with nature is like a magic marker for me, a flag of warning that I am withdrawing from myself, withdrawing from my life. What are the ‘markers’ in your life?

            I forced myself to walk yesterday. As I was passing through the schoolyard, I came across some small children’s toys in the dirt: a toy truck with small pebbles in the box, a plastic barn with stalls built into it, and animals scattered about. It immediately transported me back to my childhood and how I loved playing with toy cars and trucks. (We used to call them ‘dinky’ cars.)

            I would build entire cities and towns. Small milk cartons cut in half with windows and doors carved into them became buildings. A narrow piece of wood became a grader as I ‘plowed’ roads for my cars and trucks.

            Building the roads, all inter-connecting with one another, was always my favorite thing to do. I loved the planning it took to build to build a city or a town. In remembering that I realized that it takes planning to re-build our lives after it has been ravaged by life, illness, or circumstance.

            In my imaginary towns I would stick twigs or Popsicle sticks into the ground. They were signs that helped to map out my village. Our lives and our inner landscapes aren’t much different. We all need ‘signs’ to guide us, much like my resistance to walking signals to me that I am withdrawing from life.

            Take some time to recognize the signs in your life. Those hunches, that intuition, the little ‘voice’ inside of you: all of these are signs waiting to guide you back into all that is important to you.

            Had I not pushed through my resistance and walked yesterday I would not have been reminded that walking is like building roads and pathways to our inner selves. Had I not walked I would not have come across that child’s imaginary world and I would not have been reminded of the power of our imaginations to create something from nothing. You have the power to build the life of your dreams. Be fearless in creating that world. Be fearless in mapping your best life!

The 'Two Trees Trail' in the

Grasslands National Park

Originally published in the October 4,2010 issue