Throw out the road map and tune into your own inner guidance

Have you ever felt lost in life because you were following the someone else's roadmap? Maybe that roadmap came from our family, friends, school, religion, or society. At some point, if that map isn't aligned with our true selves, we realize we need to find and follow our own internal, intuitive GPS.

The quote “I once was lost, but now I’m found” has much more meaning at this point in my life. I had lost myself, but now I've found myself.

Following an external map of conditioning, fear and other people's expectations can lead to suffering and loss of feeling aligned with our purpose. We were under the illusion that that was the accepted, prescribed, recommended “way”.

For me, it was college, job, marriage, and children. I was attached to what I looked like, what I achieved, and how I was perceived by the world. Can you relate?

Then somewhere along the way, we begin to perceive we are lost. We realize that following someone else’s roadmap leads us further from our internal guidance and our aligned self.

Many of the physically lost terms also apply to being spiritually lost:  to be turned around, without direction, taking the wrong turns, going the wrong way, finding yourself at a dead end...

How can it feel? Scary, frustrating, annoying, overwhelming, confusing. We may say: “I have somewhere I’m supposed to be! This wasn’t the way, and now I’ll never get there… at least not how and when I expected to get there”. 

Ah, expectations... they are just premeditated resentments, no?

If we have traveling companions, maybe we start blaming them about how it’s their fault we feel so off course. Maybe we yell at them and tell them they shouldn't have led us astray. 

Freedom comes from realizing that it was our choices that led us there and kept us clinging to the map we got from others. Peace comes from forgiving ourselves for not knowing better and losing ourself. Joy comes from realizing that we have the power to make new choices, follow our hearts, and live a life with more light and less suffering.  

The ego may be impatient and fear time that you’ve wasted time. Does that sound familiar? I know when I was in the depth of my existential crisis, I had a deep feeling of regret and wasted time. I hadn’t realized at that point that nothing is ever wasted, including time. And we are always exactly where we are supposed to be.

The suffering while lost often relates to our own expectations of ourselves and the expectations of others, which drives us to reject the reality of our current situation and circumstances.

We suffer until it finally feels like too much, we are too lost, too hopeless.

But remember: It's always darkest before the dawn... the light is at the end of the tunnel of the dark night of the soul.

Perhaps we get so lost we surrender to God, a higher power, the universe, and/or our own divine intuition.  

We begin to give up the illusion of control. We stop pointing at the map of expectations and demanding that life follow the expected route – where we get what we want, we know what to expect, and things go our way.

Eventually, we learn to follow our hearts, trust the universe, enjoy the scenery and sensory experience of every moment along the way, knowing that we are exactly where we are supposed to be.

At some point you may even realize that you were never actually lost at all!! What?!

Yes! That was an illusion, too. Nothing on the journey is about the destination at all. The speeding highway, the exits, the dead ends, the rest stops, flat tires, getting stuck behind slow drivers, asking for directions, country roads, city streets, various passengers and travel companions… its all part of the learning.

The journey’s purpose is the realization, awareness, and connection to ourselves along the way.

May you throw other people’s maps out the window, tune into your inner, divine, intuitive GPS, and enjoy the drive. Loosen your grip on the wheel, and experience the present moment. Surrender to what is, living in the present  moment. Witness the beauty all around you.

Roll the windows down, turn the radio up, and sing. Feel the life energy in this wondrous body of yours and remember that you are love. All is love.