Trust the Breadcrumbs

Follow Life’s Breadcrumbs

Life is an adventure. The sooner you accept that, and climb aboard without reservation, the easier it becomes. Because it’s an adventure, the point so many of us miss is it’s to be enjoyed, not controlled. Yes, you have to follow the breadcrumbs, but try not to second guess the steps you’re taking as you follow them. When you simply allow, life unfolds like a gorgeous mosaic; beautiful in it’s imperfectness.

Those lessons you encounter along the way? They’re the result of you trying to control the journey and the outcome. You wander off course because you lose track of the breadcrumbs while trying to force your course. You stumble, fall, or get kicked in the head to help you learn to ease up on the throttle, and enjoy the journey.

You might think I’m saying you should sit back and do nothing, but how can you follow those afore-mentioned breadcrumbs if you don’t get up and get moving? You still have to put in the effort to follow wherever those breadcrumbs lead. They’re simply the road map which, should you choose to follow, will lead you to exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Learn and Grow

You still have to learn, grow, build, and even tear apart and start over at times. It’s the only way to acquire the tools you’ll need as the journey grows more challenging. You had to learn the alphabet before you could read. You had to challenge yourself with more difficult books to learn to read better. All the skills you’ve acquired meant going through the inevitable learning curve time and time again. But each of those learning curves was another step on your journey.

The trail of breadcrumbs might even have disappeared for a little while, giving you the chance to learn the lessons necessary to move forward again. You might have even found yourself going in reverse for a bit because you missed an important part of the lesson in your rush to finish. If you’re a non-linear thinker like me, there were probably a lot of fits and starts because doing things step by step simply isn’t in your skill set, yet I’ll bet you’ve learned to adapt so you catch all the key points.

Healing is Part of the Journey

There’s another little wrinkle to your journey which might make you feel like you’re wandering in circles at times. In order to progress, you have to keep healing; old wounds, new wounds, past traumas, and even familial wounds and traumas. None of the healing happens overnight, and like the journey you’re taking through life, you need to trust and respect the process. Most of the wounds you’re healing need several takes before you’re able to release them completely.

In order to manage those old wounds without completely losing your mind, you’ve unconsciously deconstructed them so they come to you in more manageable pieces. At first, you’re healing more surface-level issues; the ones which haven’t taken root in your psyche. Once you begin to master the basic process, you start pulling out the things which have settled in for an afternoon nap; taking them apart bit by bit until you can finally release the whole thing. Little by little, you dig deeper and deeper, peeling away the levels of pain like you would an onion…no less teary-eyed for the experience.

Without realizing it, like the life lessons you’ve been learning, you start growing stronger and smarter about the healing ones too. You begin to recognize patterns which have woven themselves throughout your lifetime, leading you into similar situations where you achieve similar results. Part of the healing process is to break those patterns, and it doesn’t come much easier than it does when you’ve crashed and burned, and need to rebuild your life.

Hard Lessons Make You Stronger

You might think this is a cruel way to lead you to where you belong, but if you think about it, you need to walk through a few fires to temper yourself, almost like steel, but without the rigidity. Only when you’ve had to face things; your fears, your pain, and your failures will you become who you need to be to step into that huge life that’s waiting for you. Like your lessons, you can’t jump from the beginning of your journey to the mountaintop without following the steps required to get there.

It doesn’t mean you’re going to be one who takes the paved road all the way, going the same way everyone before you traveled. Perhaps you’ll scale the side of that mountain part of the time, then follow a trail or two that’s less direct, but also less strenuous. In other words, there are times you’ll do it the hard way thinking it will get you there faster. When you run out of steam, you’ll simplify things despite believing the further you have to travel, the longer it will take.

You Deserve the Road Less Traveled

You might even discover the path which meanders around the mountain is longer in distance, but shorter in time because you’re able to travel more quickly by sticking to a path where the elevation increases gradually. But you’ve had to figure it out for yourself for each situation. In the end, you’ve still been following the bread crumbs, even if you’ve convinced yourself you’re forging your own, unique path. While it is unique, and it’s certainly yours, you’ve had hints to guide you whether you noticed them or not.

I’m challenging you now to become more aware of those hints; the guidance you’ve been receiving all along, and to allow it to smooth your way a little. Recognize that when, like your GPS, it tells you to take an alternate route, there’s a good reason for it, and it will ultimately save you a lot of time and energy. Trust the route changes, but trust the delays as well. You might never know what calamity you avoided by having to wait a bit longer to get where you were going.

Grateful for the Lessons, the Healing, and the Breadcrumbs

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for learning to trust the hints, and stop trying to control every, single step of my journey.
2. I’m grateful for learning to trust the delays.
3. I’m grateful for all the hard lessons I’ve learned so I can travel more easily now.
4. I’m grateful for guidance which has shown me what to embrace, and what to release. There are so many people, places, and things which were only meant to travel with me for a brief moment in time.
5. I’m grateful for my loyal readers who inspire me to sit down at the computer of an evening even when I think I have nothing to say.

