Recalibrate

With things opening back up again lately, and a few in-person meetups taking place, I have found myself travelling to the west end of the city.  Being an east-end girl, I have very little knowledge of streets and how to get places that are west of the DVP, so have started travelling with GPS.  I must say it is kind of beautiful, just plug in where we are and where we want to be, press start and we are guided to our destination.  We can go into autopilot allowing for this external voice to guide us, with the premise that as long as we stay on the path that has been determined to be in in our favour, we will get to our end point safe and sound.

If you are anything like me, sometimes we may take an extra turn or miss a turn that was not in the original plan, and then hear a loud voice - recalibrating - as a new path is quickly put together.  In those recalibration moments, how do you feel?  Embarrassed?  Ashamed?  Annoyed?  Relieved?

I used to feel anxiety at the thought of a fork in the road and the requirement to choose the "right" path.  How can you ever really know if what you choose was right?  Maybe right in the moment but not overall.  Maybe it felt right because it was comfortable and less challenging.  Maybe fear is at the wheel and dictating which direction we go in to avoid the potential of feeling like we made a wrong choice so we stay on those well-worn paths and don't venture outside of a small safe space.

Looking at our lives, how many times have we put ourselves on someone else's GPS?  Allowing an outside force or promise to set our path and then sitting back and letting the path unfold according to that plan?  How has that journey felt?  Did we even notice we were on a journey or was the destination the goal?

How would it feel to just turn off the external GPS entirely, or use it only for the framework and allow our inner GPS to guide us.  That little voice or feeling in our guts, the inner knowing that nudges us when we need the help.  Instead of turning down our instincts, what if we amplify them?  Allow ourselves to get quiet, become still, rest, listen and trust that they exist.  Don't worry they are there and have been all along, we are often just surrounded by too much noise to hear the guidance or are too unsure to trust the pushes we feel.

The best part of a road trip is the journey - so let's allow ourselves to see life as more of a road trip, less of a push to a destination, and to recalibrate our path as many times as feels necessary so we can enjoy the journey and feel grateful for the destination we arrive at.