Follow Your Heart: Everything is Possible in 2017

“You’re sure to do impossible things… when you follow your heart” wise words sung by Jacquismo the swallow in Disney’s Thumbelina movie. This was playing in my head when I happened to glimpse a short video about a teenager who has instigated an amazingly simple yet powerful project to clean up the vast quantity of plastic bags in our oceans.

My favourite quote of Boyan’s, the innovative teenager, is “Human history is a long list of things that were impossible.. and then got done.”

Like many in the run up to this holiday season my days seems crammed full right now of things to be done that I wouldn’t class as inspirational. But I’ve learned that there are no coincidences, so as I heard these messages this week I thanked the universe for the serendipities that brought them to me.

I often marvel at how I can know something, totally believe it, write about it and share it, and then make myself an exception. Conceptually, yes, anything is possible. As Napolean Hill is quoted as saying “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”.

Why these messages, why now? Now and always, it’s a great thing to be reminded of. So much has changed in my life in the last couple of years, I’m so much more me for so much more of the time. Yet I want to be me, the real me, to know who that is all of the time. But…

And there is where my doubts kick in. When I’m with my young children and there’s chores to be done, or I’m acutely aware of the lack of time I have to myself, how is it possible (I wonder) how will my dreams unfold amid this quagmire of circumstances?

Then literally, as I took a short break from writing this and read less than a page of a book that I hadn’t picked up in a while, Path of Empowerment by Barabara Marciniak, these words jumped out at me: “Situations and people appearing to limit and control your reality can serve many purposes, depending on your interpretation and point of view”.

It’s like school holidays, this is the first year my kids won’t be in any kind of child care or holiday programme. At first that made me feel suffocated, yet, as we are nearing it, a sense of freedom is opening up. Right now I am acutely aware of ‘the machine’ that requires too much conformity over the term, the kids and I are both longing for an unadulterated period of non-conformity.

Thoughts of summer days, doing what we like, when we like, are very appealing. Sure, I’ll need to sense into moments when I can have time to meditate and to contemplate and to write, but I do actually trust they will come now instead of worry about how to carve them out.

Just as I’ve been more attuned lately about when to share advice, or to say yes (or to say no) to an activity, I can trust – and will have more freedom – to allow the same flow of impulses to guide this time ahead.

I’ve been holding a lot of people at bay socially, because we have been so exhausted conforming to the machine (requirements of attending kindergarten and school in this case), so I admit I’m actually now really looking forward to the school holidays, it’s a 180 degree turnaround!

Life is quite astounding when you make some room for it. Opening up is an act of courage, because you feel you might get overwhelmed if those gates are opened even a crack. I’m not talking about mimicking Jim Carrey in Yes Man here, I’m talking about making eye contact, smiling, saying no by saying yes to what you can do, gladly.

I’m talking about reengaging with the serendipities that are all around and trying to get your attention. You know what you want, even if you can’t speak it but only sense that it’s not what you have right now. Are you listening out for your messages, or are you too embroiled in the doing, too closed off to hear them right now?

The inner you knows what you like and don’t like. Listen.

As we head into a new year, a natural break in pace for many of us, we start to turn inwards, reflecting on all our hopes and dreams. I hope you will remember Boyan, and his amazing invention that will help clean up our oceans and tackle at least that one aspect of our own environmentally detrimental behaviour.

You don’t need to want to change the world, but you do need to change your inner world. Then, as you do, anything becomes possible for you in 2017.
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