“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
—Lao Tzu
 

e don’t take ourselves seriously enough where it matters, and we take ourselves waaaaaay too seriously where it doesn’t matter.

We’re cautiously pushing away what could help us and carelessly accepting what could harm us.

We waste our time with the trivial and blow off the essential.

But this isn’t some fatal, terminal, permanent condition. It’s just something we’ve practiced for so long that it has become second nature.

You see, it’s easier to blow off everything that would involve us and ask everything from us than to say “Yes” and face down the unknown. That’s why they call it Pandora’s Box! All hell breaks loose when you take the first step.

But does it really?

In my experience, what actually happens is we get accustomed to taking THE NEXT step. All of a sudden, the weight from the first one is lifted, and my stepping becomes a skipping. And then a skipping to a dancing! Suddenly, I’m whirling about ecstatically with joy. I’m left wondering what all that silly resistance was about in the first place.

And here’s what I’ve discovered: The degree of resistance I’m experiencing is the degree of freedom and aliveness that’s waiting for me on the other side of resistance. Almost always.

But this is hard to see and easy to forget. The insight resets to dread, and we’re staring up the wall of fire again.

That’s why our wishy-washy lives are in desperate need of a personal trainer, a guide, a coach, a mentor – someone to create non-negotiable agreements with to keep us on track. Someone to help us through to the other side of resistance and beyond. Because it can be a tricky minefield to maneuver through.

We can forget who we authentically are and believe the tape loop of self-hate instead.

I play the role of a guide in people’s lives, and I teach people how to play that role in their own lives.

It’s a skill most of us have never been taught, and, ironically enough, we’ve been taught the opposite. We have been conditioned to believe that what we need comes from the outside. Satisfaction, love, acceptance, answers, fulfillment are all OUT THERE. Out of reach and never quite right or enough.

But just because that’s how we see the world now, doesn’t mean we can’t shift the momentum in the opposite direction.

It takes a step – the tiniest step to set it going. Do it enough, and you’ll never want to stop.

Why would you?