Me at 12 in our summer vacation “marco polo” pool.

When I was a kid we used to play Marco Polo when we went swimming. It’s a game where one person is “it” and has to close their eyes while everyone else swims around and tries to stay OUT OF the grasp of the “it” person. In order for the one who is IT to find the people, he/she yells “MARCO” and then in response all of the people in the pool yell “POLO.” That little bit of sound helps the person whose eyes are closed gauge where everyone is. Person “IT” then swims toward the sound of the closest person he/she can hear.

I can most certainly remember gripping the side of the pool trying to NOT get caught while yelling “POLO” at the top of my lungs. It was fun; we played this many times. (Why is it called Marco Polo? I have no idea. Marco Polo WAS a merchant who travelled by ship in the late 1200 – early 1300s … maybe that’s why.)

I have the ability to see with my eyes. I do wear glasses and contacts occasionally, but my eyesight has actually gotten BETTER over the last few years so I frequently go without those. I can see what is before me. I can see the trees outside and the clouds in the sky and the smile or frown on my children’s faces … I can see the computer screen I’m typing in front of. I am GRATEFUL for my sight.

There is an aspect of life that I cannot see, and that is the energy around me, the “spiritual” world of which we are all a part of. In that, we are all swimming around with eyes closed trying to be guided to something, somewhere, some divine potential.

I feel that my spiritual eyes have become more able to perceive that divine potential as I have focused and studied and am open to the flow … but I still don’t see with perfect clarity. I am still swimming around yelling “MARCO” wondering where the response is going to come from and waiting to hear it … yes, I do know that it will come, and that’s been essential to my progression, and yes, I do have faith that I will be guided … but I always have to connect to the flow and in that stillness listen to the “polo” that comes. And depending on where I am, what I’m doing, where my mind is … it can be hard to hear, or not even perceivable if I’m not open.

The key in the swimming pool game of “Marco Polo” is to listen and use that sense of hearing to gauge where to go. It takes focus on what you hear and letting go of the sense of being able to SEE something … the sight no longer is available … you have to trust your hearing and the sounds that come to help you.

Life is much like this … the key is to “listen” using the gauge WITHIN, letting go of trying to see it and trusting that the response you receive is going to come and will guide you. It takes faith. It takes stillness. It takes letting go. It takes patient expectancy, not knowing exactly WHAT it will be or HOW it will be, just trust that it WILL be.

I read a quote a couple days ago and it said something like “to reach your potential, you must let go of and empty out what you THINK it should look like to make room for what the divine has in store for you. You cannot fill a full cup.” And I know I’m not getting that quite right, but the thought is there. If we’re so full of what we think it should look like and what we think it should act like and what we think it’s supposed to be, we have no room for what the divine potential actually is. We limit our receiving because of our limited view and in our limited understanding we try to pigeon hole the response from the Universe because we are so intent on what our picture is that we fail to be open … we close the door on the TRUE potential when we are not open.

Why is this? Why can’t I just make it what I want it to be. Why does it matter if I’m not open? Well, how can you receive MORE (how can you ask for more, how can you be open to more, how can you gauge which way to go toward more) if you don’t know what “more” looks like?

I don’t even know to ask for chocolate on my ice cream if I have never even experienced chocolate. And chocolate is delicious and EXPANDS on my ice cream experience.

I can’t know what expansion looks or feels like because it is a “higher” “greater” more expanded place than I have ever experienced. So I can try to picture it based upon my limited understanding, but my picture of what “MORE” looks like won’t actually be what MORE is. I have to allow that I don’t know what MORE is right now because I haven’t experienced more. I have to receive the experience that EXPANDS my view, my knowledge, my understanding, my joy to KNOW what that expanded place looks like.

Right now I can only be open to the potential. I can let go of trying to control my way into that spot that I picture to be where I am “supposed” to go and acknowledge that I don’t know what it is, where it is, or what it looks like, but the Universe does. God knows. And so I trust that my divine potential is beautiful and lovely and MORE. And then I make room within me for what that could be … it could be ANYTHING. I don’t have to limit it … in God there is no limit. I only have to be open to it by emptying out the old limited thoughts to make way for the limitless.

