“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.” – Ram Dass 

Everybody talks about being on the path, but what does that really mean? Maybe having a certain philosophy or religion to follow makes it clearer. But for those of us, like myself, who are putting it together as we go, it can get quite convoluted. This is because the path is so individual, one size never fits all. It’s our unique way of seeing and being in the world that puts our stamp of individuality on how we follow our path.

Making it even trickier to navigate is that there are no real quantified steps on the path. Life doesn’t follow an equation. I like to take a cue from innovators and entrepreneurs, they follow their gut or a hunch, and tend not to follow the rules. Instead they follow their dreams and visions, that’s what gets them to the next breakthrough. I think it’s the same for us on the journey of life. We have to listen to our hunches and follow our dreams, and to do that we need to pay attention.

Paying attention means a lot of different things on many different levels. I admit I have a tendency to walk around in my own personal bubble. It’s really nice in there, peaceful, healing, meditative. But if I’m not careful I have a tendency to miss what’s going on around me. I get so caught up in the doing of life that I miss how it affects me, and whether what I’m doing really fits me. I will say this is how I got caught up with an emotionally abusive boss, and stayed working for him way too long. Once I started paying attention to what was really going on I saw it was much worse than I ever expected. If we pay attention to the people and situations in our life, they will point to what what helps or hinders us.

In fact everything in our lives is trying to feed us information about whether it sustains or derails us. If we are miserable we can safely assume we have veered off the path. Maybe we’re living someone else’s dream, or another’s plans for us. But only we can figure out what we truly need, and it may look much different than what we expected. If we pay attention to what feels authentic, we will be steered in the right direction. When we don’t, we can get lost in the wishes or desires of others, we fall off course and get lost in the muddle. To really connect to our lives, live the life that has meaning for us, we have to pay attention to what is going on and decide whether or not it’s nourishing our soul.

I remember very clearly the morning I was getting ready for work and was struck by the thought, “I just can’t do it anymore.” I felt like I just couldn’t give one more day to that job and boss who didn’t give anything back. I finally paid attention to how miserable I really was. Instead of contributing to my life in any way it was sucking all the energy out of it. Paying attention let me honor what was right for me, and gave me the courage to stop clinging to what wasn’t working. That one decision changed the quality of my whole life.  

Let’s face it, life can be so complicated. There are so many choices to make, so many pitfalls, and so much beauty. It’s crucial to pay attention to what sustains and uplifts us and add more of that to our lives. We keep listening, paying attention, and follow where it leads. As best as I can tell, that is the path.

There may not be one path, one way, but there is your way. And the only way to find it is by paying attention, to yourself, your environment, and seeing if it’s bringing you what you need.

Here’s to discovering your own true path.

kb