Guest Post: Emily Perry

While I’m in Italy leading a Courageous Play retreat, some lovely guest posters are filling in! I’ll be updating intermittently when I have time and internet access from Florence, though comments on all posts will be turned off so that I don’t need to moderate them while I’m away. ~ with care ~ Kate

Opening up to the Next Big Thing by Emily Perry

When Kate asked me to write a post about living courageously, so many things
came up for me, and I realized that my vision of living bravely is always changing.
Courage, like us, is dynamic, fluid, and unique to each person. It can transform
in different phases of our lives, too. What for me might be a big leap right now in
my life may have, years ago, seemed to be a small micro-movement along the
path.

There are some things that I feel can soften our experience of everyday courage,
ways we can pioneer our own path with less resistance and overwhelm. And it
may sound simple, but it starts with listening. I see so much bravery in deep
listening: when we really quiet the mind and listen to our inner, authentic voice.
When we listen to the insight from behind the “tapes” we are playing over and
over in our minds. When we reach beyond our own story, and the stories of
others in our lives, and see that much remains unwritten. When we listen to what
is viscerally crying out from our deepest self.

Deep listening brings with it an opening. The chatter is cleared for authentic
conversation with our inner selves. We get to hear what we really need, so we
can tend to and nourish our inner garden. And when we are open, ideas can
manifest themselves in the soil we have cultivated, and take root. For me, this is
when the next big thing appears. Often is seems like it comes from the ether-
from the depths of an inner ocean, from the darkness of the night sky, from the
oceanic wind. Eventually I come to realize that I had cultivated the opportunity
for growth all along- all those dry days were really an incubation period, and that
it was the quieting of my inner world that created the stillness for the idea or
moment to manifest.

So for me there is courage in tuning into the quiet: so much of our culture drives
us towards busyness, towards being over-scheduled, and disconnected.
Quieting down and finding our center is a way to reconnect so that we can have
real relationships with others and ourselves. So that we can live from our hearts,
and not our habits.

The next big (or little), thing will come. If we are patient, and willing to cultivate
our own courage, we might just discover an inner stillness, an opening, and a
wellspring of great things waiting for us to dip in.

::
Emily Perry is a Yoga Teacher, Acupuncturist and Artist living and working in
California. She currently teaches yoga, mindfulness and creativity, as well as an
e-course, From Bija to Bloom. More about her and her work can be found on her
website, Emily Perry Studios, http:://www.emily-perry.com