If I accept the calling to courageously enter the moments, the invitations to life and adventure and love,
If I choose to fully experience, to enter in when fear tells me it’s all too much, to clear the old cobwebs of my mind and heart despite any obstacles in the way,
To pursue detail, to ask the questions and chase the answers, to seek discomfort, master my impulses and play the long game, to walk forward with truth, into all that God has made to experience in the world,
To break patterns and go where I never have,
To love the people in my sphere without hesitation, and connect with them exactly where they are, from exactly where I am, to be curious at all points…
I discard anxiety. I escape dread of the future and shame of the past.
I relinquish the power of external opinions, for I have the clarity to embody my own and explain if required.
I become free of worry, because I know that the lessons of the past arm me for the coming battles.
I exchange familiar fears of the known, the habitual, for an exhilarating faith in the possible.
I accept both love and pain. I accept the unknown.
I drink deep of the greatest joy and the immense sense of gratitude; I savour the intimate connections.
I also accept the ache of transience and I embrace change, impermanence.
I accept being known, and knowing. I accept the visceral empathy with the pain around me, in this groaning world that longs to be renewed.
I accept the opportunities of change, freedom from the road automatically assigned to me. I accept light, hydration and breath, presence and forward movement. I pause to behold beauty of great magnitude.
I walk circumspectly, knowing life is not a game, and yet do so without fear.
If I accept this call, it means I accept peace of mind - the unalterable *knowing* that I am fully alive.
That I am where I am supposed to be.
That there is a path set before me, each choice leading to the next, that only I can walk. Only I can play these roles and exert this influence on the quest unique to me. Nothing is wasted.
It’s a mandate.
It’s a beckoning to come out of the shadows, shake off the fear. To be fully engaged in now, and use the past as fuel to walk boldly into an unfamiliar future.