Start Where You Are

"The time to have the map is before you enter the woods." - Brendon Burchard

When I first heard this quote, I burst out laughing.

If I'd waited for the map before daring forward into a new experience, I'd still be camping in the same spot on the edge of the woods.

The challenge, I repeatedly discovered, is not only that we often rely on borrowed maps or that we blindly follow the well-worn paths of those that came before us.

For me, the challenge was that by the time I realized the map wasn't for me, I had no compass of my own to establish my bearings and to uncover my path through the woods.

Hence, I navigated the hard way through many, many thorns.

In real life we all have our own compass - call it intuition, guts, values - but for me, for many of us, we are not taught how to access it, how to develop it and worst of all, many of us are conditioned not to trust it, especially if our compass does not direct us down the paths that we are expected to follow.

This prompt to START WHERE I AM helped me to focus on THE WORK, my work, in the present tense.

I understand where my stories come from, but to heal and grow, to develop and nurture self-trust (my compass), I had to acknowledge these stories and feel the pain I'd swallowed.

As James Baldwin asserted, "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

Love your guts.