Here’s an example: When I was younger, before adulthood, I wanted to become a mother. I knew that my “potential” was that … “mom.” I desired that. I pictured what it would look like. As I grew and learned and became more aware of the world around me my picture of motherhood changed and transformed into a different thing than it was when I was younger. As a young married person that picture was even more refined … closer to what was actually truth.

The truth of my experience in motherhood was my divine potential. What that looked like? I could only guess, because I had never experienced being a mother. But I had a good IDEA of what it could be like because I knew other mothers, I had heard of the love and the connection and SEEN with my eyes what it was. I could imagine what that would be based upon outward appearances … but I still didn’t KNOW.

The knowing came on the day I had my first daughter. And the moment I acknowledged and experienced that YES, I AM a mother, I knew what being a mother was. And it was MORE than I could have imagined based upon outwardly picturing what it would look like. I couldn’t have pictured the truth because I had never experienced it. Until I had the experience, my picture was limited and inadequate to convey what the truth of the experience ended up being.

The same thing happened when I had my second baby. I loved my first child with this full and whole love and I was scared I couldn’t have that love for another. I attached the love (in my limited understanding) to the person, not to the connection … and so my picture of motherhood was this connection and love I felt for my first daughter, it didn’t extend beyond her. When I knew there would be another daughter I was worried I wouldn’t love her as much. And then the moment she arrived, my love EXPANDED and I had a new understanding, a less limited understanding, I had GROWN in my knowledge with the new experience. I COULD and DID love that much, this new little daughter. And maybe my love was even GREATER than it had been because of this new level of understanding. This EXPANSION made me MORE.

It is exactly as a caterpillar. Imagine being a little caterpillar crawling on the forest floor. Your perspective is that the world is huge and you are so small. You are slow. You are limited in what you’re able to see and do because you only see from your limited forest floor perspective. And in that position, most likely you don’t even see your perspective is small and limited. You don’t know what your potential is. If you could know that you would become a butterfly and fly and see the world, you might wonder what that would be like, you might look at other butterflies and see that it was a possibility, but you still wouldn’t understand. Your understanding is very limited as a caterpillar … limited to what is in your sight.

Then into the chrysalis you go … with the divine potential to become a new thing. And your faith in that potential is what propels you into the darkness of the chrysalis … you don’t KNOW what the new understanding will be, you can only be open to the potential and hope that it will be MORE. And so in time, your body transforms and changes and you step out of the darkness of the chrysalis into the light of the new world and new perspective you’ve been given. You have wings. You are now a butterfly with the ability to FLY and SEE the world! This is something you couldn’t have imagined if you had tried … you had no idea this would feel this way because this way is MORE.

It’s quite possible that as a caterpillar you would have been scared to change, you would have been sad to leave your caterpillar-ness behind. It was all you had known. But in becoming and fulfilling your potential … you now know MORE. And it is an expansion on what you were before. It is more understanding than you have ever known. You have GROWN.

Do not limit yourself because you are looking at the forest floor and failing to be open to DIVINE POTENTIAL. ANYTHING is possible. Without limit. You can’t even fathom what potential lies in store for you yet and so you have to trust that the Universe CAN and DOES know what your potential is and as you are open to that flow of existence you have faith that it will be MORE and you let go and just make way for the wings that will come. In your openness and in your letting go of YOUR way you make room for a higher expanded way of MORE.

It is a place that is more joy than you’ve experienced so far. More love than you’ve known possible. More beauty, more abundance, more kindness, more unity, more potential for limitless progression … and I don’t know what “more” looks like today. But I DO know I have experienced expansion and it was awesome. And so I am emptying all of the pictures and limits within me to make way for expanded awareness and understanding and joy … MORE. In doing so I trust God that He will expand my understanding in beautiful ways. I trust that the Universe has got my back and I will be inspired in my life.

The rest of what to do? I just listen for the “polo” and when it comes, I smile to myself KNOWING that what happens next will be good.