1. Add up your choices and that’s your life. Change your choices and change your life.
We face over 200 forks in the road everyday, over 8000 a year and about one million during our lifetime. From mundane choices like our morning routine after waking up or what route we take to work to major decisions about our family, life and work, we are faced with forks in the road about our personal and professional life. Some of them we put on auto pilot but what happens when you change one of those choices? It could have a major affect on what happens that day which could affect your entire life.
2. We can get strong feelings or hear a voice guiding us about which fork to take
Sometimes, we can get a strong feeling or hear a voice to change one of those routines or select one of those choices. While not every feeling has meaning, the stronger ones might be a sign of guidance from something beyond ourselves that we really need to pay attention to.
3. Not every feeling or voice is one of real guidance
Everything we feel is not guidance from beyond. Knowing when it is and when it isn’t takes awareness, practice and trust. Usually, the feelings are strong and the voice is clear when we are receiving some type of guidance. Sometimes, however, the voice can be like a whisper caught between all the other chatter inside of us. Our wants, desires, likes and dislikes, personality, character traits, ego and more can often fight against our true inner wisdom.
4. Everyday anxiety might block this guidance while extreme duress could clarify it
There is no clear picture emerging yet that can tell us what may help or hinder our becoming aware of these messages. Sometimes, under extreme stress or duress, we can feel an uncanny sense of clarity about what path to take. Everyday anxiety and worry seems to block us from receiving this guidance. It seems at this early stage in the research that either being in a state of peace or having our back forced against the wall both seem to allow the guidance to spring forth from a place of truth.
5. Life is a test of faith
We will probably never know where guidance from within and beyond actually comes from. If enough stories are collected, the most we will learn is that we are receiving valuable guidance from within and beyond. Hearing or feeling something telling us to take a certain path generally goes beyond all the facts and analysis available. To follow such a message is an act of faith in something outside of our awareness. It requires us to trust ourselves. Life is a test a faith.
6. Life’s events might be a message to change our path
Sometimes, the message comes to us through events that happen. When we get very ill, something awful happens at work, we get in an auto accident, we unexpectedly help someone out, a friend says something surprising…all the twist and turns of life…there may be a message contained in the experience. It’s possible that nothing happens by chance or coincidence.
7. You are the expert on you
People love to give advice. From family, friends and co-workers to book authors and TV host, we are bombarded with a steady stream of answers. Some people, when faced with a choice, look elsewhere for the answer. It’s a good thing to gather information and hear what different people have to say. That gives us perspective. But no one knows better than you do what is best for you. The answers for everyday situations and life changing situations lie inside of you. We are all different and that means what works for one person may not work for another. All you have to do is trust yourself. You are the expert on you.
Copyright 2011 Don Shapiro
www.lifeisaforkintheroad.com