Pathway 17 – Al-Matin – Step by Step Persistence
There’s some pathways you come across where you know that there’s a life lesson involved and there’s pathways that show you just how far you’ve come. This was a bit of both for me.
“When you are guided to this pathway, take the opportunity
to connect with the sacred qualities of practicality and deliberation, of small
steps taken over a long period of time.”
I know there’s been a massive gap between the last pathway
and this one and that’s because there has been a lot of learning and
integration that has taken place in the time in between.
In the last pathway I talked a lot about shadow work and
learning to take responsibility for the parts of yourself that are difficult to
own. I feel that this pathway has taken me in a lot deeper and shown me how
shadows work on a whole new level.
The pathway talks about step by step persistence. It says, “Love
also demands this type of persistence, especially when a relationship has begun
to mature beyond attraction, in to something deeper.”
This is what I’ve been exploring on a number of levels
within myself since I last posted on my journey with the pathways. Self-love is
something that I’ve been learning to cultivate for a long time and one of the
biggest realisations was just how much deeper I needed to go with this.
I feel like my relationship with myself and also with my
work has reached that level of maturity that the pathway talks about. I relate
it to my own journey. When I first discovered energy healing, it led me to
create an idea of who I wanted to be and the work I wanted to do. As I
travelled on this path, I started becoming that woman I always saw myself to be
and doing the work I wanted to do. I saw myself making the difference I wanted
to make and I am achieving that.
I look upon that now as the honeymoon period when I started
to fall in love with myself, or at least this idea of who I wanted to be. I put
all my effort and energy in to pursuing this dream. I worked hard to become
that person and find what needed to be healed.
As my relationship with myself and the love I have
cultivated for myself and my work starts to mature and deepen, I find that
there are challenges and it doesn’t get easier. The more we uncover about
ourselves, the more we are challenged to love our imperfections. The more we
are challenged, the deeper in to ourselves it takes us.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve really been paying attention
to what’s happening in my life. I’m observing what I’m doing and saying. I’m
observing what other people are doing and saying and I am learning a great
deal. To be able to watch without judging, that is a labour of love. To love
without attachment, that is an art in itself.
I find I’m not the woman I fell in love with. I’m not
willing to be defined that way or any way but I’m finding I love myself anyway.
Who I am, just like any long term relationship, has morphed and changed. It
just is what it is and doesn’t need defining anymore. When that happens, that
relationship really doesn’t look like what you thought it would. When you get
to this place, you realise that kind of love takes strength. It takes persistence
and courage. It takes a conscious decision that even though it isn’t what you
thought it would be, you’re choosing to love it anyway.
My path over the last few weeks has been a rollercoaster on
a personal and emotional level. I’ve had some really tough challenges and I’ve
had to really make a decision about how I feel about myself and what I’m going
to do for myself out of love for myself. It’s meant shutting down for a while.
It’s meant standing my ground. It’s meant not allowing anyone else’s opinion to
cloud how I feel. It’s meant reaching in for my own truth. It’s meant
expressing, sharing and really pushing myself out of my comfort zone.
The detail of what I’m facing is irrelevant but suffice to
say that there will always be people who try to bring you down. Some with their
words and some with their actions. I say this because with the last pathway we
talked about being responsible for ourselves and our projections. I’m also
learning to discern my own truth and that means that rather than own
everything, I’m recognising that people play out their own pain by throwing it
at other people. This is what I mean when I say “To be able to watch without
judging, that is a labour of love. To love without attachment, that is an art
in itself.” I’m not willing to own someone else’s pain. I bless their journey
but I know what’s mine and what’s not.
If you allow anything to cause doubt within yourself, you
lose. When you love another, you trust them with your whole heart and you don’t
doubt if they are true. When you love yourself, you must see it exactly the
same way. I’ve learnt this and it’s unearthed a massive strength in me.
Persistence means that you have to fight for yourself. As an
empath, I’m great at fighting for others but maybe not so good at fighting for
myself. One of things that this pathway has shown me is just how much I love
myself and love my work. When push comes to shove, if my ability to do my work
is threatened, I will fight to the death and I will win. Nothing is going to
bring me down and each time it tries to take me down, I come back a hell of a
lot stronger. That’s because I know what I bring to this world is important. I’m
fighting for me but I’m also fighting for all of those people who benefit from
what I do.
I think the most beautiful thing that’s come alive for me is
this fire that I know I’ve always had in me. I think as you reach in to
spirituality, you almost believe that you need to put that fire out for the
sake of love and light. That fire is courage in adversity. That fire is
fighting for what you believe in. That fire is a relentless amount of self-assuredness.
That fire must never be diluted, especially for those that are making a
difference in this world.
None of this comes without persistence. None of this comes
without a fight. None of this comes without being challenged. For me, I didn’t
realise it but this is what I’ve been building step by step. I couldn’t see it
at the time, but everything leads you to the moment where you’re at right now.
Perhaps you need to be challenged for you to find your strength? Perhaps you
need the darkness to come at you for you to overcome it?
I believe that this is all the alchemy of the Universe at
work. Every action is a small step towards something greater. I sometimes
forget there’s a bigger picture and get bogged down in the detail of it all but
I’m human. It sometimes takes adversity to show you just how far you have travelled.
I take great strength from this pathway. It’s a long journey
full of twists and turns, full of challenges but look how beautiful it can be.
It’s designed to help you find yourself and if you can see that, you’ll keep at
it.