Flash of Light: Storm and Silence

You can change your life. You can have the things you want, the things you love, the things you desire. The dream is different for each person, which is what makes it special…it’s yours, the dream life that belongs to you.

When you are far away from your dreams, it can seem impossible to reach them. It seems like you’re trapped in a dark cave, and the beautiful life you want is far above you, so far that you can’t even see it. You can only imagine it.

For me, when I was young, I often felt as if a tornado raged around me. I felt I couldn’t move, that even to take one step would mean being grabbed by the wind and torn away.

So I stayed in place. I anchored my feet, and refused to move into the storm. At the time, it was all I could do.

And I guess I could have stayed there forever, to the end of my life, afraid to move as the storm raged.

But when I became interested in health and self development in college, the tornado slowly blew out. In time the winds got less violent, and then disappeared, leaving me in a quiet darkness.

Now I had peace, without the storm. And again I could have stayed there forever, safe in the darkness. And this was the most critical moment in my life, because I felt better than ever before. I had made it through the storm, and I could stay in this peaceful place, not moving.

But instead, a part of me, really deep inside, a very stubborn part that had been there since I was born said No. I want the dream.

The dream was the vision of the life I wanted, beyond anything I had yet experienced.

The dream was warmth and passion, and adventure and excitement, and deep connections with people that I loved, and to see parts of the world I could never imagine.

(And isn’t it strange, how we can dream the things that we haven’t yet experienced? That we can feel a rush of love for a person we haven’t met yet, or the warm sand of an island beach we’ve never even visited? That our imagination can carry us toward a special goal that would fill us with well being and peace, even if we’ve never experienced it?)

Now I was in the darkness. The storm was gone. I had a dream.

What next?