When will our lives become about us?

I have had several brilliant conversations recently about all the ways we avoid taking the meaningful and sometimes challenging steps towards what we experience as the heartfelt purpose of our lives.  It seems to me that many of us have dreams or wishes of how we'd like to be, what we'd like to contribute in this life, what we'd like to do or what feels meaningful to us. And very often we push this to the back of our minds or simply ignore the deeper calling because of various 'practical' reasons. 

I remember doing The Artists Way (Julia Cameron) a few years ago and the phrase she used which really resonated with me was that we are always able to 'take small steps towards our dreams' whatever else we are doing in our lives to pay the bills or keep our commitments that we have made and which are important to us. 

I see so many people, including myself, avoiding taking those small steps, which we know deep down will fill us up with the delight of this life - and instead we get on with the 'normal' stuff of our lives, while this little nagging dream becomes quieter and quieter. 

At the moment I am experiencing a deeper awareness of this part of me which has me avoid the deeper calling as I fill my life with lots of things that feel necessary right now.  And I am seriously asking the question of myself - what am I REALLY here for ? This is sometimes difficult to articulate for me, but my heart speaks strongly in a language that may not even have words.  It takes a meditation (like the Secret Vow blog article I wrote a little while ago) to have me tune back in to this, and the more I close the gap between my daily life and my secret vow, the more meaningful my life becomes. 

The coaching sessions I am part of at the moment with my wonderful clients (and fellow coaches) seem to have a pattern about them and this is the theme that is emerging - as always I am deeply taken aback by how my clients show up for me in equal measure to how I show up for them.  Thank you to all of you for the conversations and for the deepening of my experience of life that arises as a result.