Consciously chosen or not, we are always on The Healing Path

It can be so easy to dismiss the positive choices we are making sometimes. Sometimes they are obvious and undeniable. These are the times when it is easy to feel good about our selves. We are not in struggle. We feel in control and satisfied with the decisions we are making and the steps we are taking. Perhaps there is even a sense that we have finally evolved, having grown our way through a spot that has been characteristically challenging for us. This feels so good. Life is smooth in this place. It is a simple task to feel compassion for our selves here.

And then there are those other times. There is a goal that is elusive. You can see, outlined in the distance, the product of having achieved the goal but it seems farther than the length of your arm, seemingly unreachable. There is struggle and disappointment in your failing repeatedly to follow through on that thing you intended to change within your self. "I will not buy any chocolate for the next week." (I've not had to reach far to find this example.) And then there you are, again, in the check-out line with chocolates in tow. And already building steam into a well-worn path that is filled with self-criticism and devoid of compassion.

Our places of "the familiar", those well-worn paths that we recycle through, are more than our failure to achieve our intended goals. They are deeply established neural pathway, a deeply familiar groove in the circuitry of our brain. It's not a place of failure. We are truly "up to our waist" in a river whose current is carrying us swiftly along and we've not recognized that reaching the shore is going to require the swim of a lifetime.

I have established the same intention for myself numerous times with various things. Numerous times. Each time I can begin the walk down the new path I'm wishing to create in my life I know that I am building something. Building new neural pathway is a lofty goal. One toe onto the path, before I'm pulled off it again, is a building block for the next time that toe goes down again onto the new path. Two times against a current that is swiftly pulling us in an old, well-established direction is an accomplishment worthy of our most heart-felt compassion.

Developing new neural pathway requires time. Lots of time. We are not just trying to learn something new when we are intending to change something already established within. We are having to build a whole new track while the train is speeding down the one it's always run. Even the desire to do something in a new and different way is part of the laying down of the new track. Each step in the sequence is significant. What may seem like nothing may actually be a profoundly dynamic and integral piece of the change we are seeking.

Healing is what we are doing here - - here on planet Earth. Sometimes it is obvious and easy. Sometimes it is happening when it looks to us like we are undermining our own best intentions. Sometimes it is happening when we're not even thinking about what our greater purpose is while living these lives we have created.

I believe we are constantly growing. It's really satisfying to feel actively involved in the growth process. Sometimes we know we are master of our own destiny. Those are the easy times to feel loving and positive toward that face that is looking back at us in the mirror. Sometimes we're sitting at home eating a chocolate bar that found its way into our grocery bag and is giving us another opportunity to say this is one of the swiftest rivers I've had to learn to out swim.