Stepping Outside the Comfort Zone

Today for me was absolutely out of the ordinary...no resemblance to the often irregularity of my normal days. But, it in the distractions of today I found great opportunities to learn about myself and others. However, in each case I also had the opportunity to pass or play...continue on my otherwise normal morning routine or accept the diversions placed in my path. Suffice it to say, I accepted the challenges and find now that I'm much the richer for doing so.

Basically, I have been the kind of person who craves structure in my life. I wanted everything to fit into nice neat little boxes of understanding. But, recently I have found myself yearning also for change adventure - new things to do, to see, and to learn. There are aspects of my life that bring me comfort and the opportunity for reflection, introspection, and growth, and one of those  constants in my life is my habit of keeping a dream journal. 

It has taken me many years of dreaming, journaling and learning to reach the point where I can find the messages my higher self is trying to relay to me through the dreamscapes of my sleeping consciousness. It has taken many years of misunderstanding the symbols or archetypes and their general meaning and many years of missed messages to arrive at the level of comfort I experience now. Another complicated challenge was to allow myself to open up to see where some of these symbols are personalized.In other words, taken from my own past experiences and how they affected my life and the people in my life. This took a great deal of honesty and acceptance of what was before I could arrive at the correct theme or purpose of the dream itself.

Faithfully keeping a dream journal and applying their messages on a daily basis have helped me untangle some of the knots that find their way into my life. I guess it's safe to say that keeping a dream journal is like the hair conditioner of life...makes the tangles easier to remove and adds a certain amount of body and strength to the life. And so, keeping this journal has become a very important part of my daily routine.

In allowing, and even embracing, the "distractions" that landed feet first in my path today I not only found messages for myself and my own future use, I was able to be a springboard for a couple of other people as they bounced their own struggles in my direction. In each case, I could only listen and comment appropriately, but in doing so, I provided the other person with a certain amount of love and acceptance while showering myself with the peace that comes from taking the road less traveled and ending up just a little bit further ahead on my own spiritual journey instead of stuck in the rut of my own daily comfort zone. 

Sometimes thinking and acting outside the box, or out of the ordinary, can be just the adventure we wanted, and needed, all along. We just have to have the confidence to take a risk and just make the choice.