Just Take the Step in Front of You

From time to time, especially lately, most of us have experienced confusion, overwhelm and hopelessness.  If I let my mind take over, worrying about the future, envisioning doom and gloom, I create misery in the present.  How about you?

Yet when we get beyond mind and connect to inner wisdom, we are guided on the step we need to take.  The step in front of us is the only one we need to take, the only step we can take.  Only after we take the first step are subsequent steps revealed.  As we surrender to the process, clarity expands.  I love the way David Whyte beautifully illustrates this truth in his poem “Start Close In”:  Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take.

Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way to begin the conversation.

Start with your own question, give up on other people’s questions, don’t let them smother something simple.

To hear another’s voice, follow your own voice, wait until that voice

becomes an intimate private ear that can really listen to another.

Start right now take a small step you can call your own don’t follow someone else’s heroics, be humble and focused, start close in, don’t mistake that other for your own.

Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third, start with the first thing close in, the step you don’t want to take.