Leap of Faith
People often talk about the leap of faith, and act like it is a deliberate act. What I am finding is that one realizes that one has leapt after the fact, in mid-leap when you discover there is air between you and solid ground. Sometimes it’s an airy floaty feeling. Sometimes it’s a sinking “oh shit” feeling. But the most important part of it is not the feeling after the leap, but the feelings right before that next step. And the next step. Those two things in combination - the feeling, or intention, behind the step and the step itself – determine whether or not you float and fly, or plummet and think “oh shit.”
My most recent leap is in slow motion. Buoyed up by good planning (years of it) and practicing leaping over and over and over, I am in free fall, floaty but directional. Leap with the right English on your step, and you can manage the fall, the trajectory, the landing. That’s what the planning is for.
What also amazes me is that during the falling, there are all kinds of time for introspection. One can see for miles and miles. And I am not alone. There are plenty of others out here, leaping and falling and soaring. What I thought was original and unique isn’t. That doesn’t make it any less the right thing to do. It just makes me a little sheepish that I had the hubris to imagine I cornered the market on this whole leaping idea.
No, in fact, I wasn’t the first. Today, I listened randomly to an audio book I found in my car, purchased a few months ago on a whim. I spend only 5-10 minutes in my car per trip these days – fortuitous as gas prices rise, but not so good for the woolgathering and audiobook potential of a 20 minute car trip. The book is a memoir by Natalie Goldberg (Long Quiet Highway
In a story she tells about when she was teaching in a New Mexico public school, she describes a moment when her heart opened up and she discovered in it a Garden of Eden. She spoke of how frightening this moment was, that she had not wished it to be, but that she did not want the feeling to ever go away. It now defined her - she was someone whose heart had blossomed. At that point, she became someone her friends or family could not understand. She felt alone, but acted on this new-found feeling with purpose and trust. With faith.
Hearing her read these words from her own book on audiotape was a mini-awakening for me. Yes, I had my heart open up a while back. In fact, it’s opened and bled profusely so many times, and I continue to seal it up, sometimes cauterizing it, sometimes using the Daisy Seal-A-Meal to contain it. I am sure there has been damage done – irreparable damage – from these acts of “self-preservation.”
But it is something to know that she survived this opening up. It is quite a big something to realize that, in fact, all of the people I admire most have opened and bled and followed the path of creativity. Some not so successfully, some to realize fantastic wealth, many in the middle where creativity puts color and light and oxygen into humdrum lives.
I’ve asked this question of others who appeared to be on the brink of leaping: who is being served in this world by you being any less than your most amazing and awesome self?
The answer might be different for some folks, but always the answer will surprise you.
Thus, I say LEAP.
- DON’T
- do it for the company, the prestige, the fall or the flying.
- overthink
- second guess
-
DO
- leap because you must
- have a back-up plan
- bring snacks
- take notes
See you out there in thin air somewhere.