Without change, and especially without movement, life grows stagnant. We cannot rest on the laurels of past achievements or actions. Old stale air will resuscitate no one. Water that has been sitting is not sustaining to life. Relationships without regular infusions of new energy wither.

Change is not like a bus. We cannot always stand around waiting for things to happen. Sometimes, we simple have to stir things up. Rattle the cage of our lives. Create some momentum. The movement alone can be a curative to the dead zones of our consciousness, jolting them into wakefullness again.

Sameness and predictability can be lulling in the ability to pull us into complacency and dullness.  We need some edges in our lives to keep us sharp and focused. So before we get slammed by the bus of unexpected change, it is far better to take off running into the abyss of the unknown. Do something, anything that is not the norm, that makes us nervous and uncomfortable. Give yourself a shot in the arm once in awhile, just to feel the rush of alertness pulsing through your veins again.

We can always count on things to change. We can hold onto nothing. When we’re suffering, this can bring us hope that the suffering will eventually pass. When we’re experiencing pleasure, this can trigger feelings of fear that we will lose what we have. But alas, you can’t have it both ways. Life is always moving, changing, growing and seeking the unknown, the fresh, the new. Better not to look back longingly at where we’ve been. Sure, mourn the passing and falling away of what was, but stay in the now with it. Hold it close to you for awhile, and then release it to fly into the ethers of time. Clinging to it will only delay your departure into the future.

Not easy to trust this transience.  It can leave us feeling a bit powerless and out of control. Like a strong wind that whips through and knocks things about, it’s force can be intimidating, revealing our smallness in the scheme of things. However, the humbling aspects of change are really only make worse by our rebellion against it. When we fight it, we tend to rail at it’s agenda, because we cannot how the whole thing is unfolding. We haven’t a clue how it’s ultimately going to play our. Our narrow little vision, keeps us in the dark, when big changes show up in our lives without forewarning.

Pulling the lens back a bit can remind us that we are part of the bigger dance of life, and our role is shifting to accommodate many layers of unseen dramas playing out on the large screen. Releasing our grasp so that we flow with it rather than against it, can reduce the number of bruises and complications along the way.

With time comes wisdom gained from experience, and eventually we begin to expect change, maybe even greet it at the door or even better, go looking for it. Because we can tell when we are no longer being fed by our current circumstances and we recognize the call to stir things up, move them around, rearrange them or even let them go completely.

There is something life affirming when you initiate change in your life. There may not even be an obvious reason to do it except that you haven’t done it for awhile. The process itself introduces you to aspects of your being that were dormant or buried under layers of other stuff, and are now finally coming to the surface for expression.

We are so much bigger than the narrowly defined boxes our lives reflect. So it can be absolutely rejuvenating to open all those doors and windows of our being again. The fresh air feels so good as it moves through the dank and stale rooms, the light penetrating the darkness.

The invitation to change your habits, routines, ways of thinking and being and doing is always there, it is just a matter of deciding when to heed this calling out to shed those dry layers of old dead skin, so that you can become pink and new and open again. Resurrection forever a metaphor for change, for replacing the old with the new, and rising out of the ashes of what has been burned down.

Life is change and renewal. The cells of our bodies mirror this constant death and birth cycle. So much change is happening without our even thinking about it. Kind of an interesting exercise then to take a moment and reflect on which aspects of our lives are stagnant and dead. What areas could use an infusion of energy or even an entire makeover?

The answers can either be exciting or terrifying…or a perhaps a little of both. Regardless, whether we initiate it or not, we can always count on things to change.

Life is a wonder and a mystery. We move through it under the strong illusion that we have some degree of control of it or at least our personal corner. On the surface at least, we don’t, and life does not hesitate to remind of this regularly.

But there is something deeper here…a paradox to be sure. There is a deep place within us that is connected to the Whole of ALL THAT IS. It is in this connection that we can tap into something deeper. This is the place where we can see the bigger picture and recognize the Divine Perfection all around us. It is the place where we can laugh at what is unfolding and not take it so seriously. This is also the place where we can get freed up of all of that drama and biographical, genetic, ancestral and societal baggage we keep dragging around with us.

