Navigating Life

You have a Guidance System to help you. Did you know that?

Do you ever feel like you are lost? Like you are struggling to find your path here in this world? To know what you are supposed to do to fulfill your purpose in life?  Perhaps you’re struggling to figure out what your purpose even is. 

People say things like, “Find your purpose” or “Follow your path” but that is easier said than done for most.  And if you feel that way, you’re certainly not alone.  I think most people are in this boat and it’s not your fault.  You simply haven’t been taught how to navigate this realm.  Let me let you in on a little secret.  A big secret, actually, since this understanding has not only not been taught to you, it has actually been kept from you…very deliberately.

You have a guidance system.  And it is infallible. It’s YOU. More specifically, it’s your emotions and your intuition.  This system has been given to you at the very core of your being and it sends you information all the time, but you’ve been taught not to listen to it.  Not to trust it. And you have been steered away from it in favor of input from the external world. Let’s dig into this a bit shall we?  On the surface it may seem like this can’t possibly be the answer to your questions, but hear me out.

How many times have you been told things like, “You’re just being emotional,” or “Don’t let your feelings get the better of you”?  How many times have you been made to feel foolish because you let your emotions show, or you were told you were being silly for listening to your Heart? There are a multitude of variations on this, but I think you get the idea.  You’ve been taught to not listen to how you feel about things in favor of using logic and turning to the external world to tell you what to do, think, say and even feel.  This likely started when you were very young.  You got the message, one way or another, to ignore your feelings in favor of whatever mom or dad or your teacher told you that you needed to tend to at the moment.  If you felt like crying, but it was inconvenient for someone else in authority at the time, you quickly learned to stifle it.  Or, if you saw something in the classroom or on the playground that totally captured your attention, but it wasn’t the right time, you learned to turn away from the thing that was mesmerizing you and put your focus back on whatever it was that someone else said it was time to pay attention to.  (That phrase “pay attention” is important and we will come back to it.)

This is a tragedy and here’s why… because what captures your attention and brings you joy is EXACTLY what you should be focusing your attention on.  Now, one could argue that there should be limits on this to keep you safe.  You don’t want to kneel down and examine a ladybug in the middle of traffic, but I think you see the point.  Unless your entire existence has been structured like a very well-designed Montessori, you likely have not been taught to follow your interests and listen to your inner guidance. Instead, you’ve been taught to listen others, follow the rules and to use external cues to tell you what to do from moment to moment. Your intuition rarely came into play, and if it did, you likely were not told just how important it actually is.

In truth, you have been imbued with a very sensitive, very precise system that is there to guide you through this life.  The things that you are passionate about are the very things you are supposed to be directing your energy into.  That passion is the indicator that has been embedded into you to help you navigate this world.  And it’s different for each person.  No two people, or life paths are the same and that’s the beauty of it.  Unfortunately, what has happened is that we live in a society that tries to get us all to fit into the same box and to walk the same path. But that path does not fit every person.  In fact, it fits very few.

When we are told to “pay attention” to something, we are quite literally paying a price in the form of the only true currency we have in this world: Energy.  We have only so much in a day and paying any of it to something we do not enjoy should never be done lightly.  Sadly, most of us are taught that “Life is hard,” and that things we enjoy are frivolous and should be reserved for weekends and vacation time.  The phrase, “No pain, no gain” comes to mind and is truly a distorted way to look at and experience life. But, it is the norm…

Let’s say you love drawing.  Ever since you were a child you loved to make pictures and images.  When you draw you feel contentment and you lose track of time.  The pencils feel good in your hands and when you finish a drawing it gives you a sense of satisfaction that other things do not. It’s just something you enjoy, and if you don’t do it for any extended period of time, you miss it.  Perhaps you even feel off balance or anxious.  But as a child, maybe as a teenager when you were trying to figure out what you might want do do with your life, you were told that being an artist wasn’t very lucrative and you would run the risk of being poor.  You might not be able to support yourself, so it would probably be better if you studied something more practical.  You could keep the artwork as a hobby, but you should choose a career based on what will ensure your safety and survival.  Sound at all familiar?  It does to many people of the last several generations.  Especially to women, who have been guided away from their internal instincts and often pushed into careers that they really don’t have much affinity for, but ones that will make sure they can “take care of themselves”.  (That’s another discussion for another day right there.)

