There are many paths in life one can follow. The right path for each one of us is the one that starts in our own heart. It branches out like the leaves unfurling on the branches of a tree. Each year we progress along our unique path bit by bit.
Life presents us with opportunities to expand or contract in our life. Every situation and event in life whether opportunity or adversity offers us a choice of how we will progress along that path. We can choose whether to act or not act. We can choose whether to act or react. Whatever our choice in that moment, it is always the right choice. The choices we make in each moment lay the foundation for our next step on the path we call life.
Life is meant to be lived fully
We are here to live our lives to the fullest. How we live is up to each of us. Do we need to be faced with tragic loss and the realization of how brief and fragile life can be before we honor what makes life meaningful for us? Do we wait till the end of our time here on earth to express and share the natural gifts we have to offer? What holds us back from living our lives exactly the way that fulfills our hearts desire? What limits have we placed on our own lives so that we never reach that which brings us the greatest fulfillment?
Money is our number one limiting factor
Is money stopping you? Yes, you say! Money is stopping me. Picture this… You are boxed in by giant dollar bills that keep you from moving in any direction. These huge sums of money are preventing you from reaching your dreams. Or maybe you are surrounded by walls of coins stacked so high you cannot see over or around them. No… That’s not what you meant! It is the lack of money that is stopping you. We process our thoughts in the form of pictures. What does lack of money look like? Wide open space? Limitlessness?
Where is the limit really? It is in your mind. It is a figment of your imagination. It is the result of a very creative mind. Every time that you think that money is stopping you, you will be stopped by the thought of money. Imagine yourself surrounded by money. If you were really surrounded by money, you would simply use what you needed when you needed it. Money, in and of itself, has nothing to do with what is stopping you. Trying to picture yourself surrounded by lack of money leaves the door wide open for what you see as being what the lack of money is. It is nothing really. The vision of what money is or is not exists only in your mind. When that vision is confronted, the vision of the money that is stopping you dissolves and evaporates, leaving you free to go in any direction you choose.
When you think about or reflect on those things in life that you really wanted to do or have and how they came into being in your life, you will notice that every time, without fail, you knew that it was yours. The real obstacle was not money or lack of money because whether you had the money or not, you got what you wanted. You got the sold out tickets to the concert or ball game. You got time off from work to go on a trip. You found someone to watch the cat while you went away for a week-end.
Vacation time has always been a thorn in my side. I plan for it. I set aside time for it. Then the time arrives and I have no money to actually take a vacation. There isn’t enough money to take care of the regular stuff, never mind actually going away. However, for twenty plus years, once or twice a year, I’ve been able to drop everything at a moment’s notice to travel halfway across the country to help my Dad. The phone call would come. The money would come in. I’d pack up the car and be on the road.
Life’s journey is a never ending spiral
It ebbs and flows like the waves on the sand. Sometimes you see yourself sliding backward and sometimes you see yourself leaping forward. You only slide back as far as you allow yourself to. As far as you chose to. When that backward slide feeling in life is happening, everything feels like chaos. The unknown turns from exciting to fear-filled. The slide continues until you hit rock bottom. Rock bottom is different for everyone. It also can change several times in one lifetime for someone.
Momentum can carry you up or down the spiral of life. What is inspiring or motivating you to go in one direction or another? Are you headed toward or away from where you think you want to be? No way is really right or wrong. Sometimes you have to get down from one place to get back up somewhere else.
Your journey is what it is. Every journey has highs and lows. Every journey has sections of greater challenge. Every journey has places to rest, reflect and rejuvenate. There are places where you run as fast as the wind. There are places where life seems at a standstill. The path is ever changing. One only has to wait with the knowing that all things are temporary. All things are relative to that specific moment. Time, thoughts, and actions all relate to each moment in that moment. Each moment becomes a stepping stone to the next moment. The culmination of experiences of thoughts, feelings, and emotions are expressed in a single moment.
Living from moment to moment is living
Looking for what is stopping you from living your life takes away from your living your life. Where ever you are on your own path, it is the right place at the right time. It is good to stop and take a look at where you are, what you are doing, and how you are doing it. That does not mean that you spend the rest of your life in that particular space. Move on when it is time to move on, rather than examine why it is that you are not.
We each travel our own path. It may feel like a private journey in which we often feel alone. Our path is crisscrossed with the journeys of many others. We have the opportunity to see that we are never alone. We share many of the same experiences with each other so we can relate to each other. Some of those experiences may be joyful. Some may be sorrowful. We have this connection as a remembrance that our journey is not truly solitary.
For many years, I hated “The Journey”. The thought that I had to love the journey or embrace the journey to have a truly meaningful and wonderful life made me sick. The journey, your journey, my journey, happens whether you like it or not. It happens whether you embrace it or not. You bring to the journey all of yourself and who you strive to be.
The journey is what you experience from the people, places, and events in your life. Parts of the path may be filled with adversity, struggle, and backsliding mixed with great leaps in realizations, successes and failures. Along the way there is inspiration and motivation to move us to the next experience. It is more about how we experience life than reaching any destination.