As small children, we are powerfully imprinted by our early experiences, both good and bad. It is where our first impressions of love, relationships and the world are made. Depending on whether those early experiences were positive and uplifting or dark and traumatic or somewhere in between, they shape our perception and ways of navigating through the world.

If we grow up on a starvation diet devoid of much attention and affection, that becomes our normal because we don’t know what a full meal tastes like. Because it feels normal, we will tend to perpetuate that diet and attract people and circumstances into our lives that only partially feed us.

To stop carrying those early imprints with us, we need to heal and release the thoughts and beliefs about the world they created. Often they are so much a part of us, that we cannot even see them. But in spite of their invisibility, they shape and influence every decision we make.

For someone who is used to being deprived, learning to receive love and attention and affection, is a major healing event. It is a process of unwinding and unraveling all of those deeply ingrained ways of being, reacting and moving and opening the channel for a new level of aliveness.

In order to do what it believes will keep us safe, our subconscious sabotages all of our desires and needs and deep cravings to grow and change. This saboteur affects everything we do. To really heal these subterranean levels of fear, we need to connect with something greater. To reduce the imagined threat of releasing our old way of being, we need to remember who we are.

This is nothing short of dying to what was and being reborn to what is. It is where we will find real freedom. It is where we will find our authentic voice. It is where we will learn what it means to be alive.

We, perhaps for the first time, will be back in the driver’s seat of our lives, rather than feeling like some rogue part of ourselves is behind the wheel.

This is not really about control, but rather surrender and allowing and being with what is at a very high level of acceptance. Control is about the need to survive. When we begin to taste freedom, we no longer feel in danger and so no longer need to control things. We are no longer out of alignment with what is before us and what is unfolding. The feeling of being out of sync was simply all that noise from our subconscious trying to survive what it perceived to be a very confusing world.

There are many modalities that allow us to release our early scripts and beliefs. When we are ready to really let go, we will find them.

In the meantime, take a look at your circumstances and relationships. Notice any repeating themes or patterns? Feelings of powerlessness and frustration? A sense of moving ten steps forward and two back? A gnawing feeling of being victimized, but with no clue how to shake the feeling or change your circumstances?

That’s it. Keep paying attention to it. Call it forth from the shadows into the light of day. Watch what happens when a little bit of awareness creeps in. The power and intensity starts to diminish. Exposure is half the battle.

It’s as if you’ve discovered a few stowaways living inside of you…long-term house guests, and it’s time to show them the door.

For that you may need help, because these squatters aren’t usually so keen on leaving. They will do anything to convince you they are helping you and that you cannot survive without them. An objective person can help you to hold steady and not be swayed or undermined by such tactics.

Sometimes you have to sneak up on them and trick them into leaving. Whatever it takes, whatever modalities you choose, by all means stand firm. Give them a hug, thank them for serving you, but don’t forget to lock the door once they’re gone.

Life essentially gives us what we ask for. How do we ask? By what we put forth. Everything that leaves our circle of being…and I do mean everything—our thoughts, emotions, judgments, beliefs—comes back around in some way. We are all connected and there is no place in that field of connection to hide. If we soil the ocean of existence, there is no way to escape accountability for that.

It’s taken me a good many years and many hard life lessons to realize that life has certain rules of operation and the sooner we align with those rules, the easier our lives become. Those rules include showing up to do our part, being fully accountable for ALL of our actions and keeping our corner of existence clean. A tall order, indeed.

Spiritual maturity is not about finding easy answers to life’s problems. It is about meeting what is head on without resistance, embracing it fully with all of its confusion and chaos. It’s also about knowing that life is always a reflection of what is happening inside of us on ALL levels, both conscious and unconscious.

Many people on the spiritual path make the mistake of thinking that prayer and affirmations are enough to shifts things in their lives and the lives of their loved ones. But it takes more than that. Showing up is a big part of manifestation. In order to attract what we want into our lives, we need to demonstrate our desire and willingness to receive it through our actions. It is a way of meeting life halfway. We cannot complain that things are missing from our lives if we aren’t willing to put ourselves forth to meet these things fully. Hiding out in our habitual comfort zones, and then wondering why our lives are so full of lack, makes no sense, but that’s what most of us do. We passively wait for the good to show up for us.