So, you chose a different path. Not art.  Not drawing.  Not the thing that made your Heart sing.  And sure, you now have money and a nice house; maybe you have a couple kids and a couple of cars.  But you go to work every day in a job that does not bring you joy and you can feel your life force ebbing away.  Maybe you understand it in these terms, or maybe you just feel empty. Maybe you’re on anti-depressants because you can’t seem to shake the feeling that you are just not happy. You don’t know why and can’t put your finger on it, but you think there must be more to life than this. Maybe you drink too much.  Maybe you have a short temper and it doesn’t take much to set you off.  And it’s no wonder is it?  Look around, this affliction is everywhere.

If at this point, you can find your way back to the thing that gives you joy, you might be able to pull yourself out of the rut.  But it’s harder now, isn’t it? Now you have a job and a mortgage. Car payments. Taxes. Maybe your kids are in private school… you have a lot of things riding on you being able to continue to bring in that income.  How in the world do you take the leap of turning away from what is sapping your energy and put it back into the things that feed your soul?  You’ve kind of backed yourself into a corner, no?  All the responsibilities.  All the pressure.  And why?  Because you believe you are supposed to do all those things.  And because no one ever explained to you that if you do what makes your Heart sing, you are actually following your Path and that the opportunities and means to support yourself will come as a result.  If you do the things that bring you Joy and make your entire being resonate at a higher frequency, the Universe cannot help but support you because you are vibrating on a plane that brings more of that same energy to you.

Now, since this is one of my first full-length articles, I don’t really know exactly where my audience is on this so, I will take a moment to explain the Law of Attraction in case anyone isn’t familiar with it.  I’ll go into this in more detail in another writing, but for now, suffice it say that you are an electromagnetic being living in an electromagnetic world. You are both a receiver and a transmitter of energy and information.  (You are also a transducer of energy but we can cover that in another article. So much to write about!) The things around you that you say are made of “matter” including your own body, are really just energy vibrating at a certain frequency. They may seem solid, but they are not. Everything is Energy.  In this realm that we inhabit, everything has a frequency and like attracts like.  If you are happy and grateful for the things in your life, that specific frequency goes out into the Universe and you get more of what you are grateful for; more of the frequency that you’re transmitting. If you are angry and wishing you had things that you do not, you send a signal of lack out into the Universe and you get more scarcity because that is what you are “telling” the Universe you want.  That’s a very simplistic explanation, but hopefully it suffices for now in order for us to talk about how this works in relationship to your guidance system.

So let's go back to imagining you as a person who has chosen a path that was not predicated by following your Joy.  You denied your feelings in favor of logic.  And if you really want to get into it, you will recognize that you chose a path based on what you were afraid of.  You were afraid you wouldn’t make enough money as an artist, so you chose something else.  You were perhaps afraid you weren’t good enough at what you liked to do, so you denied that impulse and chose something that didn’t involve your Soul.  You basically learned a trade, whatever that trade may be and you kept your Self out of it.  It became transactional.  Your existence here became a tradeoff.  “I will give my Energy to the study of… let’s say accounting, and World, you will then give me money for my efforts.”  Nowhere in that exchange is your Soul showing up to contribute anything because your particular Soul has no interest in accounting.  (Now, that’s not to say that someone’s Soul doesn’t LOVE accounting, ok?  This is just an example.  Reverse it maybe if you're someone who loves numbers and hates to draw.)

So, now you’re 39 years old.  You’re not particularly happy. Maybe you’ve even suffered a divorce because you turned into a cranky partner, or you got sick.  Perhaps you lost your health to cancer or heart disease.  And now you are trying to “find yourself”.  Your life falls apart and you are trying to pick up the pieces.  You find your way to your drawing pencils again and you slowly start to see that what makes you happy has been denied to you and that you actually did that to yourself.  If you’re self-aware, you see this and you start to embrace the part of your that you’ve stifled. If not, perhaps you just continue down that path of self-destruction.  You keep repeating the same mistake over and over.  You might even deny yourself more of what you enjoy because you think your life is falling apart because you just need to “try harder”, “work harder”, “do more”.  More pain, more gain.  You probably know some of these people.  Maybe you are one, and if so, I hope these words find their way to your Heart so you can understand what has happened: you let Fear rule your life instead of Love.

