In this podcast episode, I’m sharing how to mindfully follow your unique path. Each of us us has our own journey in this life, and I feel like there’s been so much to learn through COVID and through this time we’ve spent in the Messy Middle. In this episode, I am sharing about a couple of parallel “paths” I’ve noticed in the past few months: those of Labyrinths, making mindful choices about what to do next, and setting boundaries to support those choices and new directions.
Your Unique Path
In December 2020 I took a week long course and became a trained labyrinth facilitator. The labyrinth has been around for centuries and is a helpful mindfulness tool, and a lovely walking meditation. It struck me that much like there are parallels between the center of a labyrinth and the messy middle of this pandemic.
In many ways the pandemic has been tumultuous, and the messy middle has been very difficult. In other ways, it has been an invitation to sit with what is, to surrender to forces greater than ourselves, and to reflect inward. Much like you arrive to the center of a Labyrinth after a journey, we are in the center of the messy middle now in a pandemic. We have found our way in, and we can now see light on the other side of the tunnel. We are midway through and there is a path that leads us out to whatever is next.
Mindful choices on What’s Next
This time in the messy middle has offered us a lot of time to think. I hear from other people that they are reflecting about what really matters, what things merit their time, what they really want to do when they can go back out in the world and do things with other people. I have been spending time on these things too and here’s where I have landed.
I want to focus more on growing my business of podcast production, and simplifying that work. My path (notice the parallels of the Labyrinth) led me to podcast production, even though when I started on the path of creating a podcast, I believed it was as a marketing arm in starting a life coaching practice. I want to honor where my own unique path has led me.
I am evaluating how my podcast works and what it is. Five years ago, it was launched as the marketing arm for a coaching practice as I became a certified coach. Now I want to honor that Jump Start Your Joy is a passion project that is a source of much inspiration and joy for me. It’s morphed and changed. In many ways this is a relief, as it can be a creative outlet. The pressure is off for it to provide a source of income, and that is tremendously freeing. And it will continue as a show with a couple of seasons a year and some breaks in between.
There is another podcast in the works, too – about podcasting. That will come out next month.
Mindfully, though, I want to make room for a business I have built and for a life that I want to lead outside of what I do on podcasts and online. I want to grow those things and those connections. This is part of what I have spent time with, and sat with, in the center of the messy middle.
Boundaries
These two things (Labyrinths and honoring one’s path) benefit from boundaries. A labyrinth without a clearly marked path is confusing, or, just a field. A life without boundaries is a free-for-all. So I want to mark things more mindfully, and make clear choices based on what I want and who I know I am. There is simplicity and beauty in knowing those things, and I want to honor them too.
For you:
What can you learn from your time in the Messy Middle of the pandemic?
Where has your path led you? Is it different than where you thought you’d go?
What kinds of boundaries could help define your path?