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California and Iowa: Taking action when you get stuck


     Last week, my wife and I drove all the way across the great state of Iowa for a very special reason. Before leaving, we stopped at the library where I checked out an audiobook entitled The Tao of Willie, written by Willie Nelson (If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it.) We listened to the entire book along the way. Coming into a park situated by the Missouri River, we met up as planned with a couple of strangers who had a dog, dog food, dog treats, a leash, and a flat pack kennel in tow. Once she has sufficiently calmed down, the German Shepherd was handed off to me and we coaxed her into the back of our silver RAV4, which had been prepared with a blanked just for her. We talked to the couple for a moment, then waved goodbye as they drove away. We were now the owners of a hyper seven-month-old, gold and black bundle of hair and happiness.
     Neither one of us is ready for the full responsibility of dog ownership, and for that reason I thought it was the perfect time to get one. She had a name before we got her, but we quickly renamed her California , or, Cali for short. There have been a lot of learning curves. She figured out right away how to open the gate from the backyard, so I had to hightail it to the hardware store immediately to get a padlock.

     It's good to do things before you are ready. We named her California because we just recently moved away, and she reminds us of a California sunrise (which is one of the most beautiful things you can behold on this planet). We loved California and the golden sunshine. In the desert where we lived, you get about 360 days of golden Ray's streaming down from a sapphire blue sky, with bright green palm trees silhouetted against it. The summers are a bit hot, but then again, the winters can't be beat.

     So if we loved it so much, why did we move? The simple answer is, we were stuck. We had run as far as we could go, and we had done all that we could do. We weren't growing. I found prices going up while our rate of pay stayed the same. I found that I was missing my family powerfully, and they were all mostly in Iowa.

     I agonized over what to do for the longest time. I wanted to get back to Iowa, but how? Neither of us had a job lined up, or a place to live. I can clearly see now what I couldn't see then: my agony was caused not by lack of resources, but by lack of decision. My lack of decision was causing a lack of action. So we went on living a life we couldn't really afford.

     It wasn't until I was speaking to my uncle on the phone things changed. I was lamenting that I wanted to move to Iowa, but I didn't really know how to get there. He jokingly answered, "That's easy! You just point your car East and start driving!" He may have been joking, but the simple truth of it cut through all the BS I had been telling myself. At that point, I thought to myself, It's too hard, but I'll do it anyway.

     I went straight to the apartment manager and turned in a thirty day notice. This was the action step I needed to take. I couldn't back out now. I had to move. Next, I learned that moving out of California is not cheap. As it turns out, lots of other people had the same idea we did, and the truck rental places were losing more trucks than they could get. The demand for trucks drove the price way out of range for us.


To shorten an already long story, we found a way, and we packed all of our things up, have it to the movers, and took off on a multi-day trip. The place to live and the job all fell into place once I decided to take action. If you are feeling stuck, let me encourage you to take action wherever you can.

     We got ourselves spiritually unstuck as well. Moving shook up all of my lifestyle routines, forcing me to get creative, delete some habits to make way for others, and let go of what was no longer serving me. If you feel stuck spiritually, one of the best things you can do is change everything and throw yourself into chaos for awhile. This is the yin and yang to life. If your life is too ordered and structured, chaos will emerge. Yet, if you do not fear the chaos, order will eventually emerge from it. Fully embrace the chaos, and you will fully live.

     Our dog Cali is absolutely amazing, and she is already teaching me many spiritual lessons. When I look in her eyes, I see the same divine essence that is in all things. I hope you will look for the Divine in every day. Love and light to you, dear reader.
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