“Leave Your Footprints Behind!” was a statement I noticed during a Zoom presentation I attended earlier this week. It was an informative presentation to members of the Writers League of The Villages and it was all about how to attract more interest in one’s books on Amazon.
My brain and heart, working as they seem to do sometimes, immediately saw how it could serve for a blog title! Not about getting your books noticed, but about choosing to leave the footprints of the past in the past. Let me explain further.
All of us pick up ideas and beliefs during our early informative years; they leave “impressions” within our brain and they follow us into our adult years, like the impressions you leave on a wet, sandy beach when the tide is going out. They only show where you’ve been but where you’re going is seemingly uncharted and just an endless stretch of beautiful beach. And if you’re truly in the present moment, your attention is drawn to what is right in front of you and you begin to be aware of the myriad kinds of shells and tiny living creatures scurrying along and in and out of the sand. You notice the variations in the color of the shells and sea-worn pebbles, the pieces of seaweed, sponges, and coral, and you discover you’ve drifted into a consciousness of wonder, curiosity, and Oneness.
The destination is of little concern until the rising sun and the slight change in temperature signals your brain that you have things to do, to get on with whatever plans are in store for the day. You feel uplifted and energized to meet your day with a certain level of positive expectation: It’s going to be a wonder-filled day and you feel ready to meet it with an open heart and mind! No longer looking back over your shoulder, the journey forward may seem uncharted, but it’s really not. What it has become is a journey of unlimited possibilities yet to be fulfilled!
How different that early morning walk could be if you allowed concerns and challenges to take center stage in your mind! You are likely to stop and look back and a worrisome thought tells you to not go any further, to turn back and get on with trying to deal with whatever the concern or shadow thought is telling you. Once again, you’ve been taken out of the moment and are back into living a life directed by those shadow thoughts and fears.
Can you relate to any of this? And are you ready to learn what you can about how you’ve gotten to where you are, if you find yourself being one of us who sometimes looks back and unknowingly turns over control of our life to all those shadow beliefs, those myths about who we are and how we see ourself and others?
I not only hope so, but I see each of you reading this feeling energized to make a shift and a new choice if you believe it’s needed. And if it’s not, because you’ve already found your own truth and are living pretty much in alignment with your inner GPS guidance, then you are simply nodding your head, knowingly.
And if the message in this blog leaves you at all confused or perhaps even indifferent to it, that’s alright as well. We are each right where we need to be, living our life in accordance with what we know, taking in what speaks to us and setting aside what doesn’t today… Tomorrow is another new day, filled with new possibilities!
Love & Light, Steven