Grace Cirocco - Take the Step, the Bridge Will Be There: Inspiration and Guidance for Moving Your Life Forward

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. ELIOT

The average person does not know what to do with his life, yet wants another one which will last forever.

ANATOLE FRANCE

I was supposed to scale a vertical wall. It was smooth, shiny and hard. It was made of black marble and went straight up. Climb this with my bare hands? Impossible, I thought, but I knew that at least one other person had done it, a Chinese acrobat. She was tiny and athletic. I had to get up the wall because I had to solve a computer problem of national importance on the other side. I was the only one who had the answer to the problem, yet I couldnt get over that darn wall. I tried and tried. Each time I slid right down to the bottom. There was nothing to hold on to.

This is impossible, I thought, a bit annoyed. It must be some sort of trick. I made all sorts of excuses why I couldnt do it. I dont have the right body type. Im not strong enough. Besides, I know nothing about computers. This went on for some time. Then I got tired of all the excuses. Some deep part of me knew that if I really wanted to, I could climb that slippery surface. But how? I had never done anything like that before.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and said to myself, I can do this. I began to repeat, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, over and over again to myself until it became a mantra. All the while, I was focusing on the marble wall. And then eight words appeared out of nowhere. Take the step the bridge will be there. The words were there at the top of wall, beckoning me to go up.

Take the step... Okay. The bridge will be there? What bridge? There was no bridge. Just a wall. I needed to go over that wall. Okay, relax. Take a deep breath. Focus. Visualize. Grace, you can do it! Grace, you can do it! Just do it!

I opened my eyes miraculously, I had climbed the wall. I was at the top. All I could think was, Gee, was that ever easy! I was exhilarated for a moment. Wow, I did it! And then the doubt came. Yes, but could I do it again? I needed to know, so I slid back down the wall. That was a risk!

I closed my eyes and saw the same eight words: Take the step the bridge will be there. Okay, I get it. Do it with faith! Then I was climbing again, except this time it was even easier. I began thinking, Maybe I should tell others about this.

Then I woke up.

Two years before I had that dream, I had left a secure, well-paying job to start my own training and consulting company. That was in the early 1990s; everywhere I looked, organizations were restructuring and re-engineering and laying people off. Nobody wanted to hire an unknown when huge training companies with proven records were competing for work. With two toddlers, mounting debts and a husband who also freelanced, I felt I could no longer afford to pay someone to watch my children while I went to my office to stare at the telephone. After two years of spinning my wheels, I made the decision to give up the call of my soul and get a real job.

And thats when I had the dream. Sometimes our souls send us messages just as were about to turn our backs on our true path. That dream inspired me. It helped me believe in myself again. I wrote Take the step the bridge will be there in huge black letters and stuck them on my office wall. Those words became my compass whenever I felt lost. They gave me courage to keep following my hearts desire and stay true to my souls calling. Eventually I designed a workshop called Take the Step The Bridge Will Be There, and over the past eight years I have helped tens of thousands of people take that step toward their dreams.

Action (take the step) and faith (the bridge will be there) are the two most important ingredients for achieving anything you want in your life. Typically the problem is that if we want to take action, we dont move forward because we dont believe in ourselves. Or if we do believe in our abilities, were too afraid to act. Rarely do we display both faith and action at the same time and in the right mix.

My soul does not find itself unless it acts. Therefore it must act.
Stagnation and inactivity bring spiritual death.

THOMAS MERTON

There are people who have plenty of faith, or so it would seem. They say they believe in themselves; they claim they can do anything. They appear confident and self-assured, and they talk constantly about all the things theyre going to do someday. These people cant move their lives forward because they dont move their feet. They procrastinate, they complain, they postpone their lives. They suffer from analysis paralysis. These people will unfortunately never know whether their faith is real or not because they never test it by taking action. The truth is, you will never know whether you can really do something until you actually try it. Faith without action is not really faith. Only action makes faith real.

It is said that knowledge is power, but knowledge that lies dormant in your brain will not move your life forward. Its what you do with what you know that will make the difference in your life. The moment your brain sends the message Move to your feet is the moment when you walk across the bridge and change your life forever. What will it take for you to finally act?

Taking action builds bridges to possibilities. Action nurtures self-esteem and self-respect. When we stare down fear and take action, our lives can be transformed from ordinary to extraordinary.

In Part One of this book we will discuss how you can do the necessary groundwork for taking action in your life. Youll have an opportunity to ask yourself, What do I really want? What brings me joy? What vision do I hold of my life and how can I get there? What have I been postponing? What am I waiting for? Youll have an opportunity to address what is still undone in your life.

The paradox is this: In order to take action and do, we must first learn how to be. The gateway to action is the powerful states of being that I will discuss in the next five chapters. Yes, you must act, but you must align your compass with what is most sacred to you. That can be done only by exploring who you are.

At your most daring moments you believe that what is going on