So, what the heck does that even mean?  Love over Fear? We hear it a lot these days and much of it is platitudes spouted by people who don’t really understand.  “All you need is Love” kind of thing. But that’s ok.  We are going to explain it. And we are going to LIVE it.  You do only need Love when it comes down to it, but it helps to understand why.

All of our emotions are based in two basic roots: Love and Fear.  Every other emotion stems from these two.  When we simplify things down in this way, it can help to make it all make sense.  Joy, hope, gratitude, happiness etc, are all rooted in Love.  Conversely, shame, guilt, sadness, jealously and the like are all Fear-based.  And let’s explain this one step further by pointing out that Fear is actually not the opposite of Love, it is the lack of Love.  It’s the feeling of separation from Love which generates the sense of Fear.  This is much the way that cold is not really the opposite of hot, it is the lack of heat that creates a sensation of cold.  A separation from warmth, if you will.  So, if we choose things that amplify our sense of separation from Love because they are guided by Fear, then we can see that we are feeding the fearful experiences and generating those lower frequencies in our lives.  And, as we talked about earlier, that then becomes our reality because that is what we are sending out to the Universe as our “wish”.  The Universe gives us exactly what we resonate with.  We might say that we want Love, but if our vibration is infused with Fear, then that is what we are sending out and is what we get back, amplified.

Clearly, we don’t want to do that, so how do we cultivate Love instead?  How do we find our way onto our proper Path that will bring us joy instead of pain?  I mean, we can’t really see our Path can we?  It’s a concept, but certainly not something we have map for.  How do we find our Path and how do we stay on it once we do?  How do we engender Love when we actually do feel Fear?

The first step is to hone in on feelings of Gratitude for what we DO have.  Do you have a roof over your head? Then be grateful for that, regardless of whether or not it looks the way you would like it to.  Do you have your health? Then thank God for that and relish it.  If you don’t have your health, do you have air going in and out of your lungs? Be thankful for that.  Or the chair holding you up.  The ground under your feet. The sunset painting the sky bright orange.  Whatever it is that you can muster up true feelings of gratitude for is where you need to pay your attention.  For many people who are struggling to find their way, Gratitude is the very first step toward breaking the cycle of Fear.  God did not make you to live this life in Fear, shame, guilt or lack.  He really, really didn’t.  And if you don’t feel that in your Heart yet, then just hear my words and let it sit.  You will.

So, if our guidance system is our emotions, and if we know that we are supposed to follow what brings us Joy on our Path because that Joy is what points us to our God-given purpose for our lives, then we can innerstand that we need to continuously turn towards that Joy. We need to turn towards Love and away from Fear.  Not by denying the Fear, but by making the conscious choice to believe that there is a better way.  A way that is not rooted in the idea that we are going to suffer, or that life has to be hard.  We need to reach for the feelings of what we want and believe that they are possible.  It can be a very subtle difference, especially at first.  But it’s there.  That finely-tuned little hum of “rightness” and of things clicking into place. 

When we need to make a decision, we should look at it as a choice between Love and Fear.  Am I going to take this new opportunity out of Love because it brings me Joy, or am I going to choose a different job because I am afraid that there is nothing else for me and I will settle for this out of Fear of the unknown?  Am I going to reach out to the person I just met because I sense a connection and I want to cultivate that, or am I going to shy away out of fear of rejection?  Am I going to say the difficult thing to my child, friend or spouse because I Love them, or am I going to stay quiet out of Fear that they will become upset at what I have to say?  Am I going to choose the piece of clothing, or the meal that I truly enjoy or am I going to deny myself simple pleasures because deep down, I don’t really think I deserve them?

Do you see that this principle applies all across the board, from the macro to the micro in our lives?

When we follow our passions, we will find that we are solidly on our Paths.  We find that opportunities and synchronicities show up for us in every single aspect of our lives.  Magic and miracles occur (Yes, they really do.) and each day becomes an adventure that we are happy to wake up and face.  The spark of life is alive and well within us and we thrive.  Opportunities come knocking and we meet the right people who can help us at each stage of our journey.  Information we need and answers to our questions show up right in front of us and we find ourselves in that elusive flow state where we are riding along in the current of life with ease and acceptance of what is.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not. Trust me, if I could pull myself out of the patterns of thought and behavior that I had, anyone can. And the wonderful news is that you absolutely can claim this for yourself no matter how old you are or how far you may have wandered off your Path. The only thing that matters is what you do now, not what came before. Every moment is new unless we choose to carry weight from the past into the present in our minds. You will start to become aware of when you do this, by sensing that it just does not feel good. That is your guidance system kicking in!

