It is in times of inexcusable violence, bloodshed, and incomprehensible acts that we are asked to reflect. Occurrences like the terrorist attacks in Paris and across the world as well as the protests turned to violence in Minneapolis and Chicago are causing one of our most basic emotions to surface. All it takes is one visit to social media to feel bombarded by opinions. The anger is poignant and far-reaching, as are the solutions people offer.
 
We need to take a breath and think with a different mind. What might we need to hear at this time?
What do these events mean for our life? We are angry, we are sad, we are in denial… we seem to cycle through the stages of grieving a-la Kubler-Ross. In the meantime, we remember two weeks ago when the largest national dialogue surrounded a red coffee cup. . . If you look closely, this is also correlated to one little emotion that is chattering away:
 
Fear.
 
We have many choices in life, but the most important is this:

​Do we choose to live in fear or in love? 
 
Every choice we make is based on these emotions. 
Every feeling we have comes back to these emotions. 
 
Fear is an emotion correlated to fight or flight. It connects to our basic fear of life or death. From drastic life or death experiences to the smaller travails of everyday life, say, feeling particularly out of shape in our swimsuit. . . they are tied to fear. The “What happens if…” feeling that twists our gut and causes our reactionary self to step in and SOLVE or ELSE! But what do we really fear? What really happens if…!? 

I write today with some exciting news. My business is expanding its services to continue helping people find their path, tune into their intuition, explore and grow.  Tapping into our intuition and soul’s purpose is all part of forging our paths. Looking at the patterns in our lives, and exploring the history, spirituality, and psychology of being human are all part of path work.

Increasingly, my friends in the field and I notice that we seem to be in a time of awakening. It seems that societally, we see the exacerbation of black and white themes: partisan politics, strife in race relations, religious and ideological persecution across the globe. . . it’s as if something is always asking us to choose sides. It seems to increase anxiety, anger, and regret. These themes translate into our everyday lives. We feel we must choose our correct career. Choose our correct partner. Choose identities that match what our soul came into this world to do. We wish these decisions could be black or white. We wish we could more clearly see our path through making these choices. What we so often miss, however, is that much of the learning happens in the gray area, between the yes’s and no’s we are increasingly asked to choose. The gray area often helps us discern what our soul is really here to accomplish. If we take the pressure off of making decisions, we can see what  the decisions actually represent about our journey in this world.