To spiritually mature, we also need to put our attention on our accountability. Many of us are conscientious when it comes to our behavior in the world, but lazy when it comes to our thoughts and emotions and what comes out of our mouths. This won’t fly because everything that moves from us, touches everyone else and eventually comes back and touches us. If you knew that when you spoke a sharp word about someone, it traveled from you and pierced another, would you be so willing to let it go? If you knew that the reason you felt pain at a given time was due to that same sharp word you sent out, would you still allow yourself to be the originator of that pain?

Of course not. But most of us have not cultivated an awareness of that level of accountability yet. If we had, our conversations with others would be quite different, as would our conversations with ourselves.

Finally, how do we clean things up if we do make a mess? It’s quite simple: honesty and forgiveness. Being honest with ourselves and others, taking responsibility and then apologizing for our part in the mess cleans it up. We don’t have to beat ourselves up or even hold onto the mistake, except to receive the lesson it imparts. Rather, it is really only necessary to see it, acknowledge it, clean it up, forgive ourselves and then MOVE ON.

There is nothing to be gained by lingering in the mess. As we move through this process of cleaning things up, we will find ourselves far more forgiving and compassionate when others make a mess. This creates all kinds of space and openness around us and then there is finally room for the good stuff: love, joy, peace, etc.

The magic of life comes in when we embrace life and ourselves fully, messiness and all.

Growing up sounds terribly dull and boring, but in fact it is quite the opposite. All of that mess that we were unconsciously creating was in fact blocking all the good things we’ve been seeking. It created distractions and constant fires to put out. When we begin to take responsibility for the mess and clean it up, this allows us to clear the channel so that we can receive what has always been there. It allows us to become childlike and look at life with wonder again.

My sense is that we will also have much more access to the parts of ourselves that are mostly dormant and unused…the parts of us that are able to transcend time and space. Most of us have had glimpses of that, and the possibilities are endless and tremendously exciting.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

I’ve been speaking to friends of mine about why life seems so hard much of the time, and through a circuitous route, we ended up with a number of conclusions, none entirely satisfying. People’s theories ranged from, “none of this is real” to “your outer world is a reflection of your inner world” to “suffering and struggle are necessary” to all theories in between.

Even those of us who put lots of attention on the meaning of life seem baffled most of the time. No amount of our intricate story-weaving really even touches the mysteries of life nor answers our demands for an explanation.

I’ve always cultivated a fantasy that somewhere, sometime I would meet someone who would tap me on the shoulder and point me in the direction of the Truth. That like Dorothy and her friends in the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain would be outed.

I suppose the not-knowing is what keeps life interesting and magical. The uncertainty keeps us in the game. But, and most would agree, sometimes, it is just all too much. Sometimes, I’m just tired. Moving through the density of the 3-D feels like a trudge through the mud, and once in a while — without the help of mind altering substances or the nightly out of body forays of the dreamstate — I’d like to have the sensation of flowing freely through and with it (sober AND awake).

The best I’ve come up with so far is to not resist what is. Rather, I just let myself fall into what’s happening in the moment…fully and completely, until I’m so in it, I don’t differentiate myself from it. I merge into it with a full out embrace and trust. Seated in the Is-ness, I am gifted with periods of real peace and even joy, but not what I would call freedom. Sorry, but that’s what I’m really going for. Sadly, I think that’s the one thing I cannot really have. At least not in the way I imagine it.

Being here on this plane of existence doesn’t appear to be about freedom or transcendence or nirvana. If it is, it certainly isn’t the easiest door to open. Believe me, I’ve tried, and paradoxically, it is that trying that has led to my failure. It seems as though the very act of wanting and seeking and desiring a way out of the limitations of physically existence, actually seals the door even tighter, whereas, letting go of the need for things to be different, being with all that is as it is, tends to crack it open just a hair.

In other words, if you’re here, be here. Death is your ticket out. Life has a built in exit plan. Knowing that, wouldn’t you want to hang out here and see what happens next? Besides, how do you or I know that once we die, we aren’t lining up to come right back? How do we know this isn’t one of the coolest places in existence to incarnate?

