the gps lesson
This morning I had to drive somewhere. I kinda knew the way but not totally so I decided to have my gps ready to instruct me, if needed. I took a wrong turn, earlier than I should have. What to do? I activated the gps to guide me. Somehow, stuff wasn’t working. I resolved to go on without it. It turns out I could still find the way on my own! It became clear to me that this is how it goes on life’s path too. We think we can have a sort of how-to-guide for almost everything, we learn things by the book and expect the results to get us where we want to go, but is it really that way? Truthfully, it was never about trusting something outside of ourselves more than our own voice, intuition, and inner instincts. We are born to learn as we go. We can mostly learn by first-hand experience. That’s gonna work better than an already shining, forged path by someone else. And it’s exactly because it was built by someone else that we get in trouble, only we can know our path, only we can feel our way through it. All you can do is follow the signals, trust yourself, trust that you’re gonna find the way, and trust GOD really, trust you’re being guided. When I say “trust yourself”, I mean trust that you have the capacity to find the way, and recognize your ability to read the signs. We are so used to leaning on things outside ourselves that we have forgotten the fact that we have lived through times when we had none of these comforts. And still, we made it this far.
This lesson is an incredible gift, I’m so grateful for it. God showed me how sometimes I prefer to follow the instructions, but there are no instructions or they’re not there in the way we perceive them and our mindset is structured around this way of thinking that cannot always be applied. This also happens because I want to be assured I won’t make mistakes. I want to have a certain route to follow but the way has no instructions, just signs and I can lean on my own capacity to follow them and trust that I can do it even without external aid. It’s in easing that tension, letting go of the need to control everything, being present and doing it yourself; listening, paying attention because that’s what’s really gonna help you find the way and enjoy the journey. Even clear instructions can get you lost or pull you towards the wrong turn, so it’s good to make your own mistakes, instead of blindly following everything you’re being told to do. It’s this ability to really discern whether the route is right for you or not that is gonna help you in life, despite what the instructions say, because they can also be made by a misleading force – the one that doesn’t know the way, the one that holds no wisdom, the one that wants you stuck. The question will be: do you prefer going down the path you know your heart is pulling you towards or the path that you’re being told to go? Who says it’s better? Who knows if it’s really better? Life asks for courage, the courage to take responsibility for ourselves, for our choices, courage to make mistakes and learn from them, courage to keep moving forward and know that a few wrong turns aren’t gonna beat us down. The greatest gift will be the skill of recognition, a skill you didn’t know you needed but now you know is vital. Build a relationship with your own compass within, build a relationship with the Source of it. Let yourself experience how graceful life can be when you join that silent hum beyond all things. The greatest spiritual growth was born from the refusal to look for answers outside of myself and the willingness to get to the Source on my own.