Hiking this past fall, I saw a sign that said, “Healing in Progress, Please Stay on Trail”, put up by the US Forest Service, to encourage people to stay off the areas where they were trying to rehabilitate trampled vegetation. The places where people were either looking for shortcuts, or lost and unclear of the right path, were not supposed to walk. I laughed when I turned the corner and saw it hanging on the wire, marking the steep, rocky path looming in the distance, because I realized it was the perfect sign for the Soul Geography journey. The path of our life is always healing in progress, because we are humans and life is messy and hard. Like vegetation, we come into this world unique and beautiful, then along the way we are met with harsh conditions, things that trample us down. The Soul Geography journey is about learning how to stay on our trail the best that we can, despite the conditions we face, each and every day.
To be clear, I don’t see our paths as preordained and already laid out for us, therefore, you better make sure you follow the right one or else! I think we make our paths each and every day, with an unconscious map we’ve created, out of a prior need for survival, but that now may be out of date, or it may be a map that someone else had given to us and we still let it control where we walk next.
So how do you stay on the trail of your life, using your own map?
First, start listening to yourself. Practice deep, unjudgmental listening and start paying attention to your body and how it feels from moment to moment. It’s talking to you all the time, but the voices of your thoughts are so much louder. Our inner critic yells at us to get things right, try harder, do more. Emotional waves activate our nervous systems and cause us to act on fear, anger or jealousy. Only by deeply listening and becoming aware of all of these tendencies and habits can we begin to figure out who is running the show of our life, and work on how to have our Soul self be our guide.
Second, you follow the metaphorical breadcrumbs. Established trails always have some kind of markers, colored shapes that are either painted or nailed onto trees, rock cairns stacked up at pivotal bends in the path. In our lives, we have signs all the time, but more often than not, we ignore or override them because our unregulated, intense emotions or our painful thoughts take over and take us off our path.
Finally you stay on the trail, well, by walking on it. Walking on your OWN trail. Learning how to deeply TRUST your path without comparing it to someone else’s. You walk one step at a time, at whatever pace works for you at the moment.
As a coach, I see myself as the US Forest Service. I am committed to helping you work through the things that can pull you off your trail, whether it be challenges with your job, family or partner, battles with your inner critic, general life malaise, or difficult emotions that keep you stuck. I am committed to helping you create your own personal map for your way forward. I am here to help you put up signs and ropes that protect you as you walk along, no matter the weather you find yourself in. I am committed to giving you the space where you can begin to create a map of your choosing, and the support to help you follow it unwaveringly. Contact me, I’m ready to help.
Soul Geography 