On the other hand, it could also be a prison matrix where we’ve been sent to learn some heavy-duty lessons as part of some kind of karmic debt. Or even further down that line of thinking, we could be prisoners with no real reason behind our imprisonment other than we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. In that model, those of us looking for an escape would be considered heroes.

This illusiveness and speculation is precisely the problem. Like a kaleidoscope, our experience of life shifts depending on how you look at it. Turn it one way and it looks like a cosmic dance filled with divine blessings and opportunities. Turn it another way, and it looks like a cruel, painful phenomenon filled with unnecessary hardship and suffering. Turn it again, and it falls somewhere in the middle and looks like the most ordinary thing in the world.

Maybe it’s all of those things, plus more. Perhaps we’ll never really know what this is all about. Maybe that’s a good thing.

I don’t know…personally, I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking for answers or wondering what’s around the next corner. Maybe that’s a good thing, too.

One of the best ways to penetrate through the mundane states of being is to step back and question why we do the things we do. What is it that compels us to follow a set of rules that oftentimes costs us dearly in terms of our freedom and autonomy and authenticity?

We conform because it typically serves the greater good, even if it inconveniences us. For the most part, this works. However, sometimes rules simply cease to work or never worked in the first place and need to be looked at and changed. Instead, they are held to because people fear change or get stuck in the “this is the way we’ve always done it” mentality.

My father questioned our man-made rules, often to an extreme. In fact, he perpetuated a mythology that fostered a family-held belief that we were above the rules and were entitled to special treatment. His argument was simply that because a select group of human beings made the rules without consulting the rest of us, we had a right to challenge those rules or disobey them altogether. Again and again, my sisters and I witnessed him refusing to wear a tie and jacket into restaurants that required it and paying heavy traffic fines for “forgetting” to renew his license and registration. He never went anywhere without his radar detector. If there was traffic on the highway, he would simply drive on the shoulder. Once when he locked his keys in a rental car, instead of calling the rental company or the police to help him get into the car, he simply grabbed a hammer and broke the window. Patience was not a virtue of his.

My father just didn’t think the rules applied to him. About his own death, he used to say, “I’m not leaving.” About that he was wrong – he died in 1980 in a fatal car crash.

This sense of entitlement, this assumption that we have a pass and can get away with things that others can’t doesn’t work. Even with an extended grace period or a long lucky streak, rule breaking catches up with you. Believe me, I know. This lesson has come up and slapped me and my sisters in the face many times.

While I’m not advocating blinding following the herd and being a sheeple, what I am saying is there are no shortcuts. Yes, we need to become conscious of our actions and our thoughts, but we must respect the fact that we live in a 3-D world that is governed by both natural laws and man-made rules. Perhaps in an evolved state of consciousness, we can transcend both. However, we have to be careful not to ASSUME we are in that evolved state when in fact we’re not, because there will be consequences. We may think we’re getting away with something, but skirting responsibility for our actions has an insipid way of catching up with us, either immediately and directly or karmically, with a bit of a delay. Either way, if we don’t hold ourselves accountable, we will eventually get caught with our pants down.

Life has a way of calling us to task when we try and run from facing certain aspects of ourselves. It can be humiliating and painful to have to face our own delusions, but on the other side is a cleaner type of freedom, which doesn’t require being on the run to maintain it.

So it’s about a healthy balance. On one end of the spectrum you have blind obedience and on the other end you have a kind of reckless “anything goes” abandon. Somewhere in the middle is an awake person who questions the way things are while at the same time navigating through life with respect for oneself and others. On that rare occasion, we can find ourselves with a get out of jail free pass. But these kinds of passes are not something to count on or live by, just appreciate them when they do come.

The rest of the time, we’re on our own.

The physical world we live in is thick, heavy and dense. We are weighed down by bodies that are weighed down by gravity, and surrounded by physical objects. The density and weight of the three dimensional world we live in is a blessing and a curse. A whole spectrum of experience exists that allows us to engage our senses and partake of sensations that range from great pleasure to severe pain. When the pain outweighs the pleasure, as it is does far more often than we’d like, the overwhelming urge is to escape. This leads us to take any measure we can to change the way we feel: drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, television, spending money—ANYTHING that alters our mood, and allows us to transcend the moment or situation we’re in.

