What Key Point Are You Missing?

Are you too busy to be still and listen?

Have you ever stalled and dragged your feet over something you know you need, and even want, to do?

Maybe you were unsure what action to take or worried that what you wanted to do would work.

But the only thing that won’t ever work is not moving forward.

Even when we make mistakes, we have made progress if we start. Somewhere.

But sometimes we are stuck because what we are trying doesn’t work.

This is usually because we have missed a key point.

Have you read instructions for something and wondered why you can’t make it work until you realize you missed a key point?

I was building my Etsy store years ago and wondered why it wasn’t working. Then, I noticed I had missed one key point.

I needed to press the add button.

That started me wondering. If I had missed the one key thing to make that work, what other key points was I missing in life?

So, I started paying more attention.

In a stretch pose in Pilates class, I asked myself, “What key point am I missing here?”

And listened.

I noticed a small thing. I had to pull my hip back instead of letting it roll forward. Even though it was a tiny bit, it kept the stretch from working completely.

Once I started this idea, I tried to ask the question and listen to the answer at least once daily.

Sometimes, the answer to the key point question arrives when we least expect it, like on a rainy day.

It had been a dry summer. When it rained, it poured—hard.

A hard pouring rain after a dry period leaves no time for the earth to soften and receive the water, so it rolls off, and within a few days, the ground is dry again.

But one day, there was a soft, gentle rain. Instead of all the rain rolling off, useless, the gentle rain gave the ground time to soften, open up, and receive.

That day, I was reading Tom Brown’s book Grandfather. The book is filled with stories about how Grandfather learned lessons about what he called the Spirit that moves through all things.

Spirit teaches the same way that a soft rain renews the landscape.

It gives us time to open up and receive.

Sometimes, lessons roll off our lives because we are too hardened in our belief systems to learn them or too busy to be still and listen.

The question, "What key point am I missing here?" opens us up like a gentle rain.

• We soften, allowing ideas and following them one step at a time.

• When we soften, we let go and listen.

• We discover that life is not a competition.

• We learn that life is about merging into the feeling of being part of the whole.

The gentle rain brings the key element needed for the landscape’s next transformation.

In the same way, those gentle spiritual "one key point at a time" lessons transform our being over time.

Grandfather was a master at asking Spirit and then listening for the answer.

We might not ever be masters at this, but we can desire to be apprentices.

We, too, can learn that there is no right or wrong, just the Truth and the many different paths leading there.

No matter our path, we can ask, “What is a key point I am missing?”

We can pause, listen for the answer, and then take action as directed.

And just as a dash of salt improves the flavor of food, when we add more gratitude and awareness, with a dash more action, the flavor of life improves for us.

• A simple question: what key point am I missing?

• A simple solution: be still and listen.

So, if you are stuck or stalling, pause, be still, and listen.

Like the ground that opens up and receives the gentle rain that brings new plants, you, too, will bloom with new ideas and possibilities.

Just remember to press the add button.

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