Leap Into Your Future

Are you happy with your life? Do you want to live the rest of your life as you are living now? Or are there things you would change? When do you intend to take steps to change the things that are making you unhappy? Are you too afraid to take that leap of faith?

Today is yesterday’s future. Today is tomorrow’s past. And today is the only day you have to do something to change your life. Tomorrow isn’t here yet and it isn’t promised.

I’ve always had a bit of an extra sense. Call it premonitions or just knowing things. It may be an extra side of being an empath or it may be something related or even something different. For years I have had visions of a beautiful future for me. A future with happiness in love and life. The visions did not include me working at my factory job.

The vision had multiple scenes but in all of them I knew I was seeing a day to come. Most of them involved being outside in summer sun writing or painting at an easel. Maybe that’s even what inspired me to pick up the paints. I never took an art course in my life and suddenly became an artist. I saw days in a park with lots of kids running around. They all knew me. I was a favorite there.

I saw a rushing waterfall in summer in a secluded area. Perhaps a park of some kind. I was beside it with my art supplies. There was a sense of peace and joy. It was my most favorite scene from this vision of the future. I felt loved. There was a sense of belonging.

But last year I stopped seeing those visions. Usually they came on with no prompting from me. They would interfere in things I was doing, but I would always smile when a vision appeared. Last year they disappeared. They stopped. And I couldn’t even try to bring one up on purpose.

Also last year the pain from the osteoarthritis in my ankles increased drastically. Ten to twelve hour shifts four nights a week on concrete floors for over fifteen years had begun to take a serious toll on my health. It sneaked up on me slowly so I didn’t see it happening. Days off weren’t long enough to recover from the pain.

This year the pain has made life increasingly difficult. I can’t walk unassisted without pills and the arm of my husband or a walking cane. Yet I still plodded along trying to hold onto a job that was physically challenging for someone in my shape. The toll on my mental health was just as bad as my physical health.

So, my visions disappeared. No more summer days and parks and waterfalls interfering with things I was doing. Gazing off into the distance as I watched them unfold on the screen in my mind wasn’t happening anymore. I was being told that I no longer had that future ahead of me. If I kept living as I was I would not see that future.

But what could I do? My job is our bread and butter. It pays the bills and keeps us in food, clothing and shelter. How could I quit?

But, how could I not? My lack of visions were telling me that my job was killing me early. I already knew my mental health was failing because of the pain. I was losing strength and a desire to fight anymore.

My husband and I had some long talks. We had some hard decisions to make. He was amazingly supportive. We went over the household numbers. There were things we could cut down or even eliminate. We looked into a few different options for income. And we determined it would be OK for me to leave a job I held for over 17 years.

This is a huge leap of faith for me. It’s a leap I never foresaw with my conscious logical mind. The future is uncertain at this time. There will be a lot of changes. But there will be more time for me to focus on the things I love the most: writing and painting.

With this decision, the visions have returned. I may have just saved my own life. This morning, laying in bed falling asleep, the vision I loved the most, the one with the waterfall, came blasting into my head again. And I smiled because it meant my future is bright again.

There will be some struggles as we change our lifestyle and routines. We will go without some things we were used to having. But as I look at these things I realize, they are extras. They aren’t important. Life… Life, love and health — THESE are important.

Do YOU need to take a leap of faith?