We all want to contribute, to be successful, and to make people happy. It’s just human nature to care about other people and what they think. It keeps us safe, secure, and content. Right?
Not so much.
One of the hardest growth periods you may encounter while discovering your path, is learning how to shake free of the expectations of others.
We are taught by very loving and well-meaning parents, from very early on, how to behave properly and how to fit in so that we are safe and accepted. That’s not all bad – it’s very useful to know how to fit in.
The problem comes in when we stop listening to ourselves and start looking to the rules and expectations of others, in order to live our lives. Why is this a problem?
We lose contact with our core. It never goes away, but we turn our back to ourselves and our own longings and dreams. All this, in order to be safe. Sure, we may find some stability – even some fun – but we no longer know who we really are.
Once we’ve done that – it’s not possible to live out our purpose. Once we have decided not to be who we really are, we’ve sold our purpose – for a little bit of approval or imagined safety.
Now – that’s not to say that it’s not important to learn how to be nice to other people, or to blend in when we choose. The key, however, is our choice. When we assess a situation and ask what we would like to give ourselves with respect to that situation – sometimes we decide we want to be nice, to agree with another, or to work together cooperatively.
That is not giving ourselves away – that is an active, conscious choice made from listening to our heart and mind and soul.
That is really the key – listening. When we learn to meditate (which is just getting to know ourselves) we start to knock away the expectations of other people (all the ‘do rights’) and we start to uncover what we really want to learn and experience.
That knowledge IS your path. Whatever you observe and know in the present moment, based on contact with yourself – IS your truth, IS your path. It allows you to make decisions and take actions based on wisdom, rather than chasing your tail listening to others and trying to make them happy so you can get what you want from them.
Taking action without listening to your truth, always creates ramifications you have to clean up later. It’s what I lovingly refer to as the Karma Zone – where you get lessons reflected back to you that show you where you’ve gone off path. Lots of folks live in the Karma Zone their whole lives.
When you learn to wake up and choose your reality based on your inner knowing, you’ve entered the Karma-Free Zone. In that magical place, you decide what you want and set your intention. It comes back to you, because you always get what you ask for. Not only does it come back to you, it comes back to you with grace and ease – and nothing to clean up. You create miracles and happiness, without forcing solutions that really don’t work. You walk your truth.
That’s what being on your life path is all about – learning to get quiet and consciously choose for yourself what you would like to create. All that comes from giving yourself permission to be who you really are.
There’s nothing more important in the world than that.
