Some stories don’t just entertain us…
they shape us.
And The Lord of the Rings is one of those stories.
Because beneath the adventure, the battles, and the journey…
there’s something deeper:
Truth about hardship.
Truth about courage.
Truth about what it means to keep going when the road gets dark.
I’ve said this before, but it keeps coming back to me
Especially right now, as I try to design this next season
while running down the road at whatever pace my 58-year-old body will carry me.
I’m setting off on another stretch of new.
A new role.
A new book, half-written.
New stages of parenting… and now grandparenting.
Shifts in my non-profit work.
And if I’m being honest—
The scariest part of any of it
isn’t what’s out there.
It’s the hesitation before I even get there.
We know this from every story ever told.
The journey doesn’t stall at the final battle.
It stalls at the threshold.
That space where the ordinary world ends…
and the new one begins.
And what lives in that threshold?
SH!T.
Self-doubt.
Hurt.
Irrationality.
Triggers.
Not because we’re weak—
but because we’re human.
Because our nervous system is doing exactly what it does
when we’re asked to step into the unknown.
That’s why these Tolkien lines keep finding their way back to me.
“Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”
They don’t shout.
They steady.
They remind me that the dark stretch…
is part of the road.
The antidote is counterintuitive.
It isn’t more confidence.
It’s CHIT.
Becoming more
Curious.
Humble.
Intentional.
Teachable.
Staying open
when everything in you wants to shut down.
Here’s your food for thought:
You don’t need the full map.
You just need to answer the call in front of you today.
Who in your circle is standing at that threshold right now?
What voices are you choosing to follow in this next season?
Maybe you simply need someone to tell you
the hesitation you feel is normal.
Maybe you need someone
to nudge you forward.
I did.
I am grateful to them.
If you want to go deeper into that idea—
the voices we follow, and how they shape us in seasons like this—
👉 Linktree
There’s more of that journey inside Breaking | Building | Belonging for anyone walking through their own threshold right now.
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