View this post on Instagram

 

For years now, there have been thousands of quotes floating around on social media that say something to the effect of, “When you’re on your right path, things become easy. They just flow.”

For a long time, I resisted this. It seemed too simplistic. Too trite. All of the artists and entrepreneurs in my life who were designing their own path were putting in the work, facing obstacles along the way, including their own shadows.

I could understand describing this work as rewarding. This work has always felt that way. But it has often been challenging, too.

So, easy? It didn’t compute.

To see then these quotes floating around the net, insinuating an effortlessness, felt, to me, like an affront. A lie. Which may have negative effects. It would be discouraging to those just getting started carving out their own path as they notice it doesn’t feel so “easy” to them, and so they go on to second-guess themselves, possibly even stop.

And while I still worry about that, especially for the young and impressionable, I have begun to see that there is true wisdom embedded in these quotes, however simplistic.

What I believe they’re getting at are the benefits we receive when operating out of a place of deep alignment with our soul, when we’re being true to ourselves—true to our calling.

When we allow ourselves to be who we really are, we honour the self at the highest level by removing the layers that once suppressed our light. These layers are the ones that we ravelled around ourselves in an attempt to fit in, to impress, to protect.

In this process of removing them, we shed a ton of mental and emotional weight. Because we’re no longer watching our words. We’re no longer treating ourselves as if we were a brand with an image to sculpt neatly. We’re sinking into ourselves and letting intuition take the wheel. And there is certainly a lightness, an ease that comes with that.

Similarly, when we’re being true to our calling, we are releasing the impulse to control the future. We’re trusting that, so long as we are acting true; so long as we are showing up to our work from a heart-centric place; so long as we are doing our best to be of deep service, we will find our way.

More than that, we are already on our way. And we can enjoy the ride for all that it is: its learnings, its growth, its moments of joy, and its moments of tears.

Because, when we’re on the right path, it’s not that everything is sunshine and rainbows and obstacle-free. It’s that we have faith and purpose, which have a way of smoothing even the bumpiest of roads. And even more, we have a zest for life that fuels our journey, and provides us the energy to do the most important of things: connect with our loved ones, play and create, and serve, not only our souls, but the world at large.

I’d like to close this then with a quote that I feel is more honest than Instagram’s favourite platitudes. And that is this one by Paulo Coelho:

“The Good Fight is the one that we fight in the name of our dreams.”

~