While reading a book recently about living as the embodiment of your soul purpose, the author referred to the work of Carl Jung, and that he would say the ways we stray from the path ARE the path. This caught my attention and true to my searcher form I immediately called up Google to find the original. Instead, this direct quote from the great man popped up:

“If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”

Well I howled with laughter. If you read my blog regularly or know my work, you’ll be aware that I have a healthy sense of humour which I apply to my spirituality as readily as everything else, and this really, really tickled me. I didn’t realise then just how very apt my howling laughter was…more of that later.

At the time of reading this, I was having one of my “unable to meditate” periods. It doesn’t happen very often, but it does occur at intervals in my life. I remember the first time I thought that was it; the whole of my spiritual life was obviously over, I had clearly lost the ability to screen out the external noise and tune into Spirit (I was ever so much more of a drama queen in my personal life back then, these days I just funnel it into stage performances). Of course within a few weeks of finding other ways to take a break from the everyday and connect with All That Is, I was happily sitting for my half an hour communion with ease again.

When this had happened several times over a number of years, I began to see a pattern. What followed each of these occurrences was a new depth and insight to my spiritual life, and apparently I’d needed to take a break from my usual way of accessing that to fully integrate it into the body. What at first seemed like a failing on my part was a necessary and beneficial step forward.

So, back to my most recent experience of this and then reading that wonderful Jung quote. No doubt I’ve written about this before but in spiritual circles we do tend to carry this silly notion that everything has to be perfect and smooth for us all the time if we’re “doing the spiritual thing right”. We can then automatically label the challenges, changes or obstacles we encounter as “getting it wrong”. On the contrary, what Jung suggests is that it’s precisely these diversions and detours that we need to explore so that we can learn what we need to learn and get to where we want to go. What we’re experiencing is not an issue; how we judge and respond to it is. Then of course our negative judgement and response just attracts more of that to us and before you know it we can be in a depressing downward tailspin.

Your mind is probably working overtime now as you wonder when I’m going to get round to explaining just why howling laughter is so appropriate to this article. Well, it’s because of the story of Red Riding Hood…bear or should that be wolf with me. If Red Riding Hood had obeyed her mother’s strict orders to stick to the path through the woods, she’d never have met the wolf, who would never have been tempted to Grandma’s cottage, and let’s face it we’d probably have given up on the stuffy story long before we got to The End. But no, thank goodness! Unruly Red was lured away from Mum’s clear track and consequently she gathered tremendous treasures of wisdom regarding the nature of the world and her place within it. Through what on the surface appeared to be terrifying events, she moved several steps closer to understanding and being who she truly was, and not who others might expect or want her to be.

Next time, then, when things may not be humming along as smoothly as they might for you, don’t automatically panic and assume the worst or jump to blaming or judging yourself for where you are. Instead, remind yourself that every experience is an opportunity to reclaim a piece of your true nature, to gather to you an aspect of yourself that may be lost and crying out to be found. If, in these moments, you can’t even begin to start with what I’m saying here, then my very best advice would be to relax, throw your head back and HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWL! If nothing else it will make you smile, or even laugh, and before you know it you’ll be glimpsing that path through the trees. Just remember to enjoy the trek back, and stroke a few wolves on the way.