My household is in a whirlwind of change right now. My partner’s job has shifted along with his commitment to the company he has worked for over 15. The job I was hired to do is wrapping up, and while there may be a place there for me going forward, it has been clear for a long time that staying is not in my best interest. Neither of us is sleeping well. Since neither of us knows how to easily do the next thing we need to do, we do nothing except wait.

Then, two days ago, I was offered an opportunity for employment bliss. A job that would fill me, feed me, bring me joy. The kind of job that is so perfectly aligned with my belief and deepest longings that it shocks me that it exists. The catch? At part-time, the pay is horrendous. It has the kind of untenable wage that even the woman offering me the position felt like she had to keep apologizing for it. I hung up saying I would think it over for the night and called all of my loved ones for a conference.

It should be an easy thing to do what is right for me — and I’d say this is true for all of us. But I don’t really know anyone who does it easily. I am more fortunate than some – I am pretty aware of what I need and I am supported in whatever choices I make. The people who love me want the best for me – and they’ve wanted me to move on from the abusive atmosphere I’ve been working in for a very long time. They’ve never understood my hesitation – they can see the way the light shines through the door and they see it as a simple thing to walk through. But I just couldn’t do it yet. When my contract was up, I still hung on, even though I knew that leaving might quite possibly save my life.

For me, making choices is like jumping robe. Not the solitary kind of jump-rope, but the kind where two people are twirling for you, waiting for you to jump in. You have to count down, know their rhythm and make the leap. And, I have to be perfectly honest – I have suck at any sort of jump rope. Especially when someone else is control. I have my own count, my own rhythm and it never seems to match up quite right with the twirlers. I get bonked in the head, tangled up, and generally feel foolish. Maybe I am a control freak only comfortable when I am the one doing the twirling. But honestly, I am not all that good at it then either.

I wouldn’t, in general, say I avoid decisions, but I certainly need to feel the “timing” is right to take the plunge. Sometimes I wonder though, is waiting for the “timing” just an excuse to cover up fear?

We just bought plane tickets for another trip to Ireland despite being in the middle of all the chaos and not knowing what our job situation would be, or our income, or our energy levels. We’d been talking about flights and prices and dates for weeks, and then one night we just jumped in. We entered the flow. We aligned ourselves with a particular path of desire and action and now I am researching places to stay for the month we will be gone. I’ve known for a year we were going. I’ve even known the general dates and already had the money in the bank. I just had to wait for when it felt right to jump.

I don’t know why I hesitate to make choices I already know if my heart I want. Maybe I hesitate out of fear of where a decision will take me. Maybe I worry something is too good to be true – that something bad will happen to balance the scale, so perhaps I should just not try. Maybe I was worry about outsiders judgment or that I will look irresponsible. Or maybe I simply wonder if I deserve it.

A dear friend has been writing some surprising things (to both of us!) that have touched me deeply. As much as I love her, she isn’t what I would call someone who has a great deal of faith. And yet she is exploring faith and how to enter the flow of juicy goodness in our lives. And how we come to believe what we deserve.

She writes:

“Your idea of alignment [with flow] has to do with stripping away, laying down, offering up to sacrifice…There is nothing you hold in light and love you are asked to give away… All that is yours and all that you discard are choices…Stand in the flow with an open heart, with an open sense of potential and awareness. There is not great stripping away, no great fire burning you to a cinder. A cinder is not what you were meant to be.”

Oh, how often I have struggled with the idea that instead of stepping out to grasp what I want, I have to give up something first. That there has to be struggle, hardship or lack involved with getting what I want. Even going Ireland, to some extend is about giving up – extra wine, a nice shirt on sale, a round of golf or two. What would it be like to step into the idea that I am choosing difficulty and could also easily choose abundance? Maybe the hesitation, the worry, about the “timing” of things is really all about getting up the courage to sacrifice?

But then the last bit…“A cinder is not what I am meant to be”? This so perfectly described how I have felt over the past year that it brought immediate tears to my eyes. I am a Leo with three fire signs in my birth chart. I am no cinder. And yet, I have allowed it to be so. She reminds me that there is no need to believe that we have to give until there is no more of us. There is as much as we choose, if only we allow it.

Later, I talked to her about the job offer. She had this to say:

“Choose with light. Work with light and yes, place yourself in flow… you must not be “coy” but do what you know you’re going to. You are already in motion… You are looking for an event that is the [final] destination, the stopping place [where you can rest], when the very idea is contrary to the idea of standing in, abiding in flow…You move and are moved and will move again and again on other levels and on this level. There is not one place to stop, but many choices along the way…Your rest is in you. A well, spring, renewal. But it is not a tree with a watering hole and a place to tie your animal.”

After talking to my loved ones, I came to the decision I already knew I would come to. I took the job, despite the dreadful pay, believing that this is not one possibility, but one of many. And there will be more. Having made this choice with my best interests (my wellbeing) in mind, the way will open to other necessities (finances) also being handled. Because I am not a cinder. I am an ember, waiting to burn for my own good.