November 10, 2014
Leap
John Burroughs famously once said “leap and the net will appear.” Depending on your point of view, this statement is met either with “Whee!!!” or “OMG!!”
Vulnerability and possibility often occupy the same space whenever we try something new, or take a leap into the unknown. When we have an idea and see the potential in that idea, we often get this sense of exhilaration, brain cells firing in all kinds of directions; “YES!” in every breath. That’s the Law of Expansion in the Universe telling us to grow! Explore! Push limits! Evolve!
For some of us, that moment of exhilaration is quickly followed by our “yeah…but…” and…“what if…” reptilian brain cells reminding us to take a close look the line separating expansion and self-preservation. Moving past this line gets easier once we realize that our evolution is always going forward…we just don’t know it, since we often pay closer attention to the detours and what we think are “missed” steps. There are no mistakes – only learning points, turning points, where we take a chance and leap.
If in that leaping we fail, we fail while daring greatly as Brené Brown reminds us. Brown is research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, and her question to us is “are you engineering your life to stay small?”
Pushing our creative limits opens us to our own courage, curiosity and self-reliance. Our fear can keep us stuck or we can reach and take the leap. The choice is ours.