ONE WAY TO FIND A ‘SIGN’ OR MESSAGE. Sometimes we feel stuck – unclear about what decision to make, what to do about a situation, or how to get through an experience that’s been challenging for us.
We wonder what our next move is – we feel unable to see it or find our way.
I see this a bit like someone on stage in a play who has just drawn a blank on their next line: they benefit from someone giving them a prompt to get them back on track.
Maybe that comes by way of a gesture or suggestion from a fellow actor, maybe it’s the stage manager mouthing or whispering the next word from offstage.
Deep down they know the line – they just need a little help to get back in flow with the dialogue again.
AS ON STAGE, AS IN OUR LIVES, we all know the way forward for ourselves in our life, in a situation, the decision to make, how to move forward with a relationship – even if it feels like we don’t.
We are often so full of pros and cons and ‘thinking things through’ to try to ‘figure them out’ with our intellect and logical mind – that we temporarily lose our connection to the feeling of KNOWING the solution.
Sometimes we just benefit from a sign or a prompt or a reminder now and then.
HOW DO WE GET A ‘SIGN’ OR A MESSAGE? Well, it could come from a sudden call or text from someone and the ensuing conversation – something within that jolts us out of our confusion and toward a solution.
Or it might be a sound or image appearing to us, in the physical world or in our mind’s eye.
Typically we think of a ‘sign’ as something that suddenly happens to us that is out of the ordinary, and some common examples we might think of, include:
~ a feather showing up, quite out-of-the-blue, in our midst.
~ a certain type of bird or animal appearing, unexpectedly.
~ a billboard or license plate that says something that appears to be speaking right to us.
But sometimes we are looking for one and it feels like it’s not there.
Where are these ‘signs’ people speak of? – we think to ourselves, with some frustration, as we sit at home and nothing seems to be monumental or out of the ordinary.
Inside looks the same as always – nothing out of place (or maybe everything out of place 😉 ) as usual.
Outside looks the same – no visible ‘sign.’
There’s no unexpected visit from an animal, no sudden appearance of a coin or long lost item now found once again in a place we’ve looked a million times – as though put there by some mystical force.
HERE’S WHAT I DO FROM TIME TO TIME: take a book, any book, and either open it to a random page, or think of a number (small enough that it is likely to be a page in the book – we’re not talking about a number in the 1000s 😉 ) and open to that page.
Let your eye fall on a line or word or a paragraph. Read it. What does it bring up for you?
The word or phrase or passage might be something quite mundane, but I invite you to notice anyway.
Here – I’ll do it right now.
I picked the book in the room I’m in. The book is about sailing.
The number I picked was 171, and my eyes landed on the phrase: ‘There is always a challenge in dealing with nature…’
What does this bring up for me? Well, initially it’s literally a reminder of the rain outside (with which I’m not too pleased, as I much prefer sunshine) and how sometimes we don’t like the weather that’s happening – either literally, or really whatever is happening around us in some aspect of the ‘weather’ or ‘nature’ of our life – and a reminder that always it presents a challenge, and that it’s part of life.
It can have many meanings – there’s not just one ‘right’ one you’re ‘supposed to get’ – it will be unique to you in that moment.
I trust you get the idea.
Sometimes I do this and the page I open to has nothing on it – it was one of those pages intentionally left blank, facing the start of the next chapter. What does that tell me? Perhaps that the message is already known, or that silence and quiet is needed, and overall – that no message from the external is required.
We are often so full of pros and cons and thinking things through – that we temporarily lose our connection to the feeling of KNOWING the solution.
Wishing you a day of staying open to signs and messages, and releasing any concern that you’ve missed any – because the only signs you are meant to receive are the ones you actually do notice.
Edited, April 20, 2023.