Wow. It’s already June…and I’m moving higher, swifter, and stronger than a few weeks ago but have miles to go before I’m ready to climb an 18,000-foot mountain. As some of you know, I’m planning to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania in September to raise money to shelter, support and educate (orphaned) children in the Kipchamgaa Children’s Home in Kenya.
To fulfill my simple but worthy mission, I’m amping up my training routine and this week I’ll hike up my 5th “mini-mountain” in the Victoria area. I agreed with my personal trainer to do 10 hikes with the name “Mount” in them, such as Mt. Douglas, Mt. Finlayson, etc. before I leave for Africa in August. Yikes.
But climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro isn’t just about getting in shape or fulfilling a long-time dream, ultimately it’s about following my truth and answering the whispers of my soul. When my soul speaks, I listen. Why? Because I’ve learned that when you not only “follow your heart” but also ACT on its guidance lives change… starting with your own.
As my favourite author and mythologist Joseph Campbell said: “Life has no meaning. We give it meaning.”
Why Following Your Heart is Not Just About You
When people make a fundamental choice to be true to what is highest in them or choose to fulfill a goal in their life, they can easily accomplish what might seem impossible or improbable in the past. Like me climbing Africa’s highest mountain in my fifties, for example.
“When you follow your heart everyone benefits,” says Robert Fritz, author of The Path of Least Resistance. That’s the essence of my upcoming book, “Creating the Impossible,” which through my own stories and those of visionary change agents reveals that as daunting and exhausting bringing our vision into the real world can be, occasionally we achieve the ‘impossible,’ and lives are changed.
“United with their real power—the power to create what they want to create—people always choose what is highest in humanity… challenges worthy of the human spirit,” Fritz also says. Believe me, following my truth to the top of Kilimanjaro will challenge both my spirit AND my body! However, a big part of this vision is to support and benefit the lives of some beautiful young souls in a Kenyan orphanage. Again, when we follow what’s true for us, others benefit. A lot.
Our specific dreams (truth) come to us for a reason… because we have the ability, desire, and capacity to achieve them, even if we need additional resources or training to do so. Our job is to follow our truth until the final results are in.
“The truth is not discretionary,” as my friend and mentor William Whitecloud says. The reason most people do not follow their truth and become true creative forces in their lives is because they compromise or give up on their dream before it’s realized. For those who do manifest their dreams and have the direct experience of creating what they have chosen, they know that what they want is not arbitrary.
A magnificent example of this is Leymah Gbowee, a young Liberian woman spoken to in a dream, who was called to ‘wake up and gather the women of the churches to pray for peace” during Liberia’s brutal civil war under its dictator President Charles G. Taylor.
Although the dream seemed to be asking the impossible, Gbowee believed “the dream bearer is the dream carrier,” and it was for her to carry it out. And she did. A unwed mother with few resources, she united the women in her country in non-violent protests for peace, met face-to-face-with Charles Taylor, rallied thousands of women to attend peace talks in Ghana, and through her activism helped force Taylor out of power. In 2011, Gbowee received the Nobel Peace Prize.
While following your truth may not involve taking on world peace, and may be climbing a mountain to support kids, building a business, being an amazing parent, or writing poetry, it is no less important or potentially life-changing for you and others.
From the truth and wisdom of Rumi: “Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”
P.S. If it feels like your truth to support my truth, please visit my “Purpose to Love Climb Kili for Kids” fundraising page and make a donation to support the Kipchamgaa Children’s Home in Kenya. Click here to make a difference.
Thank you! I appreciate your support and generosity.