We all long for transcendence, though some of us more than others. We want a break from the density of this world. We want to feel light and free and at peace. In fact, many of us seek this out to the exclusion of all else, as if we’re looking for the exit out or the escape hatch, so convinced we are that we are trapped and there is someplace better.

The problem is that we are spinning our wheels. This plane of existence–the schoolhouse we call earth–doesn’t appear to be designed for extended vacations. If it were, then all those hardy attempts at long-term escape wouldn’t have such an exorbitant price tag and always end up backfiring. After three decades of studying this topic relentlessly, my best guess is that the whole point of being here at all is about learning and growth, with some of the best ingredients for human evolution being struggle and pain. If everything was easy and all the edges were smooth and soft and pain-free, we wouldn’t learn very much. Instead, we would atrophy into soft blobs of clay, malleable, but not much use for anything.

Still people want out or at least want relief from the struggle. They treat life like an evening at the movies. They invest the time to select a movie, get themselves to the theater, stand in line, pay for the tickets, buy their snacks, find their seats, watch the previews, and then after watching the movie for awhile, decide they don’t like the movie and get up and leave the theater.

Oh, were it only that easy. Life is designed with such a heavy coating of amnesia so that we don’t even remember agreeing to any of this in the first place. It is as if were born in the theater itself, and want to find out what lay outside its dim lighting and soundproof rooms. We’ve suspended our disbelief to such an extent, at times we are so immersed in the idea that life begins and ends inside that movie theater, that escape seems the only viable solution to what seems such a small and limited existence.

Perhaps though, none of this would even be possible unless we forgot most of what we know about life prior to and beyond this one. Perhaps that’s the whole point: forgetting so that we can engage fully in this mysterious mirage we call life. Regardless, the joke is on us if we spend the entire time we’re here trying to escape or transcend it. Again, using the movie theater metaphor, if we spend the entire time looking for the exit, we will miss the movie.

The desire to transcend is a paradox and it is also ironic. The paradox is that two things are true at the same time: we want to be here and we don’t. It is this tension that can make us nuts. The irony is that attempting to transcend the density of the 3-D may defeat the whole purpose of being here. This is especially true if we chose to be here in the first place, but somehow forgot about it. In that case, who could blame us for being curious or even furious that we don’t know what’s going on or what we’re doing here. Knock someone out and drop them off at a location where they’ve never been with no instructions or map, and chances are they’re going to be a little upset.

I have loads of compassion for those who want out of this place. I have often felt that way myself. But instead, I busy myself with my quest to figure things out. Like Truman in the Truman Show, I’m determined the find the truth, not by finding the door out, but by somehow penetrating through the lies deeply enough so that I stumble upon something that hints at some answers. The irony in that is that the layers of illusion probably never end, but only shift to accommodate the search.

In the meantime, little by little, I’m learning to enjoy the show, laughing at myself and my folly, and realizing that not knowing is what keeps things interesting.

That may be my favorite paradox of all.

How do you like to learn your life lessons? The easy way or the hard way? Didn’t know you had a choice? That’s the beauty of the gift of free will we’re given—we always have a choice.

Welcoming, inviting, allowing, and embracing life lessons is certainly the easier way to go. Running away, ignoring, resisting and fighting the lessons that occur are going to ensure that we’re in for a rough ride.

We hold most of the cards (more on that later) that determine whether our path is one of joy or suffering. Now I’m not knocking suffering. It’s an incredible teacher, but we don’t have to get a degree in it.

The key is to volunteer or sign up for the lessons, rather than make them pursue us. A life lesson that has been avoided is no fun. By the time it has become painful, quite a bit of time has passed, and the intensity of the lesson has built up way beyond our comfort level, such that in order to get our attention, its approach is rather more akin to a two by four or bulldozer rather than a nicely paced challenge.

Far better to meet this thing halfway and invite it in for tea rather than wait until it breaks our door down. Whether we like it or not, these lessons are coming one way or another.

What the Soul needs, the Soul gets. Period. And if necessary, it will use the override button to circumvent whatever dalliance or detour or distraction that has led us astray from our path.

