The end of this month marks my 10th anniversary of living in my house in the forest. I’m tremendously grateful to be able to step out my back door and into an evergreen paradise, but I have a confession to make. When I first moved here, and even for a few years after, I was terrified of getting lost in the woods.
Whether I was hiking or riding my horse (at the time I had the only horse I’ve ever known with no sense of direction) I lived with an irrational fear that I would not be able to find my way home. I imagined someone finding my lifeless body ravaged by a mountain lion or a bear.
I think a lot of us have a similar worry at the moment. We are living in the middle of massive change, and we don’t always know the best route forward or whether we will be attacked along the way. A common theme among my intuitive healing clients over the past several months has been a desire for advice about their life path.
Receiving guidance for one’s life journey can be quite helpful. But, the truth is, we are always on our life path–we can’t get lost. Sure, we can make decisions that make our walk feel more arduous, but we’re still on our way. Life provides us opportunities to learn soul lessons, so the path may start off in one direction and then veer the opposite way, but that does not mean we have failed. We can only ever be on our life path. We are presented with the lessons we are meant to learn no matter the direction we take. There really is no way to do it wrong.
When my clients seek direction on their path, the guides provide lots of insight. Sometimes it has to do with changing what the client believes about themselves or letting go of old stories or habits they may be clinging to. Other times, hidden gifts or talents are revealed. But almost every time, the guides remind the client (and me!) that finding their way requires flowing toward the light, the things that fill their heart with joy.
So, what happens when we feel like we have a roadblock in our way? I’m a little bit in that space myself at the moment. I had a certain vision of what my life would be at the 10-year-mark of living in the forest, and to my surprise some things happened that changed my plan. I got ready to march down the path in a new direction, but the pandemic had other ideas. My soul lesson: now is not the time to do, now is the time to be. It is okay to pause. The great slow-down caused by the pandemic is actually a gift with instructions from the Universe to use the spaciousness to learn, to rest and to connect with my inner wisdom. In due time, I will be able to move forward and I’ll probably even dance my way down that road.
Sometimes the obstacles pop up unexpectedly–things like injury, illness, a death or another great loss. For me, and maybe for most people, these interruptions are the toughest. Can we trust that we are still on the path even in these times when we feel there is no way forward?
Today I hiked in my beloved forest. I got turned around a couple of times because the trail was covered with snow. My dog even lifted his nose to the air and sniffed. Mountain lion? Could have been, but this time I didn’t panic. I trusted and followed the light.
