How to carve your path

I get knocked down
But I get up again,
You’re never gonna keep me down.
(‘Tubthumper’, Chumbawumba)

Imagine deciding to go on a great adventure to a place where you are told is full of all the experiences your wildest dreams can cook up, all the things you can learn to help you move forward, and not even getting out of bed to get ready to go.

Would you be content to stay in bed and say “Ah well, maybe another time, when I’m properly ready and have everything arranged. Things are a bit complicated at the moment and I’m quite happy here”? Or would you get up, get yourself ready and step out of the door?

When we first arrive on the Earth, we have no speech to communicate our needs and are totally dependent on our caregivers to provide for us. It’s as though we have been dropped into the middle of a huge forest. With no words, we cry to make sure our basic needs are met. Our brains are so intricately designed that we immediately begin to absorb everything that’s going on around us and learn to make sense of the world around us. Over the years, we learn what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable and begin to modify our behaviour to fit in. We start taking our own tentative steps through a vast forest that has no path because we’re working it all out as we go. Nobody else can carve it for us. And nor should they.

Your beautiful soul is here to EXPAND.

Most of us are carving our own paths as we go. And the only way we can carve our paths is by reaching out a little bit, and a little bit more, and taking another step here and another step there, discovering dead ends and starting over, grabbing a handful of occasional thorns and keep on keeping on.

It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes along the way. Mistakes are how we learn. Think about when you were learning to walk. You didn’t decide to give up at the first stumble. There might have been a few tears, of course, but you picked yourself up and carried on. Paths are only made by stepping through the wilderness, one step at a time and learning from what’s going on around us.

We never really stop learning. As long as we are here, we’re learning. Every day really is a school day. But the school we are in right now has unlimited subjects to choose from, including: “Cause and effect”, “Getting back up again” and the most important of all, “Choose your thoughts carefully”.