Walking Your Path — One Step at a Time
“When there is nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire....”
Some years ago, I went in to ten days of silence. We sat in 12 hours of meditation a day for 10 full days. Breakfast was at 6am, lunch was at noon, and there was no dinner and we went to bed at 9pm. I was in complete silence for 10 full days, and on the eleventh day silence was broken.
Just before I entered complete silence.... I had resigned from my former career in real-estate development. 15 years of climbing the to ladder to success and I had arrived so to speak, but I had also found myself on the brink of a mental, emotional, and physical break down.
From the outside my life looked pretty good, but I from the inside I felt completely dead.
I was compelled to go to the top of a mountain and determine whether or not I wanted to end my life or my life to go on. I didn't arrive at this place sobbing and clutching my heart, I arrived at this place soberly, with a dull ache and emptiness in my heart. I could see no way out.
On top of that mountain, I reached the conclusion that I didn't want to be dead. That was the only thing I was sure of, I didn’t want to be dead, and so I determined that must mean I wanted to be alive. If the life I was living made me want to end it all, then I had to make some changes in my life. And so I began by taking that huge nextstep, off of the path that had lead me to feeling like I wanted to die, and on to a path I'd never walked before, one that was only revealed to me one step at a time.
I have joked ever since, that the best thing you could do for yourself after you make one of the biggest decisions of your life, is to go sit in silence with yourself and listen to your thoughts for ten days.
On the other side of that silence, I was more clear than I'd ever been that somehow I'd made the right decision, even though I had no idea what my next step was.
In going within I was able to discover the insight of the answer that I already knew within my heart and soul.
But no one can make you act on that awareness.
Only you can know the truth for you and only you can act on that truth.
And there is no secret cure all pill, there is no magic 8 ball with all the answers. Happiness is a constant choice and state of being regardless of your external circumstances. This may be difficult to grasp at first, but once you understand that you are your own source of wisdom, life challenges take on new meaning.
Learning our own wisdom is the greatest gift and most effective tool to heal, experience fulfillment, and create and recreate our lives. As we have new awarenesses, new experiences come to us. As we have new awarenesses we realize new opportunities to make different choices and so then life shows up differently.
Everyone arrives at this threshold in their own timing, and the only person who can walk through that door and into a new way of being is you. You hold the keys and you hold the answers to all the questions you are asking. This is the secret to enlightenment.
In following that voice that was guiding me toward more life and being alive, I found a love for storytelling and writing, I found a love for art, and for photography, I found a new love for my family, I found a new love for my friendships and connections, and most importantly, I found a love for myself.
The things that seem random at the time, change us forever. The places we go, the places we live, the connections we make, the bonds that are created, may seem completely random, and yet in an instant or a phone call or a night spent in a bar drinking whisky in the arctic circle, your whole existence is changed forever.
I know that by this time next year, I will have changed. Things will be different because I keep listening and keep acting on new awareness. By next year, I will be telling the stories of what I'm going through right now, and they will be beautiful stories of some of the toughest moments of my life and I know that the moments of darkness experienced right now, can be transformed into beautiful pieces of gold.
Soon, they will all be beautiful stories.
As you turn inward and fall in love with the truth of who you really are, you become whole, despite the brokenness.
One step at a time.
Reclaim Your Unique Vision
A vision is not a glimpse of what will be in the future — it’s an awareness of what is already true within you, here and now.
The vision is not something you make up, it is who you were born to be. It’s your true power, your essence, your genius, and the source of your abundance.
When you are cut off from the truth of your essence, you don’t just fail to fulfill your potential, you experience many other side-effects. The challenges you face in the other areas — health, work, relationships, prosperity — are often symptoms of a disconnection from this divine pattern in you. That’s why many attempts to solve those other problems don’t work — because they’re symptoms, not the cause.
When you rediscover your vision and begin to align with the forces of nature, you activate the latent power within you and begin to dissolve many of your problems.
