In a “Time Traveler’s Guide to the Universe” workshop that I’m currently taking with Denise Linn, Dr. Brand Fortner, and others, Denise said the following:

“Sometimes for new growth, you need chaos.“

That statement stopped me in my tracks.

I work in the software industry that is in constant flux. New products and strategies are regularly being developed. At times, it feels like I’m perpetually juggling my work. In addition, throughout this whole pandemic, as medical folks learned more about COVID-19, their understanding and guidelines changed, requiring us to make perpetual adjustments to our activities. It’s often felt chaotic and overwhelming. Perhaps you’ve felt the same.

I’ve always viewed being overwhelmed as a bad thing because it felt crappy. In these situations, my focus became re-prioritizing my work and activities, and setting boundaries and expectations about what I could and couldn’t do. The goal was to get over the overwhelmed feeling as quickly as possible. Rather than thinking of those times as something negative, Denise’s statement challenges me to see chaos as a vehicle of growth and therefore positive.

So how might it be positive? Well, as I often equate chaos with feeling out of control, perhaps the growth area is acknowledging, again (<chagrin>) that I don’t control everything. Equally important, though, is viewing the chaos as fertile ground through which new and unexpected opportunities can appear. For much of my life, as a result of feeling unsafe, I became hypervigilant to protect myself. That didn’t leave much space for anything new.

So, Denise’s statement challenges me to let the uncomfortable feeling of chaos be, and invite my spiritual guides and God to plant seeds into that ground to help me grow and expand. Just as the universe expands, as learned from the workshop, so too, I believe that there are more possibilities out there that I can currently conceive.

What do you think? I invite you to post your own thoughts.

Blog Addendum – May 18, 2021

As mentioned elsewhere, my guides and God send messages and support via songs. When I took my daily walk this morning, two songs about living your dreams popped into my head. One from the Greatest Showman musical, and, believe it or not, the other from the Lizzie McGuire movie. The line in the Lizzie McGuire song was “Hey now, this is what dreams are made of.” Reflecting on John Connors’ comments to this blog made me realize that in pursuing your dreams, there may be challenges and perhaps even pain involved. I’m experiencing that now with my job situation. And that’s as much as part of the dream as the successes and synchronicities we experience as we pursue it. Thanks John for your wisdom.