Walking Your Own Path

It will be 16 years this summer that my mom passed away from metastatic breast cancer. She was loud, warm and very opinionated woman, who had a way about her that made each person in her life feel extremely loved and very special. I spent a tremendous amount of time with her in the last few months before she passed away.

We had many conversations that were deep and profound. One of the last things she said to me was, “Sharon, walk your own path”. At the time I was
35 years old, and I “thought” I knew exactly what she meant. It took me about 7 – 10 years to begin to see what my mom was really saying to me.

Sixteen years later, I see the deeper meaning. It came to me this past week as I was walking a labyrinth. One of my dear girlfriends had been asking me for weeks to go with her. I was always to busy. Life has a way of creating synchronicity and I realized that I needed to go.

A labyrinth is not a maze. It is a winding spiral path to the center. When you reach the center you walk the spiraled path outward. It is a true metaphor for the journey of life.

I walked the labyrinth. What was so interesting was along the way you need to stop because the person in front of you has stopped. Sometimes you stop should to shoulder. Other times people literally move out of the way for you. When you reach the center, you journey outward. On the way back you come face to face with other people on their way to the center, and the dance
begins again.

As the very end of the labyrinth, my mothers’ words came to me.
Walk your own path.

I realized that we really do walk our own path. Each in a different place in life, to either stop us to learn patience, to realize that we may need to walk around obstacles or bump right into them, learn that we can be shoulder to shoulder and still be in different places in life.  The most important meaning is that the journey is never traveled alone.

When you walk your own path, you are discovering your true self. Once you reach the center, you now begin the journey of taking that discovery out into the world. Along the way their are people on their own paths, helping each other to discover different meanings, teach us to grow and realize that each of our paths is unique, and one in the same.