Life is a Journey

For me, Life truly is a Journey. A Journey of the Soul. A Journey of the Heart. A Journey that includes Lessons. I have been on an incredible journey for the past couple of weeks. Now on a new path, a new course. It is a trans-formative course. I have long believed that every step, good or bad, always brings us to where we are. Where I am supposed to be. Where else could we be but where we are supposed to be?  Having said that, I also believe that we entered into a commitment with our soul, our higher being, prior to being born. The commitment is different for each of us, it is personal. Within it holds the lessons that we have chosen to experience. This is my belief, one that I share with others in part or in the whole. My experience is unique to me.

The fact about life is that if we make our choice conscious ones, then we are one step closer to enlightenment. So, how do we do that. I was going to say, simple, and I guess I would say that it is simple, but not easy. Once we make the choice, then the rest follows. The first step is the conscious choice. The next step is a conscious commitment. The third step is a conscious mindfulness. The task at hand, really is a constant state of consciousness. I am referring to what we often heard as children, think before you speak or act. This is the essence of the commitment. Thoughtfulness, Mindfulness, ask oneself if the choice is for the higher good of the situation, oneself or another person or person's involved. We therefore take a Conscious Action rather than a Re-Action. With every breath we take. If we can think "In the Moment" and only there, if we can re-train our thoughts and our actions to consciously do this, it is a powerful tool. Along the path we release the attachment and we release the fear. It is a choice and it is freeing. The power of living in the moment asks that we remove the bagged and deal with the moment without attachment or ego. The attachment and fear is different to all of us, again it is unique. It's a soul searching journey to understand and to walk away from the ego.

Typically we see and understand what we want in any given situation. This is our place of safety. It's what we have learned. What we know. It does not always serve our higher purpose, but it does serve a purpose. It is this, that we must learn to understand and acknowledge. What purpose does this serve me?

I have learned much more than about myself over these past couple of weeks. I have learned about my relationship with myself, with my thoughts, words, actions, and fears. As children, from the very beginning, we are taught how people interact with us and respond to us, and we learn how we interact with people and respond to them. We keep all of this stored up inside of us until it finally is a piece of who we are. That is, until, we come to a point and question what we have learned. That, of course, leads us on a new journey. What we have learned as children is a reflection of those around us. We have learned to respond to our parents, our siblings, our relatives and our friends, the list goes on and on. The challenge and opportunity of reward and punishment begins our journey.

Each and every person has his/her own journey. There are no 2 journeys that are similar, they are all unique.
The result of our own personal journey is self-perception and the web it weaves. For each of us, that perception is our reality, so no matter how hard we try, we really can never truly understand or know another's intentions or perception. Whatever we are experiencing, up to and including this immediate moment is all a part of our soul's commitment to its our individual lessons. The beauty of this is that through communication, we can gain insight. We can still not live by someones else's experiences. Again, we can gain insight and apply the tools to our own personal experience. Each and every person has his/her own journey.

The very conscious part of my brain, then, asks me, what about all of the sinister and evil that is out there in the world. How does this fit in? War, violent murders, rape, all fits into these categories. My response to this, is that, what I know, is what I personally need to learn, is my experience. Just awhile back, I had the most incredible experience with talking with an elderly woman. She is going through the beginning stages of dementia. Over the past year or so, she has been re-experiencing her journey as a young girl during World War 11.  I went on a journey with her remembrances, one that will always be dear to me. She recalled, how, as a young, strong farm girl, that when she was sent to the concentration camps, she was "lucky" to have met up with a farm hand that recognized her and "guided her" to answer the questions asked, so that she was sent to the farm camp. She recounted stories of her adventures in camp. She told of a gentleman, outside the fences that walked by daily and one day, he threw her a sandwich. She smiled at him and quickly ran off. She said that after that day, he did this regularly. She told of stories of capturing a chicken which of course she could have been shot for! But she told told this story with so much enthusiasm and laughter! She was also gang raped by guards and tortured at times, but these were not the stories that she wanted to share. Those are the stories that she put behind, in the past and left them there. She is one of the most delightful persons that I have ever encountered. I am truly indebted for this lesson in life. That's all that I can really reflect in this regard. All of the events in my life have not been of the best intent.

I can share what I know, my experiences, what I know along my journey. This is my space, my point of view, my experience, learning and sometimes teaching. This, today, is part of my mindfulness of today. I have decided that I am going to pick a subject, each Monday, and write my perspective on that. This helps me to move forward. It also helps me to focus on the now when I need to be present.