Is there something you need to listen to, for you?
Seven years ago I sat in the quiet of my beautiful house in Melbourne, Australia and read 'The Journey' by Mary Oliver.
As I read, there was a deep realisation that just about everything in my life was about to, and needed to change. It wasn't so much a decision that I was making, more an acceptance of what my heart had been trying to tell me for quite some time.
A few months later I gave up my job. Put all of my belongings on a container and moved back to the UK.
I had no job, no house, no partner and no real idea what I was going to do. Reading this poem, at just the right time, allowed me to finally know what had to be done.
And little by little I started.
People often ask me how I took this leap of faith out of the safe and known and familiar. Yet at the time, it didn't feel particularly courageous. It felt like it was the only possible thing to do.
The only thing I could do.
I'm not suggesting you need to do anything as dramatic as move country, or leave your job but if there's a small voice which needs to be heard then I hope this poem might give you the nudge you need to sit down quietly, by yourself and listen to it.
Where ever you are on your journey, I wish you well and hope that now is the time for you to step away from the untrue assumptions that are holding you back.
I'll look forward to being there with you.
For just as there are many voices trying to hold you back, there are also many people who are willing you on.
Willing you to take that first decisive step.
Willing you toward a life you love.
The Journey - Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.