Teetering or Tottering?

Our lives are a series of tipping points. Some are subtle shifts in our awareness or behavior or circumstance; some are like a teeter totter falling when your partner jumps off and you crash to earth. But, they happen.

Sometimes these tipping points are forced on us by events that are out of our control, but sometimes they are the result of making a decision; usually a decision that we KNOW we have to make. In my experience, these are decisions that our intuition has already made, but our brains override.

I have been mentally balanced on the fulcrum of a tipping point for over a year now, weighing both sides of that teeter-totter. My heart and intuition on one side and my brain and logic on the other. The balance has shifted from one day to the next, but as I began to feel more than think, the balance shifted and I made the decision.  The tipping point arrived.

One of my goals for 2014 is to tune into my intuition; to stop analyzing and crunching numbers and feel my way forward. I had to finally ask myself, “Jane what do you WANT to do? Not what SHOULD you do.”  That is a freeing moment when you answer yourself honestly; it’s like the first breath when you emerge from underwater.

We have to unravel ourselves from other people’s needs and expectations.  We have to let go of the belief that we are so intertwined with our past and present that we can’t move forward. This happens professionally and personally, despite huge piles of evidence that when people quit a job, quit a relationship or in the worst case, lose someone to death, we all move on. We grieve these losses and we survive.

Nothing is permanent, is it? That’s why tipping points are so important. They remind us that change and evolution have always been and will always be, the drumbeat of our lives.  They remind us that we have choices; that we can either be an active participant in those choices or have them forced upon us by default.

So, listen to your little inner voice. It’s often drowned out by the louder ‘voice of reason’ (in my mind, that is the voice of my mom or dad…for you, it may be James Earl Jones. Whatever). That voice has served me well on many occasions, but when it becomes constrictive and stifling, sit quietly, sometimes for months and allow the quiet, but insistent voice of intuition to have a say.

Here’s a warning. The voice of reason is not just internal; it shows up in your friends and family when you tell them that you’ve made an important shift. “But, why would you do that? You’re in a great situation and jobs like this don’t come along everyday.” “It will be get better. Just work harder.” “Give it another year or two. You can do that, right?” “What if this doesn’t work out the way you think it will?” “You’re being kind of selfish, aren’t you?”

Tipping points are about choices and dreams and knowing what you have to do; they lead us to the next phase, a new outlook, an end, a beginning.  Don’t fear them.