Good-bye to Robotic Ways, Hello to Vitality

Once when on a shamanic journey, I encountered Harlequin-like figures who weren’t friendly. I paid attention to my emotional response to them and after the journey, realized they represented a robotic approach to life I needed to let go of.

Do you, too, need to let go of a mechanistic, and robotic approach to your life or some aspect of it?

What might happen if you did?

Getting done what needs to be done can bury what I call our mythopoetic selves: those parts of ourselves that long for a sense of meaning and purpose. Some people wake up one day and realize that they have been trying to nourish themselves with activities that make a difference in the world but they haven’t been able to do so for whatever reason. As a result, they’re going through the motions of life in a robotic, deadening way.

Do you feel you need to breathe vitality back into your life with some new activity or way of operating in your daily life that would enliven you? What might you do?

Do you push aside that feeling or bury your longings so that you can just keep charging ahead doing what you always do? Or are you listening to the call to live life less robotically?

What are you changing as a result?

Laughing more, dancing more, being more playful, becoming a better listener, reaching out to people who could use mentoring—all of these are ways to live life with a deeper sense of purpose and meaning. You can say good-bye to robotic ways and hello to vitality and write a new story, one that honors your mythopoetic self.

Let your playful, generous self express itself.

(You can learn more about shamanic journeys and how to work with what you encounter on them—symbols, figures, power animals, and so on—in my award-winning, best-selling book Change Your Story, Change Your Life.)