Does this sound familiar? For months you’ve been focused on a goal or outcome. Every time you sit down to meditate you’re so present with your future that you’re ‘in your future.’ You can smell it, feel it, taste it, touch it, hear it, see it—it’s practically a part of you. It’s a distant-future memory that you’re living into, and in your daily meditations you emotionally invest in how incredible your future will feel. It seems as if it’s in reach, almost tangible, and then—and then comes the day you brush up against it. Your future shows up in your life and instead of embracing it, you recoil. 

I’ve got news for you—you’ve found yourself in the unknown.

Often times when the reality we’ve been creating starts to unfold in a way we didn’t expect it to, we get nervous. We either have trouble trusting it or realize we’re actually going to have to start doing things differently. If you’re this far into the creation process where things are unfolding and you’re not totally committed to change, then bringing your future to fruition is going to be really challenging. Just know that when your future arrives, at first it’s going to feel unfamiliar, but like any form of life engaged in the process of transformation, a time of uncertainty and uneasiness is necessary for something to evolve from one state to another.

I often think the process of change is like a labyrinth. To change oneself, you have to make your way to the end or the center, and to do so requires one to go through different levels to get there. You may come up against a particularly congested area where others are trying to get through the same passage, or you may come upon hidden doors or secret openings where you know not where they lead. Some of these propel you into your future and some bring you back to your past.

That’s why when you’re in the labyrinth of transformation, you really have to focus your attention on the intention on arriving at the desired outcome. To do so requires a sustained level of focus because you have to trust your inner vision more than the conditions of your outer world. This is how we make our way to the next level, and this is why we meditate.

When you’re in this labyrinth of the unknown, it’s tempting to go back through the same door you came through because we’ve conditioned ourselves to crave the familiar. But the person who is truly committed to the greatest expression of themselves is fearless, because they trust the experiences they’re going to have along the way—and they trust that each experience is going to reveal something greater.

At some point, as we keep moving into the unknown, we discover there’s more to uncover moving forward than moving backward. These realizations form the trust that gets us to the next level. When we don’t trust that future’s existence, then we’re living every day by habitual behaviors in an attempt to recreate familiar experiences so as to ellicit familiar emotions.

Just remember, when you trust in yourself you trust your future. It’s a lot like jumping into an icy river on a hot summer day. The water’s always cold when you first enter it, but once you get in, it’s actually quite refreshing.

Photo by LuciaJoy