We Find Our Path by Being Our Path

Traveler, your footprints

Are the path and nothing more;

Traveler, there is no path,

The path is made by walking.

By walking the path is made

And when you look back

You’ll see a road

Never to be trodden again.

Traveler, there is no path,

Only trails across the sea…

(Antonio Machado)

I love being in the wilds of Scotland in May. My girlfriend Suzy and I and our dog Pickle walked and hitched across the Isle of Mull. We hugged the western edge, watched the land rise and fall out of the sea all the way to the Isle of Iona, whose gentle ways soothed our tired limbs. I wanted to feel the sense of adventure that comes from not knowing where we were going to sleep each night; to surrender ourselves to wild land and its secrets. 

Such is the simplicity and privilege of a walking adventure that with each step it feels like I’m arriving into an ancient story of that land, forever weaving myself into its history, whilst it weaves its way into mine. 

Before I went into the world of coaching I often felt like I wasn’t following my own path, but one laid out before me. Paths I felt I ‘should’ take, where others had cleared the way, were easy for me to see. But my path, the one I wanted to take, the one only I could take, was less clearly defined.

I’ve come to understand that we find our path by being our path.

To be our path is to be ourselves and to be ourselves means taking responsibility for the path we have walked so far, regardless of how inauthentic it may appear to us. We alone know what each step took and what each step gave. 

When I look back at my path I have a few ‘gaps’, periods of time where ‘nothing happened’, times I’d rather forget about and experiences that I am less than proud of. However, I was never off my path. I shouldn’t discount a single step I’ve taken, otherwise not only do I sell myself short, but I also discredit the people and places in whose story I am now weaved. There is no right and wrong. 

If you are looking to find your own path, don’t look for something as if you’ve lost it, or as if you need to ‘create’ it, neither bring you back to yourself.  You are your path. You make it with each step and with each step it makes you. To walk our path is to celebrate truth; to revere what is real. 

If we fully embrace where we are, we can pay attention, just as trackers do. We can develop the craft of attuning ourselves to and participating with the signals of our inner and outer worlds. Don't deny your presence to the ground on which you stand; your truest next step comes from how true you are to it.

We find our path by being our path.

Walking past the little Isle of Inch Kenneth we veered off the tarmac road onto a track, which then led us onto a footpath, which got narrower and narrower. On the western edge of Mull on the OS map there is a place called ‘The Wilderness’ and this is where the path petered out and disappeared altogether. 

The land appeared, at first, to give no sign of anyone who had gone before us. So we had to trust ourselves. In my experience when we walk our own path the going can be hard and it can feel like we are all alone. Sure enough and before long boulders and gorges offered us little choice but to scramble on our hands and feet. In some places we were having to take our rucksacks off and lower them down to one another. A little voice in my head was telling me that we weren’t on the ‘right’ path. 

We soon ditched the map and gave ourselves to the terrain. To leave the human world behind is not to be alone. Wild goat trails showed us the way through boulders; cuckoos sung us to sleep in the long, soft evenings; rocks that could have been seals and trees filled our imagination and dreams; stones appeared in circles, or were they stone circles from pagan years gone by?  

There is always precedent and we are never alone.

The wilderness offered to us our own wildness; it gave us adventure. We swam naked; walked slow; stared into nothingness while nothingness stared back. Pickle chased rabbits. Our fondest memories of our Scottish adventure come from walking this part of our journey.

We are all wildernesses in and of ourselves. Sometimes we are storms; other times we are dark and sinister forests; or we are wild flower meadows; or barren, featureless plains. Our moment to moment experience has wisdom. However, if we are too busy thinking that we aren’t where we ‘should’ be, then we don’t see the guides that are always everywhere. Instead we see strangers, random happenings, or worst still, saboteurs. 

We find our path by being our path.

It’s arrogant and ignorant to think we ‘should’ be somewhere else, or we ‘should’ be having a different experience to the one we are having. How do we know what ‘should’ be? There is nothing more useful, nor beautiful, than embracing where we are and walking the path of not knowing. How liberating is it to know we can never get it wrong?! 

With humility, curiosity and courage we can adventure into our very own wilderness, a place where only we can go. Let’s leave trails in the living memory of this world to inspire and guide others, because although we walk a path no one else has ever, or will ever, walk and although we walk it alone, we also walk our paths together, for each other and with all of Life.