Headed in the Right Direction
by Alan Cohen
 A dear young woman named Abby recently attended my Mastery Training in
Hawaii, and reported that her parents had sent her as a birthday present. At the
age of 17, Abby had been hospitalized for an eating disorder, force-fed daily by
loving attendants. She did not expect she would live long, let alone ever feed
herself again. Now, just four years later, she was taking charge of her life and
opening to receive love and support from people, life, and God. While Abby's
illness had been painful, she had grown immensely through facing it. She was
mature far beyond her years, bright, and beautiful.
At the end of the seminar I noticed that Abby had a tattoo of a
forward-pointing arrow on each of her feet. "What made you get those tattoos?" I
asked her. Abby smiled and answered, "They remind me that I am always headed in
the right direction."
Painful experiences are steppingstones to right direction. Rather than
considering them curses or crosses to bear, regard them as wake-up calls or
course corrections. While you may have gone through a difficult ordeal you wish
had never happened, the only thing worse may have been to go on as you were.
A fellow came to my teacher Hilda Charlton and complained that he had been
ripped off by an auto mechanic. "The guy charged me $500 for poor work and then
refused to remedy it," he explained. "I had a bad feeling about this mechanic
before he started the work. Now I wish I had listened to it."
Hilda responded, "If I were offering you a week-long course on following your
intuition, and I guaranteed you that after this course you would be better able
to hear your inner guidance and more willing to follow it, would you take the
class?"
"Why, sure!" answered the fellow without hesitation.
"And if the tuition for the course was $500, would you pay it?"
"That would be a bargain."
"Then consider yourself lucky," Hilda told him. "You got the entire course
from your mechanic in one day."
Which direction is the right one for you? The one you are headed in now.
Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, you are in the perfect position to
discover your right next step. No matter what you do, you will receive feedback
from the universe about how what you are doing matches your true intentions. If
it feels good, you have learned, and if it feels bad, you have learned. What you
do is far less important than what you learn. Everything you experience leads to
waking up.
Trust is the key.
A Course in Miracles tells us that trust is the bedrock of the spiritual
journey. The Course goes on to explain that "it takes great learning to
understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful."
Everything serves. If you believe that an experience is outside of the plan for
your awakening, it is only because you have yet to see how this piece fits into
the puzzle. When the time is right, you will recognize the Big Picture.
A Zen master noted, "Wherever I go, I keep finding myself." Ultimately, there
is nothing else to do. The world you see is a stage you have constructed with
your thoughts and everyone you meet is an actor you have hired to play out the
script you have written. And you scribed it in brilliance. Every person and
experience mirrors your beliefs about yourself and life. Rather than trying to
get rid of them, thank them for the reflection, and move on to rewrite the
script in a way that honors you.
Now before you go out and seek pain to learn, hear this: Pain happens, but
suffering is optional. When pain comes, make use of the experience, but do not
wallow in it. When you accidentally place your finger in a flame, it is supposed
to hurt just long enough for you to pull it out. If you think there is value in
keeping it there, you will be a crispy critter. Pain is a minor element of life,
unless you are indulging it. Then it becomes suffering. Get the message and then
get on with your life, which is far more about joy than sorrow.
All experiences in life can be sorted into two categories: (1) Experiences to
be enjoyed; and (2) Experiences to be learned from. There is no slot in between.
Nothing random. Figure out which experiences fall into which category, and you
are well on your way home.
A character in the film Joe Versus the Volcano uttered this profound truth:
"Almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everyone you see,
everyone you talk to. Only a few people are awake and they live in constant
total amazement." If an experience, painful though it may have been, leaves you
closer to living in constant, total amazement, would it not be a blessing? If
you're not sure, just ask Abby. She has walked through hell and come out on the
other side. She knows she is headed in the right direction.
About The
Author
Alan
Cohen is the author of the best-selling
The Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore,
the award-winning
A Deep Breath of Life,
and the acclaimed
Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It.
(The above books can be ordered by
clicking on the book titles.) For more
information on Alan's books, tapes, seminars, and Mastery Training
in Maui, phone 1-800-568-3079, visit
www.alancohen.com, email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
';
document.write( '' );
document.write( addy_text90873 );
document.write( '<\/a>' );
//-->\n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
, or write P.O. Box
835, Haiku, HI 96708.
| Comments () >> |
 |
 |
