Are You Doing What You Really Love? 12 Steps to Get You There…and They're not anonymous!

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had a massive stroke, temporarily losing function of the left hemisphere of her brain, and experienced it consciously. She now shares her experience of the silence, connection and hope for ourselves and the planet that the right brain permits. “Peace is just a breath away,” she says in her inspiring and illuminating interview with Oprah.

“Balance is the hardest place to get to and the easiest place to be.” – my friend, Mac

“Why are you walking so fast? We’re already here.” – my friend, Claire when walking in the woods

Pugh diving into the seas off Antarctica (Photo by Terje Eggum)

I have spent countless hours and in fact months, trying to get somewhere. Today I return to writing my memoir and I find joy.

Joy is in doing what you love.

It’s right there like an angel or spirit waiting patiently at your side, invisible and inperceptible until you stop thinking and working and trying and just relax and be and give yourself a moment, an hour, a day or a lifetime to do what is your soul’s calling.

Jim Foose my painting teacher used to tell me “Stop noodling.” He didn’t tell me what that meant but I knew: I have so much potential. I zig and zag circle around preparatory actions. I stay shallow. I don’t go where I really am.  I’ve always been afraid of diving, yet I love to swim.

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My daily worry is that I will miss my life. That I am missing my life. My greatest work is in finding The Path moment to moment, rebalancing as when riding a bike, flying without holding on, as the Garuda* does. This desire, which I call riding the knife’s edge, is what brought me leave my life in the states and to fall into my ego’s worst nightmare: the abyss of the Mysterious, the Unknown. Utter lack of control, on purpose.

My life is a counter balance between abandoning myself out of fear and habit punctuated by glorious yet sporadic bouts of doing what I really want. Doing exactly what I wanted to really do comprised my first three years in México. That is the gift I gave myself. Over the years I sank down into layers of murkiness and layer by layer removed the veils that hid the truth of who I am and of All that is contained in the moment.

Hard work, but worth the price.  I have something but I can’t hold it and show it to you: It’s a knowing of what and who I’m not.  Now I’m working on locating the muscles and route to who and what I am. Intermingled with this is my striving to feel into and cultivate that which quietly glows at the center of my universe. 

What glows at the center of your universe?

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12 questions to help you 
find, remember and do what you really love

1. Do you do what you really want to do?
   
2. How do you abandon yourself?
   
3. How do you know when you’re doing it?
   
4. How do you catch yourself?
   
5. What do you do when you realize?
   
6. How do you shift directions and aim toward home?
   
7. Where is your home?
   
8. How looks, feels, sounds, the territory of your heart?
   
9. Are you living a good life?
   
10. Are you wasting time?
    
11. Are you willing to continue doing so?
    
12. What is one small thing you could do today that is something you really love, that brings you to your knees in awe and gratitude?
    

 
For me, today it’s writing and painting.  Here, I am revealed to myself and I am home.  

As Shirley MacLaine said in Being There: “I reveal myself to myself and I am drenched and purged.” 

There’s nowhere I’d rather be.

 

 * The Garuda is a mythical bird with human arms that is hatched from space, ready to fly. What makes the garuda outrageous? No longer attached to the view of “me,” it has 360-degree perspective, a fresh mind that continually cuts through concept. This mind accommodates everything with the confidence of equanimity, an unbiased view that comes from having contemplated the landscape of life: the reality of impermanence and suffering.