A Dream Walking

My colleague, Kathie Hamman, reminded me of an old Popeye cartoon in which Olive Oyl, prone to sleepwalking, walks among the steel girders of a high rise under construction. In her altered state, Olive steps (in blind faith) into apparent disaster only to have a girder appear to catch her next step. Olive is not distressed in her state. She calmly puts one foot in front of the other trusting that the path will unfold beneath her. In the end, it does.

This, Kathie reminds me, is a metaphor of our “spiritual journey” and how our path can appear when we trust the process and are willing to step into the unknown. When we overthink things sometimes out of fear and avoidance, we get in our own way. If Olive would have been more consciously critical of her journey she might have had a different outcome.

This cartoon reminds me of the Taoist idea of “doing non doing”. A “non-striving” approach to life; taking things as they come, and rolling with the flow. In psychotherapeutic terms, we might say, “trust the process” and put one foot in front of the other.

Lots of wisdom from a Popeye cartoon originally aired in September of 1934. Let us know your thoughts.

-John