To pause and ask the question: “Am I truly living a life I love?” is a bold and courageous gesture. It means confronting what may need alteration or repair. Asking it requires presence and participation, a long and deliberate exhale.
Also, it requires digging deep below the comfortable surface and visiting our hiding places. The places where we burrow when we refuse to live life on life’s terms: where we attempt invisibility and silence, shrink and disappear.
As a child, my place was the “secret” shed in my grandparents’ backyard, except camping out there as a child was filled with imagination and play. Later in life our hiding places are typically where we go to numb: the bar, the TV room, the office, the unhealthy relationship.
How can we wisely utilize the pause between feeling and action? To re-set our attention, we turn the gaze inward. With tenderness and a flashlight in hand we investigate. We get curious about our needs, our choices, the songs of our ghosts.