The Chosen Path

Hyde Park sits between several well known neighborhoods in London. On Sundays speakers bring out their soap boxes and share their opinions on a multitude of topics here at this small tip of Hyde Park known as ‘Speaker’s Corner’. Some are enthralling, others entertaining, and the rest inflammatory or just plain weird. Something for everyone.

Are any of these topics worth your time?  Do any of the ideas or words matter?  Are there any diamonds in the gravel?  Just maybe, if you care to look and listen.

This episode recounts a trip I made a few years back to Speaker's Corner and encountered one such person named Pierce and the lesson he taught me without me even knowing he was imparting some profound wisdom.  It was years later, just prior to this Thanksgiving that I dusted this memory off, and re-examined it.  This time to find something new hidden in it.

What was hidden?  What profound insight was buried in my encounter with Pierce?  Take a listen and find out.  I am sure it will present itself clear enough.  I hope you enjoy this episode and get something out of it as well.

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I added an opening to Monday’s post and this audio companion that was the outcome of a call I had yesterday with a close friend. The call was hard but the topics we covered fit into the context of the article written the day before. And, which was given to me this past Sunday, prior to me having any knowledge of the upcoming call or topic.

Many of us are hurting and struggling. We are tethered to heavy, dark burdens we keep locked away. We know it is there, but frequently, we have forgotten all of what we’ve buried. That is, until the avalanche is unleashed.

There is plenty of dark, negative energy out there inflecting us. On the other hand, that is just part of what’s available to us. There is an equal if not greater measure of positive, high frequency healing energy. We just have lost touch with it. That signal has gotten buried in the noise of our current state of being.

So let’s together find it, grab on and follow the thread to a better, healthier state of being. It’s there. It’s reachable. I promise. Together we can get there, if we help one another and believe in what we cannot see.

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Fear is an ancient emotion designed to keep us alive. It’s like rumble strips on the side of the road. Fear says PAY ATTENTION! Fear isn’t designed bio-chemically to stick around for long, it wakes us out of our stupor and then splits. 

Anxiety on the other hand was designed by Mother Nature to keep us vigilant.

But today, our Dopamine factory is stuck in the ‘on’ mode and when you combine it with doubt, all the other negative emotions our lives are awash in, anxiety has a new purpose, it amplifies doubt and when that grows strong enough, it can re-ignite fear, it becomes a giant feedback loop.

Uncertainty really means you have a choice. Options. Uncertainty means you are still in the game. The answer or outcome isn’t yet defined. We don’t like uncertainty.

Still, on the other side of fear and uncertainty is strength, belief in one's true and authentic self and most importantly...freedom. 

Doubt doesn't want you to walk through that gate.

Doubt is a liar. The other two do not pretend to be anything but what they are. But doubt will be whatever you tell it to be.

Your future isn’t pre-destined. You can choose whatever actions or direction you want, you just don’t know…or more correctly, you just don’t believe you can choose. Doubt tells you not to believe.

You don’t know what is going to happen because you haven’t co-authored it yet!

If I knew I could never have recovered fully from my accident, why even try? If I knew there was no hope recovering from ‘The Pit of Despair’, after failing, everything falling apart, then why try? Why not accept my lot in life? Why get up and re-invent myself, landing in a new reality filled with freedom and opportunity? Without uncertainty NONE of is possible!

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As rare, self-organizing systems, our wonderful and amazing bodies have about 30 trillion cells.  Did you know that every single second of each day, we create nearly 2 million new ones?  

Moreover, every single second, there are estimated to be over a billion independent chemical reactions occurring inside each of these cells. Each of which is designed to perform a specific task as the result of something else occurring inside the cell or elsewhere in your body.   Did you know that we regenerate virtually our entire body every 7-10 years?

The splendor of all of this happening in a tightly choreographed symphony which not only keeps us alive, but allows s to remain who we uniquely and individually are throughout this process is astounding.

If ever there was proof of a higher, more expansive consciousness underlying everything, this might be it. Especially since the human brain isn’t able to direct even a small portion of what is occurring each moment in every one of us.

If the rarity of all of this hits you, as it does me, you may be led to a question. “Is there a purpose in our conscious existence?