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

Everybody Needs to Heal

Setting the Mind to Heal

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t lived through some kind of trauma by the time they reach adulthood. It doesn’t have to be something major like rape, child abuse, or suicide in order to have left scars, or to have made you close off a part of yourself. There are all kinds of losses; all kinds of pain, and they’re all valid. Your mind chooses to avoid them simply because they’re painful.

Yet the best way to get past not only the pain, but the often harmful coping mechanisms the trauma left behind is to face it head on, reminding yourself you are stronger than whatever knocked you down be it recently, or long ago. The trouble is, your mind is wired to avoid revisiting anything that caused you pain, or felt uncomfortable. It likes having those coping mechanisms in place and sees no reason to let them go.

Unfortunately, your mind likes to lie to you because it wants to keep you from changing, from growing, from evolving. Your heart, however, disagrees. It loves growing, blossoming, creating, and loving; things which often scare the crap out of your change-resistant brain. Like your brain, your heart won’t remain silent about its wants and needs. Often, it speaks loudly, not so much when you’re awake and your brain snags control, but when you’re asleep and your brain is taking a break.

The Heart Leaves Hints

Dreams are where your heart inserts little hints; reminders you have so much more to be and give. It leaves feels hidden in various places in your brain that arise unexpectedly when a word, a song, or an event triggers them. The brain doesn’t even realize it’s been infested with all of these little reminders and encouragements the heart planted when it was sleeping, so it isn’t prepared to stop the feels from rising to the surface once they’re triggered.

Sure, you can ignore the feelings, as many have learned to do, but the heart is persistent. It will leave more and more Easter eggs until you respond in spite of your own best efforts. At some point you realize you have to deal with those old feelings in order to let them go and keep them from coming up over and over again. The trouble is, reliving some of them is anything but a picnic.

I’ve managed to fool myself into believing I’d dealt with all my old crap, be it past traumas, an imperfect upbringing (for which I’m certainly not the Lone Ranger), or the coping mechanisms left behind that are more hindrance than help these days. My procrastination mechanism is working quite well in avoiding things that will allow me to finish healing and releasing as my heart needs me to do. I know I can’t keep avoiding it forever, if only because I’ve made commitments to myself which must be honored.

Finding the Strength to Heal

I put off facing those demons as long as I can, but eventually, the Easter eggs, my heart leaves while I sleep start cracking open, and frankly, the sulfuric stench becomes overpowering. Just as I’ve been decluttering various parts of my physical environment over time, I know I can no longer put off decluttering my mental and emotional environment forever. Eventually I get tired of tripping over things, or having trouble retrieving what I need when I need it, even if it’s something as simple as having the right word while writing a blog post.

I remind myself I get to choose where I go from here. Maybe I move one more box out to the garage, or clear a little more space on my makeshift desk, aka dining room table. But there comes a point when I have to stop rearranging my physical world and address the insistent voices cluttering my mind, heart, and soul. Girding my loins, so to speak, I put fingers to keys and let the thoughts flow (much like how this blog post evolved, midway through scooping the sandboxes). In short, I have to start by shoveling shit before I can reconnect with my own heart.

I can feel my heart jumping for joy inside as all those pent up feelings start clamoring for attention. They line up like a classroom full of rambunctious 5-year-olds waiting to go out for recess. Each one wanting to be first in line, pushing and shoving until the teacher blows her whistle and threatens to keep them inside if they can’t get into some kind of order. The last thing I want to do right now is keep those kids inside!

The Battle to Release Old Feelings

There are pouts and whines, maybe someone gets bitten or shoved into someone else. The teacher comforts the wounded ones before opening the door and letting them rush outside to burn off some of the energy they’ve built up while sitting inside for a couple of hours. Feelings are no different. They all want to be heard. They all want to feel important. Most of all, they want to be released from captivity. They’ve spent too much time crammed together in a small space.

That bursting at the seams and tendency to rush out in a flood is the source of most of the pain. As the feelings rush out, they rip off a piece of my heart, or worse, stick pins into a spot that’s already tender, perhaps even making it bleed. I’ve learned though, that the tears I shed when the pain comes are healing. They wash away the rest of the muck that’s settled in for a long winter’s nap, and clear space for better feelings and memories to move in.

In the end, the feelings I’ve let loose may try to wander back in as they see the space in my heart is no longer so close and constricted. It’s up to me to determine whether or not they’ll be allowed back in. Granted, some sneak back when I’m not looking, to be released and faced another day, but each time I go through the process, I’m left with a little less baggage, and a little more room to build something better, stronger, and less resistant to change.

Gratitude is Balm for Wounds Old and New

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for heart nudges.
2. I’m grateful for dreams that leave feelings instead of details.
3. I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve had which make me who I am.
4. I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned, and the ones I’ve yet to experience.
5. I’m grateful for abundance; love, joy, peace, harmony, friendship, compassion, kindness, health, balance, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Love and Light

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author or in her new group, Putting Your Whole Heart Forward