On a recent Sunday morning, I was enjoying the quiet house before everyone started creeping from their bedrooms. I was mindlessly scrolling through social media while my thoughts drifted toward the day’s priorities. Those priorities included visiting family, intentional play with the kids, meal prep, feeding my soul, feeding my mind, and my daily strength & mobility training. No matter what, those things had to get done. I knew I had a full plate. Suddenly, my finger stopped scrolling and my eyes focused hard on an image shared by one of my dearly positive & uplifting friends. It was a dark blue sea against a pale blue sky smattered with clouds. The horizon was about a third from the bottom. The handwritten letters across the image prominently stated: “Actually, I just woke up one day and decided I didn’t want to feel like that anymore, or ever again. So I changed. Just like that.” A lump formed in my throat and my heart pitter-pattered. This was my truth. Seeing it in writing solidified the decision I’d already made months prior, the decision that took me years to finally make.
The thing that struck me when I read those words is how in ONE precise moment, life can change. In the same way catastrophe can strike without warning, so powerful, too, is the moment of deciding to change your habits or change your mindset in order to become a better version of yourself. It often takes years or even decades of wandering before something finally slips into place that changes the trajectory of your life. And that moment isn’t always recognizable as some monumental climax accompanied by relief or excitement or anything at all. Sometimes it might seem so insignificant that you don’t really notice it. I think it’s often pretty anticlimactic on the surface, but when we trace it back, we realize what a pivotal moment it really was. Sometimes one small decision is the domino that sets off a chain reaction. I also think that “thing” that finally slips into place is different for everyone and for every life change. Maybe it’s deciding to connect with a new person who seems really good for you. Maybe it’s a song, a book, an essay, a movie, or a conversation that inspires you or shines a light on something you didn’t fully see before. Maybe it’s hitting rock bottom, whatever that looks like for you. And regardless of how long it took you to arrive there, everything before that was really just leading up to one moment — the moment of decision to take some sort of action. While everything leading up to that moment was not a waste (trust me, it’s so tempting to think it was), the real spark happens in the single instant a decision is made! In one breath, you made (can make) a decision to change. A decision to try something. A decision to be open. A decision to love. A decision to seek. A decision to listen. A decision to feel. A decision to breathe. A decision to see. A decision to stop something. A decision to start something. A decision to rise. And the course of your life can be forever changed. Forever better.
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