Looking for the right path

I don't know if you've ever found yourself looking for the 'right' path?  Wondering if the life that you're living, the choices that you're making are taking you in the 'right' direction, being true to yourself, living the life that you were 'meant' to live?

The search for the path is a recurring theme in poetry and literature, in writings about religion and spirituality, in the world of personal development.  It's something that many people say who come to coaching for the first time - precisely because they they have lost their way.

But looking too hard for the one, true path can create its own problems.  You can find yourself fixed on finding 'the' answer rather than noticing and enjoying where you are.  The path that is unfolding under your feet.  The trail you have left behind.

And it can leave you focused on the path that other people have created, the 'shoulds' of other people's expectations, or the trails that others have blazed, rather than the path that is distinctly yours.  Focused on external pointers and signs, rather than trusting your instincts and intuition to find your way.

Hilda Carroll reminds us today that when we are lost, when we need directions, the answer is to trust our intuition.  One of the people she quotes is Alan Alda, who encourages us leave the path of what's known and allow ourselves to be lost.

You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.” ~ Alan Alda

You'll find the same theme being developed in the wonderful 'Monkifesto' that Adam Kayce at Monk At Work has just published.  (The Monkifesto encourages us to apply intuition at work, but the questions would work for anyone looking for that path.  It's based on a series of short, simple statements and questions plus stunningly beautiful photography).

He asks us to:

Imagine you're walking through a forest.
You've got books and maps to show you where to go...
But what do you do when they fail?

The only thing we can trust is our intuition - our sense of connection, our sense of ourselves.  Because sometimes (always?) there is no right path. 

Which takes me back to an excerpt from 'Entirely' by Louis MacNeice.  Pinned up on my notice board to remind me not to get too hung up on the search for the right path.

"And if the world were black or white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters
A prism of delight and pain
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely."

No right road.  Just us humans, tiptoeing our way through the mysteries of the forest.

Thanks to free-stock photos for the forest photo

Comments

[Nick]

Lovely post Joanna.. and so true.

Perhaps it's in walking down our path that we discover that the treasure at the end of our 'yellow brick road' is in fact the true nature of the One who is doing the walking.

If that's true, then there's no path to look for, is there? There's just the step that's in front of us in this moment to take.. and then the next.. then the next.

Thank you Joanna.

[Adam Kayce : Monk At Work]

Hi Joanna, I'm glad to hear what you thought of the Monkifesto — and I agree, finding your own path can be a challenge; when I went through it (in the process of coming up with 'Monk at Work', my intuition was a saving grace. I'm sure I cut down on months, if not years, of wandering by being able to get clear on what the deepest parts of me were yearning for.

Beautiful post.

[Joanna Young]

Hi Adam, thanks for stopping by, and for the feedback on the post.

One of the things I most love above about blogging is the connections it opens up to the amazing work of other people, like your own, and the free resources that you and others make available to us.

I loved the Monkifesto because it 'spoke' to me with very simple words and powerful images - leaving me (and my intuition) to come up with my answers, my truths, rather than listening to more 'advice' from an 'expert'.

More power to your elbow (do monks use elbows?!) and good luck with the forthcoming course.

Joanna

[Joanna Young]

Nic, thank you so much for your words. I agree, absolutely.

I think this is probably the most important lesson. In some ways the hardest - and yet in other ways the easiest? - of them all.

Thanks for stopping by, and for your generous, thoughtful comments on your own site, which helped me to find the inspiration to write this, and to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Joanna

[Robyn McMaster]

Exactly, Joanna. And, today Liz Strauss has a wonderful post to show that we must be authentic and not succomb to peer pressure as adults. Think you'd enjoy it. http://www.successful-blog.com/1/change-the-world-choosing-our-own-path

[Joanna Young]

Hi Robyn, thanks for this. I love Liz's work so I'm looking forward to checking this one out.

Joanna