Learning to Listen to the Dream of Life

I'd always thought that the only way to listen was with my ears.

How else would I listen?

There is our listening to the external world, the sounds of life around us, and then there is how we listen internally. There’s a deeper landscape here. Life is always calling us to be more present with it, now. The Divine nature of life draws us forward into creation with it.

How do we learn to tune in to these calls?

When faced with challenging choices, we can fall into tendencies to please the world as we see it. Ancestry, culture, parenting and systemic ways of thinking all deeply impact our first journey in life. These shape us. On these foundations we create our sense of 'self'.

This 'identity container' is useful for developing the skillsets that take us through early life. Yet our ego is built up precisely so it can fall. How would it be to let go of the success, security and containment this part of life brings? Have you entertained that thought?

What if there's a second journey?

Are you listening for it?

Around 2006 I sat in the Drama office in the college where I’d worked for the previous five years. I was 41. I’d ‘achieved’ much and there has been many ‘successes’. I sat at the beginning of term before any students arrived and there was a deep, felt sense in me.

I don’t want to be here.

I can’t say how I felt this. But something else was calling out. At birth there’s a dream woven into the fabric of our lives. We are gifted a body to fulfil this dream. I had not yet learned to listen to the inner gradient we call soul.

So I stayed in this job for another five years.

And gradually made myself unwell.

We know change is challenging. Big career moves just are.

There’s a soul’s journey waiting to be lived. Perhaps it won’t be this lifetime, maybe you’ll get another go at it, but there’s a deep DNA of purpose written into your story from the beginning and it’s waiting for you to live it.

Learn to listen to your body. Have that challenging conversation with someone close to you about the change. Read. Walk with older souls and then if you can - be alone. Creation waits for you to enter in with it, to flow with its changing tides.

You’ll need bags of courage, and those seeds are already there.