Typically, this avoidance occurs when we listen to the mind instead of to our intuition. The fact that the mind is often referred to affectionately as the drunk money is no accident—if left to its own devices, it behaves in a way that is clearly not sober or sane. In fact, following the path the mind takes is like following a raving lunatic without a map. After exhausting yourself going around in circles and endless dead ends, the only place you’ll end up is either back where you started or even worse, lost.

Better to stop moving and check in with a more reliable source: your intuition. We’ve all been given this incredible internal guidance system, but sadly, most of us don’t trust it enough to cultivate it or learn how to use it. This creates all kinds of problems because listening to our intuition is the only reliable way to hear what our Soul wants. It is an internal system of checks and balances that allows us to sort through the massive quantities of information presented to us at any given time and to discern what to put our attention on. Without that, we are walking around with no sense of direction or purpose, just wandering aimlessly in a state of constant reaction to what we encounter.

In order to significantly reduce suffering in our lives, we have to learn to establish clear boundaries around ourselves to eliminate lots of meaningless stimulation and distractions and then determine from that what our Soul needs for growth and expansion. This is a more proactive way of living, in which we move toward our lessons rather than away from them. It saves a lot of time and trouble and heartache.

I see the mind as a rebellious teenager that constantly tries to find clever ways to get into the driver’s seat of our lives. The only way to deal with it’s juvenile antics is to be firm, direct, and most importantly, consistent when you are reminding it that it’s place is in the backseat or even the passenger seat, but never in the driver’s seat. No, that seat is reserved for the Soul or as some people refer to it, the Higher Self, the part of us that has a map and can see the bigger picture and knows the best route to take us where we need to go.

So take a moment and scan your life right now. Do you have a vague awareness that there are some things that need your attention? Do yourself a favor and address them right now before what is a gentle easy lesson becomes a brutal difficult one.

If you’re in the middle of a painful lesson right now, don’t beat yourself up. We all have blind spots and issues we sweep under the rug. We all have lessons that have required varying degrees of pain before we were willing to learn them. Do what you can to finish the lesson, recover and restore balance into your life again, and then comfort yourself with the idea that this type of thing can be avoided in the future.

Because while life may very well be a game, one thing it’s not is a game of chance. As I said earlier, we hold most of the cards. The rest is influenced by other factors, including, but not limited to, other people’s free will, laws of physicality, past actions and intentions, subconscious scripts, not to mention the Almighty Dealer. However, with that said, we do have a say in how it goes. The first step is acknowledging that fact in the present moment, and then working from there to minimize future suffering and to evolve to a place where some of those other factors can be addressed, thereby increasing our odds not of winning, but rather enjoying the game.

I recently watched the first three seasons of Lost and realized that the entire show is a metaphor for life. To some degree, we’re all lost and we all behave as though we’ve survived a plane crash on a desert island. We walk around looking a bit shell-shocked and dazed most of the time, dwelling in the terrain of survival mode, but completely clueless about our ultimate fate or destiny.

We seek meaning in our micro-cosmic relationships and experiences, but don’t really know where we fit in the big picture. As with the stranded crash victims in Lost, some of us want to leave the island and some of us don’t. Some of us think there is something better somewhere else, and the rest of us would rather make the best of where we are.

There are the daily dramas and encounters in which we learn things about ourselves and what we’re capable of. The range of human experience presents us with challenges to flesh things out, such as are we more concerned for ourselves or for others, and is it better to tell the truth or to lie? We are given ample opportunities to see what we’re made of, and when we don’t like what we see at a given time, we can correct ourselves and our path, as long as we haven’t reaped any major, irreparable consequences.

But this is all food for thought. The real issue is what are we doing here in the first place? We didn’t crash here by accident. Is there really meaning and purpose to our existence or are we creating that? Is there such thing as fate and destiny? Do we each have an actual purpose?

How do we get some answers to those and other of life’s big questions?

Searching for the answers is part of what makes life interesting. However, so many “answers” in the end, become nothing more than stories we use to explain what we don’t understand. The real meat of life comes forth when you eliminate the stories and then see what’s left.

