Live from the Heart as an act of Devotion

This year I didn't make the list. You know, the Master To Do. The one I planned, in years past to be a slave to. I didn't have an accountability group. I didn't revisit the list monthly or have quarterly check-ins. 

Instead I just had a heart that had been rubbed raw by the kind of challenges that topple all of your mind's careful constructs and burn down your illusions. I began 2017 with whatever I was able to rescue from the burning building at midnight of my life. The things that really mattered to me and the things I really wanted.

And it turned out that they weren't a what, but a who. Who I was living for and my why. And my why was love and a terrible longing for us to thrive. 

And it turns out that I didn't need the list as a productivity and motivational tool because each day I woke up on fire. And the heat propelled me, no, it compelled me and this time I was just making note of what it was asking me to do. 

Each day and each task was more like devotion than obligation and everything else lost it's shiny luster lust-er. I lived more like a gardener and less like a business man. Like one who tends and hopes fiercely while yielding to the unseen processes we cannot control. 

I still had my moments where I felt not enough. Not doing enough, not having enough, not being enough. But it wasn't my master. It didn't drive me. And soon the call of my heart would recalibrate me to its own trajectory. 

And you know the result? The things I wanted so much I dared not even write them down. The things that seemed impossible and I couldn't see how they could possibly come to be. The things I would whisper into the dark night after night as I clutched my hopes to my heart. They came to pass. Each one of them. Not perfectly but profoundly. 

I was encouraged by Staci Jordan Shelton to evaluate this year not by quantifying what I had achieved but by acknowledging the guidance I had received. And this is it for me....live from the deepest place in your heart, live like a prayer where each task is an act of devotion. Dare to cling to your deepest hopes and release the outcome, knowing you can only control your tending and releasing. Tending and releasing. It will happen when it's ready to, if it's meant to. 

This is my only goal for 2018. Live from the heart as an act of devotion. Fin. 

Happy New Year my friends. Prayers for you to see life's blessings and live from a space of gratitude, hope, and love. I love you.