Like a Phoenix rising from its ashes, one of your greatest abilities in life is starting anew. So this week we’re in Phoenix, beginning new chapters.

Your life story is a series of chapters – stories within the story – and you’ve already lived many chapters featuring various ages, circumstances, relationships, opportunities, and unexpected detours. Some have been triumphant. Others tragic. Or a mix of both! The further we get from our past, the more those stories solidify and make perfect sense, but as we approach the future, it always seems uncertain.

Right now in my life, and possibly yours, current chapters seem to be ending, or transforming into something else. Family.  Relationships. Career.  Physical realities, and new conceptions of the world around me. Finishing a chapter, and moving forward can be difficult because the last chapter whether painful or joyful, is familiar and well understood.

Yet we must let go, ideally having gained the benefit the last chapter offered.  Have you learned and absorbed what it had to teach you? Are you applying the experience, appreciation, and lessons as you craft and begin what’s next? As your story progresses, so should your understanding, skills, abilities, relationships, and wisdom.

You are the star, the hero of your incredible life adventure. The trick is to live the story, while enjoying the story.  Stay humble, honest, and curious, riveted to ever-unfolding events. Your immersed. Invested.  But not attached to exactness. You’re both expertly driving, and along for the ride.

When it comes down to it, you can only really be a co-author to your life story. Your plan, God’s plan – the randomness, or, perhaps, unperceived perfectness of the events and people you’ll encounter. Show up to your story completely. Truly live the page you’re on, the very next words you speak or moment you experience, and you’ll eventually arrive at the next chapter. Then, reflect briefly, take a deep breath, and simply turn the page. Until next week, stay Off Balance On Purpose.