You have your curiosities and concerns. You have your fascinations and fears. What you want to run toward and run away from. You have done the work. I celebrate your list with all its honesty. I celebrate that your list is never fully complete or finished. You could go back and keep adding to both the curiosity and concern. Maybe today you want to do this. Is there something that needs to go in the curiosity column? Is there a heartfelt fear that you didn’t write down yesterday but need to today?
When you feel like the list of ten or twenty or more items where your shy soul wants to spelunk is on paper, the next step is to create a graph.
I love graphs. I love charting things. I love taking data points and placing them along axis to show visually what is within me.
On a piece of paper, draw a line horizontally across the middle. That is your fascination axis. Now, draw a line vertically down the middle. That is your fear axis. This should create four equal quadrants. If you are Type-A, like me, you may even want a ruler to make certain your lines are straight! It’s okay. I’ll wait while you go get one.
Now, I want you to look at your list. There are some fascinations where you feel your soul surge a bit more than others. You could probably rank your curiosities. For example, high on my fascinations is being a loving husband and father, photography, reading/learning about my inner life, writing, preaching, teaching, and gardening. This is tough to prioritize. Several things may hold equal fascination. Don’t force, just see if you feel a bit more energy around some items on your list. All are important ~ otherwise you would not have taken the time to write them down. Once you have some sense of ranking (which can change in the days to come!), you can plot those along the horizonal axis ~ with those on the left being MOST excited, followed by those that are just a smidge, smaller amount less exciting next along the line. Again, don’t force this and feel free to stack several close together on the axis.
Next, see how many fears you named for each fascination. If at the top of your vertical fear line is the highest and the bottom is the lowest, you can now begin to place and put each your curiosities into one of the quadrants. For example, being a loving husband and father is highest on my list of calling and also comes with some honest fears about making mistakes. There is a great meme out there: that behind every successful child is a parent who thinks s/he is messing it all up. Yup! So, being a loving husband and father goes in quadrant one. In quadrant two, which is lower curiosity but still high fear, I might put writing. There is a vulnerability to putting ideas out into the universe because I don’t know the response (for example, I might be confusing you with this quadrant idea…if so, feel free to stop reading!). In quadrant three, lower left one, that is high fascination but lower fear. I would put in this quadrant learning about my inner life ~ mainly because I do this for myself and don’t share with a lot of people ~ so my fear level is lower. Finally, the fourth quadrant, lower right part, is lower curiosity and lower fear, which I would place photography and gardening. These are things I love to do, when I have the time. Because I don’t share my photos or flowers with many people, the fear is lower.
Please don’t feel you have to force your fascinations into a box. This is an exercise designed to help you begin to sort through where your soul might want to spelunk first and how many fears might be surrounding those initial steps.
I pray you find something helpful in the above ~ whether you do the quadrant plotting or not. May God move through the meditations of our minds, thoughts of our hearts, and stirrings of our spirit as we continue to listen to our lives and respond to God’s calling.
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