Your Heart Keeps Calling but You're Stuck

(Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash)

I bet you’ve heard the call of your heart a million times.  It’s that thing that keeps coming around.  It’s that thing you feel like you just need to do.  It keeps calling and you keep hearing it.  The call coalesces into a beautiful idea for what you could bring into the world: a book of poetry, edgy artwork, an offering to those less fortunate, or a place to gather with community. Your idea fills you with joy whenever you dream about it.  

But if you’re anything like some of my clients, the more you hear the call and start to dream, the more freaked out you get.  Your mind takes over so and you turn a heart’s calling into a mental exercise. You’re over-thinking, over-analyzing, always questioning, and often negating.   

So now it’s been a year and your idea hasn’t gone anywhere.  It’s been three years, five years… a decade.  The call is still ringing deep in your heart, and you’re still not answering.  You’ve gotten so comfortable ignoring the call, that even when opportunity comes closer, you wave it past, too up in your head and freaked out to try something new.

My friend, you’re stuck.  You’re stuck playing small.  Not even small in this case, minuscule.  You’re on the sidelines, not even playing.  

HEART CALLINGS

I think callings rise up inside of us to point us in the direction that will most open our hearts.  They arise to bring us towards Awakening.  Heart calls have an urgency and insistence to them because they are exactly what is needed to help us unfold our unique magic.  Right now our magic is desperately needed on this planet to help heal humanity.   So, we’re all hearing callings that, if answered, will free up more magic not only for ourselves, but for the world.  

But, the process that it takes to free up our magic brings us into uncomfortable places inside where we’d rather not go.  It asks each of us rise above the habits and fears that have kept us small in the past.  And though we may not love those habits, they’re really comfortable, so it can feel scary to get bigger than them.   And so, we get stuck.

Ignoring the heart’s call doesn’t work.  If you don’t want to be stuck for the rest of your life, watching life go by without you, you’ll need to try something different.  

It’s time to get into action. 

ACTION

When you get into action, you’ll start having experiences.  So instead of worrying about whether you’re going to like answering the call - you’ll find out how you like it. And instead of thinking that you’ll be horrible at it - you’ll find out if you’re any good.  By having experiences you stretch yourself.  And if it turns out you don’t like something, you can change what you’re doing.  If you find out you suck at it, you can do what it takes to get better.  But if you only think and worry about it, you’ll never know.  Eventually your life will pass you by.  

Experiences open you up to life.  And life includes unexpected moments and crappy things.  But at least you’ll be really LIVING.  All those unexpected crappy wonderful moments are what make up a life. 

REALLY LIVING

If you want to be yourself in the world it takes more than thinking about it. All your imagination eventually needs to give way to experience.  Only by taking action can we gather the new experiences that help us build up the confidence to do bigger, bolder things.  These are the actions that liberate our magic.  These actions are what will bring you into embodying your magic, your truth, your heart. 

If you’re hearing a heart call, and I’m pretty sure you are, it’s time to answer it. Take one small step towards your dream and notice what it feels like to get unstuck and start living!