Trust the Path

I've been taking a hodgepodge of yoga classes pretty regularly for the last year. I presume I am absorbing bits of wisdom while I twist and balance and stretch, because as we work, the teachers often say things I know are worth remembering. But there's something about the mental state I fall into during class that I leave the room with only the memory of an impression. Like the imprint of a step on wet grass, the teachings seem to disappear moments after they land. (It's a bit disconcerting, I must admit.)

But this past week, one phrase made it through my mental fugue to stick in mind. "Trust the path", she said.

I'm guessing it stuck because that's exactly what I haven't been doing much of in recent years.

When I started writing this blog, I was in the middle of a trust fall. Having reached the end of my rope, unable to hang on any longer, I'd let go. I trusted the Universe to catch me, but have to admit, I didn't really think it would. I really thought I'd crash and burn.

But I didn't.

Not on my camper van journey. Not on my cancer journey, which was a total detour from the path I wanted to be on. Not while I recovered, walked with Kate on her journey, said goodbye to two of my sisters. Not while I hopped from job to job.

Each time I stumbled, each time I came to a seemingly impassable patch of ground, Something was there to show me the way forward.

Then came retirement and Covid, and for the first time since I'd first let go, I had no sense of the path forward. I didn't want to go back to where I had branched off my known road (and couldn't have gone back even if I did want to), but could see no way ahead, so I stopped, bewildered, in my liminal space. 

Rather than blunder blindly in the mist, I sat down in my last known safe place, tucked myself into a ball, and stayed put. I didn't trust myself to move. There I stayed, neither here nor there, for what felt like an eternity. After a while, I quit even looking for the way forward; it was an exercise in futility. 

Even after I was jolted back into movement by joining Woodside (my gym), and started taking steps, I had no sense of direction. To be honest, I still don't. I can't see where the path is going, and it's scary. But I'm taking steps anyways. I am choosing to try to Trust the Path, anyways.

One step at a time.