Becoming the Change You Want to See in The World, Part I: Take a Leap of Faith

Let me start by asking you this: Exactly what are you planning to do with this short, wild, precious life of yours? What leap of faith would be required to make the change you want to see in your life? Are you willing to make that change – and when?

Like with all significant transitions, whether it’s your spiritual path, relationship, politics, location, or personal identity – change will call us out on a cliff every so often. The good news is that whether our mind is set up or not for the giant leap when that moment comes, it is actually up to us. Living the life you want to live means becoming accustomed to repeatedly making leaps of faith, and there are ways you can prepare for it.

During our journey through existence, our awakening hearts repeatedly calls us out into deep unknown waters. It’s a calling that might strike us like a brick in the head or a set of harmonizing chords from a passionately mesmerizing string quartet.

Hard as a rock or unbearably beautiful, either way, impossible to ignore.

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To follow that calling means losing our foothold and free-falling into the abyss of our unknown – or known dreams. When you actively prepare for life-changing events, you are consciously walking into new territory instead of helplessly free-falling into new circumstances where you might end up feeling like a victim instead.

In the middle of a leap of faith, you can, of course, never know for sure whether your life will shift in a favorable direction or not. When the time of change comes, we have to let go of who we know ourselves to be and jump. As change is both an ongoing challenge and an inevitable part of life, we can all serve ourselves better through acquiring some skills to deal with it. And even so, if you succeed to land on your two feet after having jumped ship, it can still be confusing at first to find our selves in new terrain. That’s the way things are, and we need to do our best to befriend whatever shift is going on.

As for all of us, with life-changing transitions, it’s likely that they have first been initiated by an inner knowing that was present before our outer circumstances shifted, whether we listened to that precognition or not.

Squarely facing the fact that we are always in minor transition and accepting that fact instead of insisting on negotiating with it, we are already on a path towards greater alignment.

It is more important than ever to trust our brave hearts to lead the way during uncertain times like this. How could it be otherwise?

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Getting accustomed to life’s inevitable uncertainties can also serve as a preparation for more advanced leaps of faith further ahead on our path. We therefore do rightly to get accustomed to having the rug pulled every so often.

My path as a renunciate western woman can, for instance, stand as a general example when it comes to facing the outcome after having jumped the ship of lay life.

In some ways, I can see that my renunciate path has been very blessed and fortunate. In other ways, it only adds on to many of the insufficient hardships experienced by several of those who dare to take a similar kind of leap.

Still, isn’t it better to leap of faith and jump, even if so only with the parachute of your dreams? Then to wait for a signal from who knows where or when to make the change we are longing for? Isn’t it better to leap of faith than having the idea of pausing in mid-air to wait for a more certain direction to appear, a choice that usually means landing on our face instead of on our feet? Isn’t it better to take a leap of faith than to stay in our ingrained cocoons and waste our opportunity to leave our outworn nest instead of sore like butterflies in the sky?

Listen. When was there ever a moment of certain outcomes that could guarantee a favorable situation ahead? Has it ever helped to sit around and wait for a change to happen? What just excuses are you convincing yourself about to stay put in a situation you don’t want to be in and let your dreams remain on the shelf? Remember that we are dealing with a talented chess player in the game of life here called time, and this non-negotiable player has zero patience with our whims and hesitations. The only choice we have around taking that leap of faith, whatever it is that needs to shift for you, is now.

The shift begins with the conviction that you see the futility of keeping going down the same path you are currently going. That your life the way it’s set up right now, or parts of it, just isn’t working any longer – or never has. The leap of faith is an active choice from your side, born out of trust that you have a choice. The leap of faith involves growing an essential belief in your capability of taking full responsibility for your life without being self-indulgent. By standing firm in a fundamental trust in the vision of who, what, and where you want to be, you jump off the cliff into your wildest dreams. Even if only with your dreams as your parachute.

Blessed be,
Chimey

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Published by Lama Chimey

Buddhist Minister, Meditation & Dharma Teacher

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