All you have to do is listen, and trust.

Your heart won't lie to you.

One of my favorite passages from The Alchemist (which I re-read recently on the plane to Atlanta... LOVE that book so much) deals with talking to and listening to your heart.

The boy in the story, named Santiago, says:

“‘My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer,’ the boy told the alchemist one night as they looked up at the moonless sky. ‘Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.’”

I'm keeping this passage in mind as I try to embody my word/phrase for the year: DEEP BRAVERY. Not everything on the path to my heart's desire is going to be easy. Sometimes deep bravery will be necessary to make decisions that will move me forward along your path. The fear and suffering that comes with anticipating tough decisions, tough conversations, tough acts of creating boundaries and letting go of what's not working is worse than the actual DOING of those tough things. I need to remember this. I have a tough decision that I'm fretting about how to deal with, and I know if I get quiet, my heart will tell me what to do and how to act bravely.

Your heart always knows. MY heart always knows.

Our job is to listen, and then to act accordingly, from a place of deep and compassionate bravery.