I’ve struggled with the question of how to choose the right path for my entire life.

Is this action right or is it wrong? Is this the right path for me or is it for someone else?

I’ve always had conflicting thoughts about the choices I could make. Sometimes, I would make decisions brashly. Other times, I would take any opportunity I was presented with. Still at other times, I would look for clues from the universe, affirmations, if you will.

Some of the resulting choices worked out well, and others have hurt people, including myself.

I vocalized my question to a friend, late one winter night. I said, “Danielle, How do you know what the right choice is? I hear differing viewpoints in my mind and I don’t know who I should listen to.”

That night, she didn’t answer me. However, when I awoke the next morning, she told me the key.

She said “You know how you have two voices telling you what to do? Well one is the ego, and one is the soul. You have to listen to the soul.”

I asked her, “How do you know which one is the ego and which one is the soul”?

She said, “The louder one is the ego—listen to the quieter one. The persistent, soft, meek one, in the back of your skull. Just behind you. You have to give it attention. It’s that other voice there, not the one yelling. It’s the other voice, the quiet one”.

Duh, I thought. Of course it’s the quieter one. I had been listening to the loud one almost every minute of my life. Now that I knew what to do, I thought, life would unfold in a kaleidoscopic dreamscape of fate unfurling in its golden path at my dancing feet.

I took this knowledge with me and tried to practice listening to and following the advice of this quieter voice. I won’t say that it has been easy. If anything it has been quite trying, but at least I know what to strive for now.

There have been times, when I have forgotten the quieter voice and gotten caught up in the loud parade stampeding through my head.

When I remember, I can here the voice of wisdom, shining softly through. Like a little old lady, sitting on the sidelines, watching the parade. If you get close to her, and listen carefully, you can hear the answers to all your questions.

~

Relephant:

How to Dissolve Fear.

~

Author: Courtney Slider

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: Flickr/Kiran Foster