By Celeste Smucker
Many people seem content to live without concern for what they want from life or how personal transformation could lead them to greater fulfillment.
Others seek a path to a state of enlightenment, always hoping to find what they believe is missing from their lives.
Maybe it’s happiness, financial security or successful relationships; or perhaps it's something deeper like authentic fulfillment or a more meaningful life.
If you are a seeker, the good news is that what you are looking for is closer than you think.
How do you find it?
Keep on reading.
Is It Your Path to Enlightenment…Or Something Else?
Enlightenment sounds like an endpoint, a place you reach after long striving. On arrival you breathe a sigh of relief. Now you can live happily ever after.
In this scenario enlightenment becomes something you earn, like getting a good grade or a long awaited raise.
If you feel you’re falling short you may tell yourself you aren’t meditating often enough or long enough. Or maybe it's your diet or taking the wrong supplements.
You ask yourself, “Will this diet keep me healthy? Maybe I should go completely paleo or vegetarian or vegan, or just stay semi-vegetarian. Should I take the latest supplements? Or avoid them all together?”
When it comes to your journey, the answer is none of the above.
Because, in fact, there is nothing to earn, no endpoint, no sigh of relief.
Instead, your journey never ends. And with it comes the potential for ever increasing fulfillment. Better yet, there’s no need to stress. You’re already on track.
As you journey, you may experience joy, grief, anger, frustration or excitement. Some of these are sources of insight and great expansion of consciousness. Others lead to contraction and depression.
Regardless, as your consciousness and awareness expand, so does your faith that you have even more to look forward to.
You begin to recognize that the world is actually a place of divine consciousness based on the oneness of all things.
And you understand that your journey is not about achieving enlightenment, but rather that you are on an enlightening journey.
Balance Is the Key
A conscious journey of expanding awareness starts with your commitment to achieving balance in your physical body (your foundation), your emotions and your mind.
As your balance increases, you will feel your perception beginning to shift as well.
For example, maybe you are someone who typically responds to stressful situations with anxiety and worry. You lose sleep due to repetitive thoughts circulating through your brain. And you pay for it the next day when you are too tired to function well.
Or maybe you are quick to anger and judge, easily irritated when someone cuts you off in traffic. Or perhaps you enjoy gossiping about a coworker when they do or say something you disagree with.
As your perception begins to shift, however, you find yourself viewing these daily challenges differently. You recognize they are part of the journey you have chosen to take and you are grateful for the experience.
What The Journey Is Really About
Where does your enlightening journey take you if not to some final state of enlightenment?
Imagine the following.
You walk with a friend on an unfamiliar trail and enjoy the sight of the fast moving stream alongside your path. You stop and marvel at the distant mountain scenery and the calming sound of water rushing over rocks, branches and downed trees.
When you tire, your friend assures you there is a bench in a shady spot up ahead where you can take a break and rest your feet.
When it doesn’t appear right away she shrugs and says “maybe they moved it.”
Annoyed, because your feet hurt, you keep walking. When you see an old picnic table you sit for a while on one of the benches, but don’t stay long. It’s uncomfortable and there isn’t much shade.
Finally the promised bench appears just a little further down the trail and right at the water’s edge.
You sit again, grateful for the cool air rising from the stream and the deep shade. You tell yourself next time you’ll bring a journal to record your thoughts as you contemplate the rushing water.
Refreshed, you resume your walk and notice the trail begins to turn in a new direction.
Before long, you realize you are walking in a circle. The journey ahead is in fact a return home.
Home can mean many things, including comfort and familiarity. It can also mean old challenges and experiences you were hoping to avoid by leaving.
At a deeper level, home represents who you are when you are your most authentic. It is where you are comfortable enough to live in the now rather than by agonizing about past or future challenges.
When you return home from your journey, you are a different person from the one who set out seeking enlightenment thanks to all your experiences along the way.
Signs You're on the Path to Self Transformation (Even If It Doesn’t Feel Like It)
Transformation isn’t always comfortable. It may even look like confusion, fatigue, or emotional upheaval. You may be tempted to fall back into old ways of doing things.
The good news is, these apparent negative experiences could be signs some strongly held beliefs and patterns are giving way, opening space for something new.
For example, you may notice:
- Relationships and familiar ways of being seem out of alignment with your journey of self transformation. You may be forced to make new and different choices about how you spend your time and who you spend it with, which could be difficult
- You now long for greater simplicity, authenticity, and depth in yourself and others, or find yourself spending more time alone.
- You may experience an upsurge of old and painful memories and may respond with unexpected anger, irritation, shame or guilt. Be patient. It takes time and patience to release old patterns and integrate new emotions, thoughts and ways of being.
- You seem to be more sensitive with heightened intuition. Why not give it a test by following where it leads in small matters.
As your faith in your intuition strengthens, you may decide to take larger risks and make even bigger changes.
Self transformation can be fun and exhilarating. You may feel calmer and more relaxed as you look forward to whatever challenges each day brings.
What Could Hold You Back?
Fear. Fear of change, fear of the unknown, fear of loss? Or maybe it’s your mind.
On one hand, it tells you stories about how you must change to make your life better.
On the other, it tells you what you and the world lack, complicating your journey and challenging the strength of your faith.
Your mind’s judgements may cause you to hesitate, to question your intuition and follow a different path altogether.
You may tell yourself “I’m not ready to make these big changes. I’ll wait until next year when I’m stronger, or smarter or better prepared.”
Of course, the simple remedy is just to go for it! To listen to your intuition, evaluate your options and move forward with confidence, surrendering everything to the moment.
Ultimately your path to enlightening self transformation isn’t something to achieve by following a set of rules.
Instead, it’s something you let into your life by allowing your consciousness and awareness to expand. And then getting out of your own way.