Some days, I don’t need a catapult to get out the holes I so easily dig… just a little nudge will do. A reminder to move forward with courage in some small way. Encouragement to honor that inner space where authenticity and power grow. And just with that little support I can find my way up and through the anxiety or fear I’ve burrowed into.

But I have come to a place in my life where this tendency to burrow down is getting pretty old. What it often means for me is that I get “stuck in my head” and therefore not as actively engaged in this thing call LIFE as I’d like to be. Thinking has long been familiar friend of mine, but without the balance of body and heart the relationship quickly sours.

While just a nudge is often sufficient, sometimes a catapult is needed to get out of an all-too-familiar habit or pattern. It need not hurl you through space to some place far, far away in order to effect the change you need. Your current bearings just need to be disrupted enough so that you have to carve a new path moving forward.

A recent disruption in my life has come in the form of an adopted dog, Bear.

He fills so much more of my brain space and time than I expected: feeding, walking, poop monitoring and lots of carpet cleaning. Plus, he’s just so soft to pet and fun to play with.

But he has also felt like a distraction from the rhythms and practices I’ve been trying to cultivate. His simple presence has overwhelmed this introvert in ways I was not expecting.

His lovely, furry self is here to stay and I must find a new way. My time on this earth is far too short – I cannot bear the thought of much delay in growth toward an authentic life.

Oftentimes we do not change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain required to change. And sometimes we need something new to plop into our lives to disrupt our norms and catapult us into a different experience of life. In my case, a canine friend has arrived in a season of life that’s been painful due to my long-held tendencies to dwell inside vs. in this world I was born to fully inhabit. May he continue to nudge me toward the life that I want…even if all he’s really trying to do is nudge me closer to that squirrel/toy/treat/beetle that he so desperately wants.

Daily Prompt Catapult