I remember the first time I saw the movie Indiana Jones. Not only did I fall in love with hunky Indy, but I wanted to have adventures like him. Solving ancient puzzles, dodging booby traps and bad guys, knowing mysteries of the long lost civilizations like the back of my hand. What excitement! What a life to live! I fully saw myself in the role and applied myself to school with that goal in mind.

Funny how life turns out a little bit different than you imagined it growing up. Along the way you get distracted by raging hormones or make a series of compromises until you end up somewhere completely different. Yet your heart still silently yearns for your childhood dreams, doesn’t it? I heard some say that we often tell ourselves “rational lyze” to keep ourselves in our comfort zone, keep us from moving into the unknown of our dreams and realizing our full potential. We rationalize ourselves right into the picture perfect lives society or our family has prescribed for us. We’ve settled down or just plain settled for less than our dreams. And here we get stuck until we wake up one morning and don’t recognize the care-worn face looking back at us in the mirror.

Not that we have bad lives. Far from it. I wouldn’t for a moment of Indiana Jones glory trade my family and friends away. But other aspects of my life? Heck yeah!

So what’s stopping us? What keeps us stuck? Even if we have built a life we love, but inside crave more, what keeps us from chasing rainbows?

We get stuck when we resist following our intuition, our heart. This comes out in two main places. First are the rational lies we tell ourselves that really only mask our ego based fears. We repeatedly talk ourselves out of pursuing our dreams for what we “think” are good reasons: I have kids, I have bills, I have responsibilities, and I SHOULD do such and such. Think about this for a moment. Where are you “shoulding” yourself? How many of those “shoulds” are really just excuses because you are afraid of making the changes you know you need to?

The second place is in not making a decision. We respond to situations reactively instead of proactively. Here’s how I learned this lesson big time. I was working in a spa a few years ago and kept hearing that it was time to go out on my own, start my own healing work. I kept stalling. The guidance became more insistent, but because I didn’t know how I was to accomplish this, I kept on resisting. A series of odd events conspired and forced me out. I was shocked, to say the least. I was no longer in a position to proactively decide the course of my work. I had to react to the situation instead. Had I listened to my guidance I may have been better prepared to run my own practice. Instead I was thrown into it. It all turned out for the best, of course, but I did it the hard way.

Watching Indiana Jones for probably the 50th time last night with my 5 year old brought back all the longing for adventure I had when I was young. But I saw it differently this time. As my husband often lovingly reminds me, I’m not a very rational person. I think this has worked to my advantage. Since I opened to fully living by my intuition, really listening to what my heart has to say about things, look where I am. Mild mother and wife by all appearances, my adventures take place in the realm of souls. So I don’t have that sexy fedora, but I take myself and others exploring the great wilderness within and solving the puzzles presented by the soul. Booby traps are those of the ego. I spend many hours a day studying and teaching the ancient mysteries. I am Indiana Jones of the internal worlds! How cool is that!

So keep chasing your rainbows. Keep moving closer to where you are guided. Learn to recognize when you are resisting and see it for what it really is. Before you know it, you too will be living your dreams!

Advertisement