Dancing with life sounds like a beautiful way to live. It’s great if you can flit and float on life’s “dance floor” with ease and grace, but life doesn’t always waltz along smoothly.

The #1 question we are being asked these days is, “Where to next?”

It’s been a month of traveling a circuit through Missouri to see our kids and grandkids and friends, not much different, I imagine, than a band going from town to town to perform; although “perform” for us was more time of connecting and catching up, but still, required being “ON” and immersed in constant activity and conversation.

Now that this annual trek is coming to completion, we are wondering where to next? The loosely held plan is to return to Quartzsite in October for the winter months, so that means we have five months to go anywhere we choose. But, we still haven’t decided, still are in the talking stage of “wouldn’t this be fun, or this, or this.”

This decision so beautifully parallels a much deeper decision we have been contemplating, researching, learning about and immersed in for the past several months … a personal decision about where am I going next.

And while the road trip decision is one that we anticipate with eagerness and excitement because this is what we know, what we do …

 

the personal decisions about  life and who I am and what do I want to do is not such clear cut, easy one to make.

Some may scratch their heads at this revelation I just shared because the perspective is that Bruce and I ARE living our dream. Most people express their desires to do what we are doing … so what else is there for the Naked Hippies to do?

It’s the same ol’ thing that perplexes and calls each of us to be more and do more in life, a constant seeking to find what’s next after you are doing what you’ve always wanted to do. For there is no end to this life until one takes that last breath, and there are so many possibilities available, so many different directions to choose from that will stretch you to expand and enrich life, no matter your age.

We have been with young people and old who are struggling to find the “gem” of purpose in life. There is a heavy sense of unfulfilled dreams and desires, a longing to “someday” be and do more, but it is waiting on a back shelf until the time is right. And all excuses given sound reasonable and validate the reasons to wait, but oh, how my soul fidgets when I hear these explanations.

For this is what I know and have experienced – life is too short to wait until everything is lined up perfectly, until all the perceived needs are met so that the path you choose will be as easy and delightful and rewarding. We didn’t wait, we took leaps of faith. Our story of these leaps is shared in my book “RV LIVING The Naked Hippies Way: Live Your Dreams, Don’t Wait for “Someday.”

You see, when you dare to start thinking about a change to make in your life, your ego which holds a PhD in architecture and engineering, pulls out the “set in stone” blueprint and begins to argue against making any changes. Your ego says, “It’s not logical, it’s not safe, you’ve never done this before, you might fail, it could be disastrous. Everything is in place, according to this blueprint … why would you want to make any changes to something that is so familiar and comfortable?  You are C R A Z Y!”

But your soul, that pure part within you that pulses with your heartbeat and that knows you intimately, continually hums a melody that every once in a while you hear and recognize. It causes you to begin to dance to with a grace and freedom that feels so right, so perfect, so joyful.

Dancing with life to the music of your soul is bliss.

And you dance for a while, moving and swaying in the flow of your soul’s song, feeling free, feeling empowered, feeling like you have found Nirvana … until the ego cuts in and begins reminding you of all the dangers of the unknown.  It’s like you were dancing to the music of a beautiful waltz, twirling and gliding so gracefully, when all of a sudden, the ego changes the song to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” and you are whisked into a frenzied jig of upheaval and anxiety.

What I’ve noticed as we meet up with old friends and make new ones along the way is that when we dance the “waltz” among so many who are dancing the “jig,” their soul recognizes the peace and joy and flow of our waltz and they join us in the dance for brief moments, but soon they return to the jig that they have mastered and do so well.

Bruce and I do that as well. We’re not always dancing to our soul’s song. Not always dancing like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Our egos also storm out on the dance floor and interrupt the flow, demanding the jig.

It’s not the physical “where to” that has us dancing the jig … it’s the inner “where to next.” It is exhausting and overwhelming and disempowering when you allow the ego to control the dance.

This past winter, we danced like we were eighteen again! It was something we had never done in our ten years together. Even in this experience, our ego wanted to control by suggesting we’d embarrass ourselves. Instead, we did it anyway and had the most fantastic times on the dance floor.

But, what was so noticeable and insightful was how the music determined our participation. When 70’s rock and roll was played, we danced non-stop. When the music changed to another genre such as hip-hop, we sat down. When we knew the music, our feet glided and stomped, our bodies wiggled and swayed because the songs that we remembered from decades ago were brought to full expression through us.

Your soul’s song, the one that is as familiar to you as 70’s rock and roll was to us, is always playing, but most of the time, your ego has cranked up the volume to drown it out.

The quest is hear the song that reverberates within as often as you can. When you do, instead of hearing all the reasons why you can’t, you shouldn’t, you are not enough … your being is soothed and inspired and held in a space of peace that passes all understanding.

I encourage you to find a way to turn up the volume on your soul’s song. Find a way to be exit the noise and dissonance of the ego and begin dancing with life.  And do it often, do it routinely so that it becomes part of your day as habitually as brushing your teeth every morning.

That’s what Bruce and I are doing right now … dancing with life. We’re exiting the ego’s jig as much as possible, using meditation and contemplation to return to the waltz where the soul sings the lyrics “anything is possible, all is available, you have more to be and do with the years that are left.”

Stay tuned. Soon we’ll be heading in a new direction physically as well as purpose-full. Just need a few more rounds on the dance floor!

Trisha

Enjoy this … it never ceases to amaze me!