Unfold Your Wings and Watch Life Take Off

Part 2 - Your Potential

Your Potential Leads To A Calm Mind
Undisturbed By Change And Uncertainty

Many of us struggle to maintain calmness and equanimity in the fast changing modern world. Change creates uncertainty and uncertainty creates stress. However it is possible to live in a changing world and be free of the inner turmoil and strain that so many face.

I remember when in transition from being an architect to freelance management consultant; I was suffering from a great deal of stress. I worried that I would not be able to be an effective management consultant and I was anxious because I thought I would not earn enough money. Despite an inner knowing and calm, I was filled with surface fear and anxiety for the first year of my new occupation.

Fourteen years later I changed from being a management consultant to a writer. This transition could not have been more different. I decided to leave the business world without having any other direction for my life. I went on a retreat by staying in my own home for five weeks, only going out for walks alone, or to do some shopping. Instead of being filled with fear at the uncertain future ahead, I was completely calm. In truth I had never experienced such peace. In the fourth week of my retreat I received the inspiration to write "Unfold Your Wings and Watch Life Take Off" and begin my new career as a writer of personal development books.

Why was the first transition so stressful and the second so peaceful? In my first transition I had the call to leave architecture and be a management consultant, but I did not fully trust my calling. I struggled with it. I doubted. I tortured myself with worry. This anxiety was all unnecessary. I turned out to be a competent and capable management consultant. If only I could have trusted my intuition and happily followed my star, I would have had a much sweeter changeover.

The peace I felt in my second transition can be summarised in one word – trust. Although I was being called out of the business world and into an uncertain and unknown future, I trusted that call. While on my retreat I was unconcerned that my life had reached a dead end. In the silence of my retreat I opened up to any and every possibility and let my inner call speak to me. I needed the fourteen years experience of following my potential, to enable me to make the second transition with such grace.

	UNFOLDING YOUR WINGS
If you are entering a period of transition and are unsure of the direction ahead, try the following. When the time is right, let go of your old life. Trust the calling that is taking you into this transition period. Open to all possibilities and let inner guidance speak. Follow gentle inner promptings with action.

By trusting our calling and following our potential we receive healing. Through our inner healing we are given the gift of a calm mind undisturbed by uncertainty and changing circumstances. This calmness of mind allows us to live more fully in the present.

When in the present we find the peace that passes all understanding. I remember once seeing a bird protecting its eggs in a tree. All around a storm was raging. Twigs were flying past. The wind was howling. The rain was lashing. Yet in the middle of the gale the bird sat calm and still, unconcerned at the turbulence. Inner peace is like that. It is present even in the midst of a storm.

Envoi

My life is changing.
Outside a storm is raging.
I do not know what the future holds.

In silence I retreat from the world.
In silence I listen within.
I am suffused with silence.
Then in that inner place of peace
I become inspired.
In my inspiration I know what the future holds
And I am ready for renewed action.