​When the Path is Cleared, Take It!

Sometimes we aren’t sure what direction to take.  We feel compelled, driven, or perhaps even called, to take a certain action or path, but although we can feel that inspired feeling within there may be many practical reasons we feel that the time isn’t right, or we aren’t the right person to take it on, or it will be too hard, or we will make too many mistakes, or so many other reasons we let the feelings pass without acting.

When we feel this way, it’s important that we stay attuned to what clues the universe may be sending to give us that nudge or push to confirm that we need to go for it.  I have been experiencing this throughout the year.  I had been wanting to take the Ananda meditation teacher training for months to become a certified meditation teacher.  I am really passionate about my own meditation practice, and having found clear instruction through courses from Ananda was incredibly important in giving me direction and developing and refining my practice over time.  I also have become drawn to teaching.  I have a business/IT background, but the last few years I have helped in my kids’ classrooms and enjoy connecting in that space.  When we began planning to move back to the US a few months ago, I looked into getting my teaching license, but as I explored that option I realized the traditional classroom would not truly scratch my itch.  What I wanted to teach was meditation.

The meditation teacher training was offered last autumn (2017), and I explored taking the class then.  I thought it might be good to do it before the international move madness really kicked off, but on the other hand I didn’t envision having a lot of opportunities to use the learning in order to teach before I moved due to the language (I am conversational in Italian, but it is different to rely on limited language abilities when trying to teach).  I worried that too much time would pass between finishing the course and using the learning, leaving me rusty when the time came to start teaching.  I expressed these concerns to the instructor, and he told me it was my decision but to keep in mind that it is amazing what opportunities present themselves once we open the door to them.

The course was offered again in February.  Again I felt very drawn to taking it, but we were moving in 4 months and still needed to find a house on the other side of the ocean, sell the house we used to live in and had been renting out, and get all our stuff organized in order to tie everything out before we go.  I worried with all that distraction I wouldn’t also be able to focus properly on the course, and I knew I could only get out of it what I could put in.  

As I was considering in January enrolling in the February offering, we found a house we were really interested in.  My friend and realtor took us through it a couple of times via FaceTime, and we decided I should go to the US to see it in person to make sure we truly wanted to purchase it.  I went on a very quick trip, saw the house, (still) loved it, and we began the process of buying it.  Suddenly having that major decision checked off, I felt I had made more space in my life for the course and it seemed right to go for it.

I couldn’t know how my life would shake out in the complexities of all the pieces coming together to make the international move happen.  There were many opportunities for surprises to turn up and things to go sideways.  The purchasing of the house was fairly smooth, all things considered.  We needed to get 2 different loans because we still owned the rental house and needed to borrow against it for the short term since we couldn’t sell it before the sale of the new house would be complete.  There was a lot of energy put in to get the mortgage and bridge loan initiated, processed, and completed, but it was as painless as it could be under the circumstances.  

We then needed to prepare the current home for sale, including getting the timing right for our renter to move out.  Again, that ended up being fairly easy, considering we were doing it from such a distance.  We had a wonderful property manager who handled a lot of the details, and the house was ready to go on the market exactly when we had planned.  We got an offer on the house the same day it went on the market, and it was for over asking price.  I couldn’t really believe it and worried a little that maybe it was just a way for the buyers to “earmark” it while they still looked around, because it was just SO fast and easy.  However, we are on the other side of sale now, and with hindsight I can confirm everything indeed went through, and again it was pretty painless.

I had felt more than an interest or curiosity about teaching meditation; I felt, and still feel, that it is a way for me to connect with and express my higher Self.  I have been asking that my will is aligned with the divine will, and I sense that teaching meditation is part of that answer.  In deciding whether to take the course, I could see big barriers that could keep me from being able to dedicate myself fully to my learning.  As each barrier was approached, it seemed to be blasted away and cleared by a force much greater than myself.  I’ve left out a lot of detail around various obstacles within each broader barrier that were complicated and resolved in “lucky” ways.  It has felt like a resoundingly affirmative response to whether taking the course was the right action when such major boulders were sitting on the path to certification, but in going ahead in faith the path was cleared for me.  

I encourage you to tune in to these types of cues from a higher source, the universal intelligence that flows through everything.  You may be able to imagine countless scenarios about why something you feel drawn to won’t work out, but if you hand those fears over to this universal intelligence you may find that they are dissolved on your behalf.