Just Follow One Breadcrumb At a Time. (The path will clarify as you go.)
A wave of memory washed over me as I picked up my tattered pink paperback copy of Jack Kornfield's A Path With Heart the other day.
It was 2006 and I was sitting reading it - the first “spiritual” book I'd ever really read - on a Craigslist mattress on a cold cement floor in a tiny, windowless bedroom in San Diego.
I'd just left my nice, stable life working at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C. to follow my newly-budding intuitive nudges to come to San Diego to build a 180 degree new life: Living blocks from the beach, attending massage school, working in flip-flops at a coffee shop, and teaching yoga.
As I came the other day upon the fluorescent green index cards I’d jotted down quotes from the book on to share at one of the first ever yoga classes I taught, I was struck by how wild it is that I had no conscious clarity whatsoever at the time that doing things like this was pointing so obviously, in hindsight, toward the type of coaching work I’ve been doing for most of the 17 years since.
And yet benevolent energetic nudges from universal forces more knowing than my small-ego-fearing-doubting-self kept dropping me these breadcrumbs to follow and synchronicities to keep encouraging me that I was on the right track at each turn along the way.
And still without consciously being aware of how perfectly it was all unfolding based on the clues of those breadcrumbs, a few years later I found myself back in the Bay Area following yet another intuitive nudge to start attending a coach training program.
The same was true with the Jack Kornfield book. Without understanding exactly how or why, it kindled some knowing spark within me that registered with a deep “home” resonance. Like my soul had heard this all before. It truly felt like coming home on a soul-level.
And that one book nudged me toward my first ever silent meditation retreat the same year, and that retreat blew the door wide open into my spiritual homecoming path of mindfulness and dharma that has enriched my life in exponential ways ever since.
It all makes sense looking backward. But we can’t know that from the vantage point of our current ego-mind state that's lost in the weeds of “how” and worry and doubt.
But the thing is:
You don't have to know what the whole path forward will look like. Just follow the next breadcrumb you see appearing in front of you. And then the next one.
The rest of the path will clarify - and your trust will grow - as you go.
What if you chose to, despite the protests and cynicism in your head, trust that just maybe there are some unknown benevolent forces in the universe working on your behalf, supporting and nudging you toward your soul’s purpose and greatest, kindest good every day of your life?
Your logical mind doesn't have to be on board in order for this to be a possibility.
Maybe just some tiny part of you somewhere deep within you is whispering that just possibly it could be true that life is always unfolding for your highest good.
And yes, you'll need to meet the universe halfway, picking up the threads of and following through with action on those synchronicities and “breadcrumbs” along the way.
But if you do commit to keep meeting the universe halfway, get ready for the magic to really start sparking in your life. I'm excited to see what wonderful, previously unimaginable things unfold in your life from here.
Just keep following those breadcrumbs.
Lots of Love,