We’ve all seen friends there. We’ve all been there ourselves: overwhelmed, confused, lost in evaluating a big life dilemma.
What should I do with my life? What job should I take? Should I move or not? Should I stay with the good, secure option or take a riskier road that has the potential to be great?
Sometimes thinking about these questions leads us into a tearing-out-our-hair, overwhelmed, utterly confused state. Intricate pro and con arguments swirl through our heads. We’re swimming, unable to keep up with the multiplicity of factors to weigh and reason through, and fearful because we sense there is no way to rationally predict the best outcome. Thinking gets us more and more stressed, further and further away from a connection to our desires, our truths, to clarity.
There are many ways to get out of this stuckness. One of my favorites is what I call “the bottom line” test.
The Bottom Line Test
Take a few deep breaths. Place your hands on your abdomen, wherever you feel your gut instinct. Connect to that place in your body.
Then ask yourself, “Am I doing what I came here to do?”
“Here,” meaning planet earth. This lifetime.
Am I doing what I came here to do?
Don’t ask your mind. Don’t ask your brain. Ask that center of knowing that sits deeper in you. Trust whatever comes up. Whatever idea, words, images, sensations, no matter how surprising, or seemingly non-sensical.
We all have an accessible inner compass that can answer this question at any stage in our lives.
If you hear, “I don’t know,” you have three options:
continue … Tara Sophia Mohr
