I wake in the dark at midnight, my mind with an imperative command: Launch my novel, The Baby Pact.

The thought is so unyielding and potent that I throw aside my covers to climb out of bed so I can head to my computer.

Yes, I will do a launch, and I will begin NOW.

A year ago I took a course to learn how to team together with other authors so that on launch day thousands of people (ideally) learn about your book.

The sales drive your Amazon rating up and, in one day, you become a best-selling author.

I have seen the concept work a number of times. Just yesterday, a colleague of mine succeeded with her launch. That fact sparks the ambition that now holds my attention.

But as I listen to the quiet surrounding my home, and a coyote yowling in the distance, something in this potential creation rings false.

Really? I ask my mind. Am I to get up now and begin a launch?

Yes, most definitely, it says. You must!

Hmmm.

Then my mind wavers just enough for a streak of light to shine through.

In fact I am adept at launching into the outer world. Many times in my life, rather than deal with the more subtle reality within—pain of lost loves, discomfort with a mate or job—I have launched to graduate school, to work in Asia, around the globe. I have left jobs, homes and relationships in order to create new ones.

All of that was perfect. No regrets.

But what if, this time, this singular now, I do something different.

What if I launch inward?

Rather than climb out of bed, I lie still. I breathe. I put on a spiritual CD and listen. My mind resists. It keeps thinking of all the tasks it will do in the launch, all the emailing and list making and copywriting. But I bring it back to the word of my Beloved.

Again and again.

The CD’s message is about associating with love and thereby becoming it.

In the quiet of that directive, I settle. I feel my body and realize it is vibrating with fear, as though a hive of bees buzzes in my core.

I am afraid I will fail.

I am afraid I will run out of money.

I am afraid there is not enough love.

The ambition that has ruled my life has been mostly fear. (Read more about this in the post We Are Gladiators.)

In this moment I am turning that ambition inward. And with that act, light dawns.

What if sustenance—survival—really does not have to take such sacrifice?

What if, instead, I make that sacrifice for my Beloved? What if I create love?

What if I really am sustained by love?

Suddenly I feel as though I have emerged through a dark layer of clouds into the luminous sunshine.

I soar in the freedom of that glowing reality.

Life can be gentle and easy.

In each moment, I choose.

The CD ends and I drift off to sleep. In the morning I rise and open my blinds to a new matrix, a new day.

I will likely do a launch, but it can be a balanced activity, and it doesn’t have to keep me up at night.

We are rockets with the power to launch into the heavens, to hurl ourselves to our sacred home. Any moment that I claim that power and direct it inward, I become the very love that I am.

P.S. The Baby Pact will be available next week.

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