Taking the gentle path
One thing I have learned over the years is that there are many ways to do life and none of them are wrong or right and not one is better or worse than another. Just choices in this vast world of how we choose to do things.
That being said, for many of us who are sensitive souls (empaths, highly sensitives, those with unique abilities often diagnosed as dis-abilities and on a side note, we all have unique abilities, most of us have just not been taught to understand how to use them) doing life in the traditional sense of main stream culture can feel overwhelming.
The work hard, play hard, live life in the fast lane mentality catches up with us eventually through burn out, disease or mental & emotional dis-ease often manifested into depression, anxiety or other mental health disorders. Often we try to suppress the burn out through the use of alcohol or street drugs, prescribed medications for mental health issues, other addictive actions such as eating, shopping or television watching or the popular tendency to zone out into our phones. Anything to distract us from the fact that we cannot continue to live like this anymore and it’s time we notice we are living a surface life devoid of true connection to ourselves and others.
I was there.
At 36 I began having panic attacks although I had been working as a counsellor for years and had extensive education in psychology and professional counselling. I was also living the proverbial dream, owned a successful and thriving business, had just built my dream home, had a beautiful family and supportive circle of friends.
But… I was dying inside and crying myself to sleep every night. And I didn’t have clue why. All I knew was that something was missing and I was tired of the intensity and pressure that was needed to support my life as I knew it.
One night while lying in bed, I looked out the window to see the full moon brightly shining on me. I didn’t know anything about moon cycles, astrology or the zodiac. I didn’t believe in any of that woo woo crap back then although as a child I had loved playing with crystals and tarot cards but those were frowned upon in my family as I was growing up and so I quickly learned to repress that part of me as a survival mechanism.
But that night, lying in bed I looked at the moon and made a wish. I wished simply for wisdom so that I could understand how to do life differently so that I could enjoy everything I had and live a life more aligned to what my heart desired. I wanted something more even though I had no idea what that was at the time.
That was eight years ago. And it’s been one hell of a journey since that full moon lit night. All I will say for now is be careful what you wish for as the universe always delivers and rarely in the ways we think it will.
Today I embody the wisdom of the past eight years and everything I was shown along the way. I live a life more fully connected to myself and all the parts of me I had suppressed for so long and I have learned to love them all. I have healed and let go of the old ways of living out generational trauma and abuse and embraced the more gentle path. The one which best supports me and the way of life that I have always wanted but did not know how to live out because I had never been shown that way of life before.
For me that path has not always been easy. Getting here took a lot of strength. There was a lot of uprooting the pains of the past, understanding the conditioning I grew up in and choosing a different way even though everything and everyone around me seemed to be stopping me from doing so. Mostly, it was my ego holding me back and learning to let go of that aspect within me was a whole other journey into the shadow realms and that story I will save for another time.
But today I can honestly say that everything I went through has served a purpose. Not only in my own life but also in the lives of the clients I work with. Learning everything I did and choosing to take the gentle path has made space in my life to create not only the life of my dreams but has also given me the knowledge to show others the way onto their own gentle path. Work that fulfills me and allows me to use the gifts that I uncovered along the way. The very things that once held me back in life (being super sensitive to energy and a highly intuitive empath) ended up being what makes me a genius at what I do and how I help others.
And that is the gift of the path less taken. It brings you back home to yourself. To who you really are. Body, mind and soul. It’s a journey through the universe within you and everything you have brought into this lifetime from all the ones before you and all the ancestral gifts and traumas combined. it can be hard at times but it’s also worth every battle. Every pain that you shed becomes your strength. Every curse becomes a blessing. Life is truly amazing on the other side of the looking glass and if you look closely and pay attention to the signs being shown to you every moment of every day, you will see the sign posts guiding you towards the more gentle path and you will follow them when you are ready to embrace all that you are and all that is awaiting you on the other side.
When challenges come into our life, and they always do, look for the deeper invitation the universe is offering you. When I was confronted with panic attacks and the feelings of wanting and needing more out of life, I chose to go deeper. I sought out a recommended professional, I said no to medications (although I did try out a few and found they numbed me to the experience of life in general and left me feeling detached. The opposite of what I was wanting to gain from life at that time), I followed the signs and my intuition even when it seemed illogical and went against everything I “thought” I knew at the time. But that’s the way it works. We have to lose our minds in order to connect with the higher mind. We cannot create a better life when we are working from old knowledge and ways of thinking. It takes the transformation of the mind to move onto the gentle path and that is the gift of awakening to more.
It often starts with pain, some sort of chaos or trauma or mental health issue coming to us. It can be seen as a midlife crisis or the intense need to make major changes in our lives. Oftentimes it’s a combination of many different things accumulating into an invitation to seek something new. You don’t have to know the way. You will be shown it. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You will be given exactly what you need every step of the way. And one day, you will find yourself living in peace, doing things that you love, surrounded in peace and clarity and thankful for everything you left behind to rebuild your new life the gentle path brought you to.
