A Path With Heart

Exploring a new path is simple, though indeed not easy.  What is most important is not to be critical of ourselves when we're thrown off balance, rather to accept those moments as part of the journey and acknowledge the awareness that reminds us of our striving and allows us to continue to move forward.  When we sit in the quiet space within we remember that in creating space for listening, feelings may, in fact often do, arise that are simply body memories of the past.  When the present day self is willing to sit with the past and see it clearly from now, we drain it of its power and, in claiming that power today, free ourselves to live in truth, learning from what has come before rather than feeling trapped or stuck in a past that no longer exists.  

As someone commented on my last post, when we fear the feelings it's easy to default to the old feeling-avoiding behavior patterns because they are familiar and when we're not paying attention the brain will follow the well worn neural pathways developed over many years of experience.  The brain’s neural pathways are developed and changed by experience.  Imagine a well worn path in the woods that has been used every day by most people.  It’s clearly defined, easy to see, and no undergrowth inhibits walking along this path.  But the path is limiting because it only leads to the same old place.  One day someone decides to find a new way through the forest, curious about what they may find, where it may lead.  The first time he or she attempts this new path it’s difficult, undergrowth and obstacles, rocks, boulders, fallen trees, in the way.  There is uncertainty about which is the right direction.  There is fear.  But they forge ahead and eventually end up somewhere new.  The next day it’s still difficult to follow the barely defined new path, though not as difficult as the first day, and not as scary.  Each day it becomes easier and easier to follow the new path and the experience becomes one of eager anticipation rather than fear  Someone else becomes curious about this new path and tries it.  And again.  More and more people begin to use the new path and it becomes more and more clearly defined.  Fewer and fewer people use the old path to go to the old place and it becomes overgrown with weeds and brush.  Eventually the new path is clear and easy to follow and the old one disappears into the forest.  

This is what happens in the brain when we consciously choose to challenge the old patterns and become curious enough, sometimes out of desperation, to try something new.  Each time we do, the brain has a different experience and fires a different set of neurons, eventually creating new neural pathways as we continue to challenge the too familiar avoidant and defeatist patterns.   Each time we choose divergence from the well worn path, each time we choose the path less traveled we give the brain a new experience, and each time it becomes easier not only because the brain now recognizes the new thinking, feeling, behavior as an option, but because our experience teaches us how much easier it is to live in the present, how much easier than we believe to move beyond our fear.  

Such change isn’t easy and it requires us to be vigilant.  It requires us to be paying attention, making conscious choices.  There are discoveries to be made along the way about the ability to overcome obstacles, create a new life, about all we have that we fear to acknowledge, and ultimately one gains a truer sense of who he or she is today,  with confidence in one’s intuitive knowing to guide the journey.  One begins to listen more and more internally, less and less to what others say or think, and he or she who does, who claims the courage to challenge the past, receives one of the greatest gifts, trust in self and a return to deep connection with the intuitive knowing and wisdom of the universe with which we are all born.  This is the path with heart.