Finding Your Way

I was on a long (6 hour) road trip to Kansas City the other day with a colleague of mine from the office. When we hit the "no radio" area, she glanced through my CD's and popped in Sting's "Mercury Falling" album.

I hadn't listened to this one in a while and found myself happily humming along through the first few songs, lyrics seemingly coming from the depths of my brain to allow me to sing along in my head. And then we hit the song "Soul Pilot" and I had one of those mini epiphanies that can either make or break your day.

It's a really simple song - basically, Sting is saying to trust your Soul (aka your intuition, gut instinct, etc.) to guide you on your path, whether things are going really well or really badly.

What a simple solution to everyday stress - stop, breathe, listen to your Soul, and move ahead. I think it's actually the Stop part that hangs everyone up - we're so busy getting things done that the idea of actually stopping and standing (or sitting) still for more than 5 seconds seems impossible.

So - I tried it. I've been fretting about a lot of small things lately - we're getting ready to put on a major festival, and with these types of events there are 101 oddball odds and ends that need attending to, and seemingly no time to get them all done. So, as I said, I tried it by stopping - stopping what I was doing, stopping thinking about work, and just clearing my mind. You would not believe how hard that was. Try it - you'll see. Tuning out co-workers, phones, computers, printers, the worries in my head - oy!

I eventually got to a serene place, took paper and pen, and made a list of the small worries that have been eating at me. Then, one by one, I went through each item, and focused just on that one thing - and really listened to myself and to my higher self about it. One by one, I got ideas and ways to move forward, until I'd made it to the bottom of my list. Then I sat back and looked at it - wow - there was a lot of relieved stress and worry on that page - there was direction and potential movement in its place. Pretty darn cool.

So now, I'm not worrying, because I have a plan of action, and my day actually feels lighter and brighter than it did a few minutes ago. What a marvelous feeling of accomplishment. I highly recommend the exercise - it might surprise you.