I remember going to a swimming pool with my dad when I was about three years old. I was fascinated by the water but also scared of it. I saw dad climb in and motion to me jump in with him. It took more than a little cajoling to get me to take the plunge. Even at that age, my fear of the unknown was already well developed.
I’ve been standing at the lip of another pool for a while now. This one is the size of a small ocean to me. I am standing at the edge of a life filled with writing whatever I am inspired to write. This is very different from the life of a corporate communicator publishing technical essays and ghost writing for various executives. Like that pool when I was three, the water of this new opportunity beckons me, but I remain standing, looking at the opportunity instead of swimming in it. I have been cajoled and prodded and now I must choose to jump and leave the perceived safety of the pool’s edge.
There is a spiritual voice that I can ‘hear’ (perhaps feel is a better word) when I am quiet and calm. Such serenity is not natural for me. I must work at it. No, strike that. It is not about striving or struggling or fighting or working. Instead, it is a form of letting go. I call it “joyful expectation.”
I was taught that hard work and consistency are the strokes that will get me from one end of life’s big pool to the other. I have found that a solid work ethic is necessary, but something more is also needed. For me, confidence is made of solid hard work and proven skills. But, it will not float to the surface until we breathe in a deep breath of joyful expectation. Joyful expectation is a feeling that something good is coming and not knowing what or how or perhaps even why, but knowing that we need to simply move forward, trusting in both our skills and experience, as well as trusting in something or someone greater than ourselves. This is one of my favorite feelings. It is a form of faith. With a deep breath of this faith in my spiritual lungs, I am ready to leap. Cowabunga!!
Jumping in requires me to let go of the never ending mental preparations that can keep me busy at the poolside forever. I just have to jump, knowing that the breath of faith I hold as I go over the edge will be the very thing that buoys me up after I sink in above my head.
From time to time I experience realizations that cause me to sit up and smile. These moments are sweet, if fleeting. I am left with an assurance that everything is going to work out. If I hold my nose and jump right after I feel this way, I can open my eyes and look around at the beauty of the underwater scene around me instead of being preoccupied with only finding the surface as fast as possible. It is the difference between jumping with full rather than empty lungs. This is this spiritual practice that we can use to explore worlds we have only dreamed of prior to this. Poolside anxiety leeches our energy for life. It exhausts enthusiasm and leaves spent instead of ready to face whatever comes. I invite you to practice with me, this idea that we can let go of anxiety, all anxiety (Philippians 4:6).
One of my favorite ways to grab a full breath of joyful expectation is to pause, close my eyes, and ask “What if?”
- “What if I spend time writing today and something brilliant spills out of my pen?”
- “What if I call that friend that I’ve been thinking about and I am inspired to say just the right thing?”
- “What if I look at my bank balance and I have more money than I thought?”
Before you counter any of my ‘what ifs’ with, ‘yeah buts,’ remember that most of our anxious thoughts are no more substantial than our hopeful ‘what ifs.’ They feel real only because we give them life and power. Practicing joyful expectation is just giving ourselves permission to reverse the process. Try it (more than once).
If we fear a low bank balance and so we avoid checking it, we will never take the actions needed to ensure a better bank balance. If we fear messing up a call to a friend in need, we will never know the friendship that flows afterwards. Or for me, if I fear writing something lackluster and average or even something terrible, I will never write and my anxiety about having nothing worthwhile to share will surely become reality.
I practice joyful expectation because It causes me to call, to write, to follow up. It fills me with that breath of fearlessness that I need to leap into the waters of opportunity. Come on in. The water is perfect!