But do we ever really get to the bottom of what’s left or do we keep roaming around in the hall of mirrors substituting one set of illusions for another? Once we get unplugged from one matrix, how can we be sure we aren’t within another one?

Perhaps none of us will ever see the whole picture. Perhaps life is designed to be an infinite maze of mysteries, and therein lies the beauty of it. Perhaps the key is to simply surrender to it all, in all its enigmatic glory and just enjoy the ride.

I don’t think knowledge is what we’re ultimately after. Rather, I think it’s a feeling of place, of belonging and of being at home with ourselves and what is. This state of being is completely in our control and is a matter of our level of resistance and acceptance. It’s based on who we are, not where we are.

Life can be viewed as a movie. Each one of us is a kind of lens that sees and experiences life through our unique filter. We each have our own take on what life is about. Our stories make us who we are and add to the big picture of what is unfolding around and within us. Remembering this can help us to become less attached to wanting things to be a certain way and instead simply enjoy the show.

Being lost is nothing more than believing you are in the wrong place—the wrong relationship, the wrong job, the wrong location, the wrong body, etc. The operative word here being the word belief. Our beliefs are what nail us to the wall every time, along with our judgments, assumptions, expectations and agendas. Drop those and you won’t see something as either good or bad, right or wrong. Instead, it just is the way it is.

Certainly, if you’re feeing lost, do what you can to see if there’s a way to improve what’s happening. But if rearranging the externals in your life doesn’t give you a feeling of being more at home with yourself, then try working on your attitude. That may be the real source of your feelings of disconnection and dislocation.

And that’s a helluva lot easier than trying to get rescued from an island.

The final miles of my trip ended with a bang. Not to be outdone by Montana, Idaho had a little gift waiting for me in Coeur D’Alene. When I pulled off the exit, the memories of a trip taken over twenty five years ago came flooding back. It was cross-country trip taken with D–my boyfriend at the time and now my ex-husband–to celebrate my newfound freedom after a year devoted to settling my father’s estate.

The two of us had arrived in Coeur D’Alene after dark and pulled the Chevy Luv truck we were driving into the parking lot of a large hotel. Rather than checking in, we climbed into the back of the truck and slept in the makeshift bed we’d rigged back there. Roughing it came easily back then. We were in love and needed very little except each other to keep us comfortable. Finding places to park the truck were part of the adventure. There was barely enough room for the two of us in the small covered truck bed, but I didn’t mind; to me it felt romantic.

What I remember most about that long ago trip was the sight that greeted us the following morning when we emerged from inside the truck. As we rubbed the sleep from our eyes, we looked around us at one of the most beautiful places either of us had ever seen. We had no idea we were near water when we’d pulled up. Now in the light of day, the lake aglow with sunlight and surrounded by a bank of evergreens, we soaked it in without speaking. The surprise of it added to the magical quality of that morning. I remember feeling incredibly blessed with love and freedom and opportunity. Losing my father the year before had carved a hole in my heart, and now this place seemed to be offering me a healing balm.

Over two decades later, this is what I recalled when I drove down the main street to the water’s edge. My life, what it looked like then and how it looked now collided and ultimately completed a kind of circle. I came to this place both pre- and post marriage, each a time of new beginnings–bookends around that twenty-four year period defined (and confined) by vows and commitment.

Now alone, I let the tears come, in honor of who I was and who I was becoming. I let myself feel sadness for the lost innocence and love. My life had come full circle and here I was on a journey to the new and unknown.

Afterwards, I found an adorable little motel with a large cozy room decorated like a mountain cabin. On the main drag, I stopped in a wine bar and ordered some local wine and a cheese plate with three different cheeses, fresh bread, figs and dates, and a generous helping of hummus. It seemed a perfectly light and fitting meal for my last night on the road.

The next morning, I said goodbye and thank you to Idaho and before long, entered the state of Washington. As I drove, I was struck by the barren flatness of eastern Washington, the landscape, not at all what I expected, but as I soon discovered, set me up to be nicely awed by the last leg of my trip. Halfway across the state, the terrain shifted dramatically and the mountains simply appeared out of nowhere. One minute they weren’t there and the next, they were, popping out as I rounded a long curve in the road.

