What’s the next step? the very next one? Are you taking it?

Lately I’ve been hearing myself say “What’s the next step?”

A lot.

To me.

To clients.

To friends.

It seems so simple doesn’t it?

If you’re like me and always thinking and sifting through about a million things you want to do, having game plans works to some extent. Disciplining time becomes invaluable. Consenting to which projects to work on first essential. But even therein, when there’s no blueprint or map, when you’re finding yourself carving one, it’s super easy to get overwhelmed with how much there is to do and how much you don’t know how to do.

And left in overwhelm mode it’s oober easy to go into what my dad terms “analysis paralysis” or overthinking.

From a spiritual perspective, the Mind that controls and governs the universe is ‘in charge’ so to speak of our thoughts. And the reality is then we’re never stuck or on hold.

This has helped me hugely much recently when I’m staring at a 8 x 10 wall covered in huge big white sheets of plans. My blueprints 🙂

But don’t go ooooh and ahhhhh in too much wonder and glee just yet. I have biggie blueprints for just about every aspect of my life because at least of late I’m loving the concept that all of us are forever a building in process. A sculpture becoming. A life evolving.

Still, my dreaming, scheming, blue-skying self needs parameters.

So on any given biggie goal or small goal I’ve set for myself, I’m taking things in small teeny tiny steps and simply outlining what are the next ones.

Overwhelm almost paralyzed me landing a home recently.

I’d been in and out of a number of subleases (short term pet friendly rentals) because I wasnt’ quite certain where to permanently park my plane (me) for the now.

At the end of one such sublease (end of May) I realized on the day before I was set to move, I still had not had any landord confirm with me that I could move into an apartment. This was surely not because I’m particular. Heck no. It was just the matter of the season, the way the rentals fill up, it wasn’t a good time to find anything in the vacinity I was looking, and so on.

Panic set in.

Of course I have a credit card and of course I could land in yet another short term furnished pet friendly hotel room even though those are at times hard to come by and often way more expensive than one ought to spend. But my sense of economy and wisdom knew I’d done this already 6 months earlier.

(Baby background: an apartment I’d rented  for the longer haul ended up having some ongoing ceiling leaks in the depths of winter. Not fun. Seemed wise to find a more sound structure).

When panicky fearful thoughts overtake my otherwise sense of calm, I know what to do.

I become my own spiritual defense attorney. I advocate for my inherent freedom. I work to master the fear and to actualize the right now stable presence of calm in my thinking.

Fear is never the truth. Ever. And to rid it and its manipulation of my thought and actions, I meditate and pray. For me this means getting completely still in my thinking and advocating for myself what is the only power governing my now and what is in control of my life.

For me this is always the divine Mind or a constant ever present intelligent source of good.

Governed by this influence at every moment, I know then that there’s always a nudge that will steer me in a direction that I need to take for that moment. It may not end up that this very step is the be all end all answer, but the point: taking that next step leads to the next and so on.

And further, each step taken is done so with conviction.

I simply KNOW when I’m heeding that inner nudge.

So on this particular day, I’m calm and packing the car but knowing that as of check out at noon I don’t know where I’m steering the plane let alone landing it.

It’d been several months of this which will make for an wonderful colorful several series of posts at some point, not now. Just know that to say I’d reached my maximum on finding housing is an understatement.

My hood was up. All stuff loaded. My Bichon perched on top his pillow for the umptiumph time that year.

I climbed in too.

The air was chilly. I sat on inside the trunk with the hatch open.

I looked at my Bichon.

I felt that pull to start to panic.

I looked at the Bichon again and said “Well, guy, where we goin next?”

I was half asking.

More I was asserting in my heart THERE IS ALWAYS A PLACE FOR EACH ONE OF US. ALWAYS.

With that conviction, I remembered a landlord I’d contacted earlier in the week who’d apologized, said he thought I’d make a great tenant but he didnt’ have anything available.

I heard myself say out loud ‘But Tre, why bother calling him back? He said he didnt’ have any units open.”

But something nudged me to call him.

So I did.

And within five minutes, he answered and his first words, I kidd you not, were, “Tre! I was hoping you’d call back. You’ll never believe this but an apartment just became available and we can have this ready for ya within 48 hours if that still will work for you.”

I drove over. Tears of gratitude and joy pouring outa me, yet fully clear and knowing this was how it should be. 🙂

In less than 20 minutes since I got the nudge to phone him, I was standing in what would become my apartment.

And this was no short term either.

Surely there’s much more to the story about how my past two years have been their own journey on how a woman with a dog who’s self employed seeks to establish a life and a work and a home. 😉

But the point: when I ask “what’s the next step” I’m never disappointed.

Answering it and being honest about following through with the answer are vital in this process.

There is always a next step. No matter what it is you are working on.

What’s gonna be yours?

“Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven. Stranger, thou art the guest of God.” Mary Baker Eddy