Do you trust your path?

I went for a walk at the river today to clear my head and my energy. The path at the river is wide, reasonably flat and has no obstructions and is a wonderful place to spend some time.

Things are changing. A lot of us can feel it. We don’t know exactly what the changes will be, part of that will have to do with the energy of the collective on our planet, but change is here for sure.

As I was walking, I realized how much the path at the river was like the path of our lives. All we have to do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, and we will get where we are going.
Not that I was walking TO something at all. I was just walking. Enjoying the sounds, the sights, the smells, saying good morning to others’ on the trail. Smiling at the adults, the kids, the dogs. The purpose of my walk was to BE ON THE PATH. Not to do anything in particular or to get somewhere in particular. I needed to focus on being in my moment. I picked up a mantra that all was well, I walk forward freely through my life. Change is good. I don’t need to know specifically what the change is. It will be good and work out in the end, no matter what it is.

This started me thinking about trust. Trusting our path, trusting that we are right where we need to be. I decided to try an experiment. I put myself smack dab in the middle of the path and closed my eyes. I kept walking. I only made it about 6 steps and got nervous and opened my eyes again. I kept doing this over and over again. The farthest I got with my eyes closed was 50 steps. It was really hard to trust my path for that long without wanting to stop, or look around, or open my eyes. It was an exercise in trust though so I did it over and over again.

On average, I only made it about 12-18 steps without opening my eyes, if even for a second. Two times I inadvertently went off into the bushes on my left. At that point of going into the bushes, I felt something that I did not want, the ground was softer, branches touched my legs. I simply opened my eyes for a few moments, got myself back on my path, closed my eyes again and continued on my path. I did this over and over for about 2 km of my 6 km walk. Closing my eyes, trusting the path, and every now and then, pausing for just a millisecond to open my eyes and make sure I was still where I needed to be.

When I heard someone coming, either in front of me, or behind, I would open my eyes long enough that my path did not run me straight into someone else’s path, and then my eyes would close again. My lesson in trusting my path. At one point, a fellow walking faster than me came up from behind. He was walking to the left of the path and I was on the right. I thought to myself, if I close my eyes and kind of follow him, I will hear his footsteps and I will know where I am on my path, because I can follow his sound. He will be up and to my left.

I didn’t close my eyes at that point, not because I did not trust my path, but because I did not know for sure what his was. Within 10 seconds of him passing me, he actually moved over to the path in front of me. If I had closed my eyes and followed his path by sound (thinking he would stay on my left and just in front of me), I likely would have walked right into the river.
You see, he was on his path, and I was on mine. If I had tried to follow him, it would have put me right off of my path.

Life is like this. Our path’s are like this. Your path is your path. You need to trust it. You don’t always need to see it. Sometimes you can just close your eyes and know that you are on it. If you need some assurance you are still on your correct path, just open your eyes for a moment, take a quick look around. You will see that yes, you are still on your path, you can redirect a little or a lot, but then you need to carry on and trust that you are right where you need to be.