It was soon clear that I’d managed to save the best part of the trip for last. Nothing so far compared with the beauty of the Cascades. A bit of ironic perfection, I thought, to realize after traveling almost 3,000 miles, that my destination was in fact the only place I wanted to be.

This took some time to sink in.

As I counted down the last miles, the gorgeous scenery, my constant companion now, I thought about what it took to get here — the love of my friends, my courage and my unwavering trust in the universe to take care of me.

Finally my time on I-90 ended and I came face to face with the Seattle skyline. There it was at last…my new home, beaming and proud in the sunlight. I’d made it….me and my stuff and my car…all in one piece.

This journey had ended, and the real one would be begin, but this time, I had no idea what the destination would ultimately be.

I turned north onto I-5, in no hurry to find out.

Montana was a purging experience for me. The complacency of the first two-thirds of the trip ended abruptly as I approached Billings and was broadsided by a sudden wave of intense grief. I had held myself together for almost four days, but almost running out of gas must have popped the cork on my feelings. They came on like a flash flood, quick and fast and deep; I surrendered and finally let myself feel the loss, the vast, open, empty space surrounding me, a metaphor. My soul emptied out so that I could feel the pain, the loss, and the separation.

It lasted close to an hour, hitting me in waves as I drove. I questioned the wisdom of continuing to drive, thinking perhaps I should pull over. But being behind the wheel was grounding for me. I think I was actually afraid that if I stopped, I might not be willing or able to get back in the car again (that’s the hard part about this kind of grief–it feels as though you’ve sunk into an endless deep pit of quick-sand never again to emerge).

So I plodded on, letting the waterworks flow unhindered, tissues wadded up in my right hand, dabbing my eyes so I could see and blowing my nose so I could breath. Finally, the shuddering and heaving slowed, and bit by bit, my breathing returned to normal.

It was getting late, I was exhausted and ready to find a place to stay. Life had other ideas. After stopping at a half dozen acceptable-looking places with no vacancy, I got back on the road, my stomach growling (it had been hours since I had last eaten) as the sky darkened.

Before I started on this trip, I had imagined the issue of not being able to find a place to stay might come up. Up until now, I’d always had plenty of choices. Not in Montana, I heard myself say out loud. I could almost hear Montana answer me back, “Sorry, honey, it’s not time to rest just yet. “

I wanted to shout back, “Wasn’t almost running out of gas and sobbing my guts out enough? Don’t I deserve a rest?”

No reply. Just silence. I could feel the fear rising up again as I continued driving with no clue what my options might be on the road ahead. Perhaps I’d have to drive all night, something I’d done before in my life, but not alone.

Images of what could happen began to play across my mind’s eye. I could break down. I could run out of gas. I could be ambushed by a psychopath. I pushed them away, started some deep breathing and turned on the radio. I found an oldies station; songs of infidelity and heartbreak and some rockabilly accompanied my late night drive through the Rockies.

Out my right window, I noticed some strange lights in the sky. Inside of a large bank of billowy clouds there was a violent lightening storm happening. The clouds looked almost black against the brilliant bolts of white and orange fireworks exploding within them. It was quite stunning to behold. I felt a kindred spirit with those clouds as they mirrored my own internal storms.

At around 11:30 pm., I saw a sign for a town called Big Timber. There was a sign that said lodging. I was hopeful as I pulled into the Super 8 parking lot, and relieved when the woman behind the desk smiled and said she had a room. I told her of my difficulty finding a room, and she said that it had been like that for weeks. Some work on an oil refinery nearby or something like that.

I slept like a baby and the next morning, once I got a look at Big Timber in the daylight I decided to take my time and wander around. I ordered my first real latte in days and browsed for a couple of gifts in some shops. Then spying a real mechanic at the end of the block, brought my car in to have them go over it to make sure it was road worthy. A couple of sweet guys gave me a quart of oil, checked the air in my tires, and refilled my windshield washer fluid. I handed them a nice tip, which they gratefully accepted.

I knew then, at the start of my fifth day, that I had passed the test of driving through Montana; the rest of my trip through the state passed uneventfully. All that was left was a tiny part of northern Idaho and crossing the state of Washington. Then I’d be home free…

To be continued…