When we make choices that cause us to veer off track, we find ourselves losing that synchronicity.  Things start to feel more difficult and we find ourselves pushing to make things happen instead of flowing with what IS happening and knowing that it is right and good. It’s a subtle line and we all find ourselves making mistakes and stepping off the trail from time to time.  In reality though, these are not really mistakes, but actually opportunities to fine tune our abilities to feel and sense what is right for us in each moment.  They are chances to hone our intuition and learn to listen to that Still Small Voice within.

We have to learn what Fear feels like in order to understand Love.  It’s a question of discernment and most of us have spent our entire lives living in a state of Fear.  The fight or flight response has been activated in all of us to the point that we are pretty much always in that mode. We can’t really see it until we give ourselves something to compare it to. And that means taking the chance on choosing the option rooted in Love and seeing what happens.  We really cannot know one without the other because we live in a world of of Duality.  If we only knew Love and had nothing to compare it to, how would we be able to see it and choose it?  Again, I bring up hot and cold.  You cannot know and appreciate warmth, if you have never experienced cold.  You cannot understand light if you do not understand darkness.  In the same way, you must learn to walk your Path by learning to sense the difference between what happens when you choose to walk in Love versus how you feel if you choose to walk in Fear.  And make no mistake, these are choices and we do live in a Free Will realm.  But you have likely not been taught this.  You have likely not been guided to hone your intuition and to learn to listen to it and let it lead you.

Your intuition is, by definition, your inner teacher.  You do have one and it knows everything.  It is tapped into The Field, the Aether, the Divine.  It is your direct communication line to God and it is your guidance system, complete with everything you need to find your way in this life.  If you were raised in Christianity perhaps my favorite verse from the Bible will resonate for you a bit differently with this understanding:

1 John 2:27 KJVS

But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

Or maybe this one:

1 John 2:20 KJVS

But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.

You do, you know. You have everything you need inside of you.

Sadly, you have likely been steered away from listening to your inner teacher for your entire life. Probably it was your parents you taught you this way of being, and it was taught to them by their parents and so on. It’s not really anyone’s fault and if you are looking for fault, you will find yourself in some very deep rabbit holes. I said at the beginning that these teachings have been hidden from you and they have. Why? is deep discussion best saved for another day.  But, you have likely been directed to credit your guidance to something outside yourself… to look outside of you for signposts instead of turning inward and learning to listen. It’s time to tune in. 

The first step to doing so is simply the decision and the desire to connect with The All, with God.  When you send the signal that you wish to know the Truth out into the Universe, guess what happens? Yes, the Truth comes to you.  Be ready and open your eyes.

If you are trying to get from point A to point B, you can navigate by way of your intuition and your inner guidance system, or you can let the external world tell you what to do.  The input from the external world will seem like it’s the most expedient route to get where you want to go, but… it isn’t.  If you can muster the courage to step off into the unknown by trusting your inner wisdom and following your passions, you will arrive at your destination sooner and with a lot less pain than by following that other path.  The other path is a false idol if I may borrow a term from religious speak.  A false idol is anything that pulls you off of your Path.  Some people will likely tell you that a false idol is something that pulls you away from God and that is true, however, they tend to leave out the most important bit: that the God you are looking for is already inside of you. And the world around you is so full of false idols that it’s hard to glance out in any direction and not see one there trying to get your attention.  Trying to get you to pay your attention to it and give it your precious Energy.

Learn to tune in to your guidance system.  When something feels right, it probably is. When it feels wrong and you are not really interested in it, it’s probably pulling you off of your Path. When your Heart is full and you feel excitement at the idea of something, that is part of your Calling.  It may or may not make logical sense to you at the time, but do not deny the pull.  It means something.  It is important and if you move forward with it, you will eventually see how that thing, choice or action was EXACTLY the right one for you at that moment and how it led into other perfect matches.  As you do this, it will get easier and easier.  You will see how your instruments of navigation work and you will learn to trust them completely. Follow your Overflowing Heart because that is God speaking to you and through you.

Let it happen.

Let it happen.

What awaits you on that Path is glorious beyond your wildest dreams.