Beginning
In the movie Beginners, Christopher Plummer’s Hal decides to come out of the closet after his wife of many years passes away. He fully embraces his new community, becomes an advocate, falls in love and learns about what to call music with “that beat.” Hal is 75. He is charming, loveable and an example of it’s never too late to begin. Even while facing a cancer diagnosis. Even then; maybe especially then.
Rilke said “You are not too old, and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.”
In the movie Begin Again, an on-the-verge-of-being-washed-up Mark Ruffalo’s Dan finds a new way to collaborate. With a new, young musician, whose commitment to her independence as an artist is ferocious, he follows her lead, and the gifts he is given are remarkable.
Sewn through the messaging is an opportunity. Choices carry risk because they bring change. If your heart calls you to follow it, what would it feel like to take a step in that direction?
Twenty years ago, after deciding that, if I was going to go back to school, I’d better do it now because 10 years would go by in a blink, it was only 9 months from that thought that I was sitting at a desk in my first class in graduate school. That involved a lot of decisions. I sold my home, left a 17 year career and moved to another state. I was met with a range of responses from “go get ‘em” to “have you lost your mind.” It remains one of the best decisions I have made. My heart called. I followed.
When doubt and fear bubble up struggling for control, ask this question: what if works out? What if I decide to place some faith in that direction?
Try this:
Dive into your “increasing depths” and listen. You decide for how long. Write about what is revealed.
Ask the constant train of thoughts chugging through your mind to step aside. Ask your heart: what is next? Write about what surfaces.
Begin a sentence with This is How it Will Work Out and make a list. Notice how that feels.