What actions reveal

For a long time, for me, "moving forward" meant sprinting towards a clear goal, taking the longest strides possible.

Choosing a direction meant deciding quickly, cutting through, taking action, as long as I didn't feel I was standing still or going round in circles. Moving ahead, without looking back too much. Sometimes even moving forward for the sake of moving forward.

I also took a certain satisfaction in solving problems one after another. I would sometimes even look for solutions before the problems had had time to fully reveal themselves.

But behind this energy, there was often something else.

I doubted myself a great deal. And some decisions I made with apparent determination were in fact accompanied by fear. I rushed ahead, I cut through, I settled things. Sometimes from a place within me that was not at peace, precisely to escape what worried me.

Fear then became the unconscious driving force of action.

Not always, of course. I also made many decisions by following my instinct, my intuition, sometimes despite the fear. And the feeling was different. I could feel apprehension without feeling driven by it.

Today, I am experiencing something else.

A succession of small conscious acts, consistent with a clear inner intention, adjusting as reality responds.

I no longer need to know the whole path in advance. I take one step, I observe what happens, what it stirs in me, what the situation reveals. Then I adjust the next one.

And I notice something quite surprising.

Many problems I would once have anticipated simply never materialise. Some even seem to dissolve on their own when I stop wanting to intervene pre-emptively.

Difficulties do not disappear by magic. And I still anticipate, when it is necessary.

I am discovering that there is a considerable difference between responding to a real situation and trying to solve in advance all those my mind imagines.

For our mind is also a loyal database. It keeps experiences, emotions, associations, memories, sometimes reworked after the fact to better fit the story we tell ourselves. It tries to recognise what it already knows, to foresee what might happen and to protect us.

It is a precious faculty.

But sometimes we identify so strongly with these accumulated experiences that we approach a new situation as if it must necessarily repeat an old one.

We no longer respond only to what is in front of us. We also respond to what we fear living through again.

I realise that when I start from what I deeply wish to see manifest in my life, rather than trying to ward off a projected fear, the way I act changes.

I can keep a clear direction without rushing the steps.

I can give reality time to answer me.

And above all, I can discover, through the acts themselves, the old mechanisms that sometimes still influence my inner stance.

These are not necessarily big, spectacular decisions. Sometimes they are ordinary tasks — administrative, financial, relational. Things I don't like doing and that I would once have wanted to get over with as quickly as possible.

Today, they are part of the path.

And this path is not finished.

I am also discovering that it is not only about freeing myself from certain situations, but about gradually creating conditions more favourable to my own flourishing and to that of others.

This does not mean taking charge of their happiness, nor trying to organise their lives for them. On the contrary, perhaps it is sometimes about leaving more space for each person to find their own way.

Even in an agitated, sometimes chaotic outer world, I believe it is possible to cultivate more peace, joy and harmony, within ourselves and around us.

Starting where we are, through our most ordinary choices and gestures.

As if each small act taken in harmony with oneself could become a seed sown in the world.

Without knowing exactly what it will become.

And you?

What decisions do you make — or avoid making — every day, because fear gets involved?

What if we could approach the unknown calmly, in small steps, staying attentive to what reality reveals to us?