How Times of Crisis Help Us Find Our True Path

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” ~ Thoreau

This seems hard to fathom right now. The world is in chaos. Nothing is as it once was. How could we possibly advance in the direction of our dreams?

Soul Clarity

Chaotic and difficult times can often bring a kind of soul clarity. This was true long before the year 2020. This was true when you were diagnosed with a serious illness and you found out who your true supports were. This was true when someone close to you dies and you find out who truly understands and who says inappropriate things because they are personally uncomfortable.

If we are lucky, difficult times bring us to our knees. They force us to look at who we truly are as opposed to who we have tried to be. They ask us to look at the life that we truly want to be living as opposed to the life that is expected of us.

We also have the chance to awaken from our sleepwalking. They often bring “dark nights of the soul” where we have to question every single thing that we think that we believe. We have to quietly look at every strand of thought and ask, “Where did this come from?” to see if it truly lines up with our soul — with who we are.

There is a clarity here that isn’t brought to us in the easy, comfortable times. It is like the power of our survival mechanisms line up with how we truly want to live. The world becomes clearer and clearer by the day.

Crisis Brings Change

We begin to be aware that on some level, we are just wasting time. We are “putting in time” doing things that we don’t love for what? For how long? What about today? I am alive today. What if I died tomorrow? Is this what I really wanted to spend my life doing?

Crisis is that time when we can really look in the mirror and get real with ourselves. I am alive right now. What do I want to be doing?

Perhaps we leave the job that we have hated for a long time. Maybe we leave the relationship that we felt we were stuck in for life. Maybe we start speaking our truth. Maybe we stop worrying about what others think and just enjoy doing whatever comes to us.

And yes, change will happen… and there will be a ripple-effect into all parts of our lives.

But these ripples will bring us closer to our dreams… in a way that perhaps we had given up on — believing deep down that they weren’t possible.

Hence the blessing of crisis — to force us out of our comfort zones and make choices in line with our souls.

Your Passionate Soul’s Path

There was a time when “crazy” people called tantriks and tantrikas roamed the countryside causing chaos everywhere they went. They would arrive in a town and do whatever went against the “rules” of that town. If that town didn’t eat meat, they would eat meat. If sex was taboo, they would have sex in the streets. Whatever the expected “norm” was, they would go against it.

Why would they do this? To wake people up to their soul’s desire.

There are a few structures in society that are truly for our protection and safety. But most are not. They are simply rules to make us act like robots. They set us up in roles and expectations. They create “ego selves” that we must present to the public. They create rules and regulations in our brains that then create the prison that we live in every day.

The ancient tantrikas knew that we were so much more than that. They knew that it was special to have been born on this planet. They knew that we were infinite energy beings capable of manifesting whatever we wanted. They knew that we were capable of incredible happiness and freedom.

But we had to be broken out of the inner prisons we were in.

The End of the Common Hours

Thoreau said that we would “meet success unexpected in the common hours”. This is the opportunity of crisis — the end of the common hours.

The end of just existing for a future time. The end of just “putting in time” living in a way constructed by the minds of others. The end of thinking that today doesn’t count… that tomorrow will be better.

And so, we make choices that line up with that little voice inside. We reconnect with our inner child and do things that make our hearts sing. We trust that new opportunities in work, relationships, and adventure will come.

We use these times of crisis to truly hone who we are… and watch our lives unfold in ways we couldn’t have imagined — in the “common hours”.