Change and growth is quite literally written into our DNA. So why do we fear it so?

This episode is about breaking down fear and anxiety and taking away the power it has to control not just the quality of our lives but the paths we choose to take-or to remain on.

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Often we fight what is ours.  We fight receiving compliments.  We fight recognizing opportunities that unexpectedly present themselves.  We fight change.  We even fight ourselves.  

Explore what often causes us to miss the wonder and growth that is presented to us, that is ours to claim and also how to re-discover it.  

Acceptance of how to choose wisely and choose differently than we have in the past.  Once you understand this new way of being, your world will begin to change.  

Accept what comes with grace and you will be the better for it.  Hope you enjoy this episode!

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A voice came across as a thin, tinny voice into the Apollo 13 Mission Control Center located in Houston, Texas in the '60's after a fire broke out in the small capsule. 

"Houston, we may have a problem."

The fire was quickly contained in the cramped compartment but did devastating damage to many of the systems necessary to control, navigation and life support.

However, the story has a happy ending.  With a clear realization of the reality they were operating in, the astronauts and the ground crew with Intention, Grit and Awareness applied creative solutions to what might have seemed an impossible problem, dooming the crew to an inevitable fate.

They had a problem but they did not operate in a world of certainty.  They had choices.  It was hard, it was scary and it had a large amount of uncertainty but they did not give up.

The astronauts survived and because of the team's actions, the Apollo program continued and marched forward over programs and generations to a place where we are today.  All because of a series of decisions.

Our society's check engine light is on.  It's a warning and a diagnostic notification.  The engine hasn't frozen or thrown a rod.   Nor has it yet lost it's power.  Sure, it is running rough but it can be repaired.  

And that just begins by paying attention to what each of us, as individuals can do.  

― Leo Tolstoy

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This article was prior to my hit and run accident. A few weeks before. I was already working on the migration from where I used to be to where I belonged. This isn’t a physical place per se, but physicality does come into play as things begin to change.

It might be going new places, doing new things or even flat out changing your latitude entirely. You never know, so don’t give it too much importance and just follow the flow. Anyway, the change happens first inside of you.

As a choice. Once you chose to make the shift and head in a new direction, things outside begin to change. Slowly. The physical real your realities exist in (yes, realities).

The current and the possible) is like cold maple syrup. Thick and resistant to movement. But, it does move if you keep ‘pouring the syrup’.

You just have to focus or visualize the change and build the new habits within yourself that drive it all. You have the choice and you have the power. No one has any greater power over you to shift how you chose to come into your reality and deal with it or change it than you do.

Remember that.

Don’t give your power away. And, don’t believe the perceptions you encounter or the false realities that are served up or sold to you by others. Often, they are nothing more than a mirage.

If you would like to ask a question, make a comment or have an idea...or just want to say hello and share your story, you can send me a message by visiting this article on SubStack. 

Here is the link to this article on SubStack.

Consider hitting the audio podcast version or subscribing on SubStack to the written version.  

Share it if you feel someone would benefit from this message as well.  All or any is appreciated.

Subscribe to our regular articles on SubStack! You can find us at: https://substack.com/@thechosenpath

This is the audio companion to the Forget the U-Turn article I wrote shortly after my hit and run accident. 

You can find it on SubStack here. 

The whole experience has shifted my thinking and how I view the world around me, and what choices I make differently. 

In this piece, I share some of the thoughts and decisions that I am experiencing and making in the hopes that it might inspire you to think differently, look at your life differently or perhaps even make a few new small but consequential changes…starting today.

Subscribe to our regular articles on SubStack! You can find us at: https://substack.com/@thechosenpath

This episode, also available on SubStack (here is the link) in written form co-opted everything I planned to write and talk about.  So we are now in new territory but infinitely more interesting.  Each installment is another journal entry into the journey.  

The audio podcast companion to The Chosen Path's substack  will be updated with a new episode weekly.  I have no more idea where the universe will take this.  I surely didn't plan on this first episode.  So perhaps consider sticking around for a while.  

We might be a fun ride together.  Who knows what will happen, what or who will show up along the way.

Subscribe to our regular articles on SubStack! You can find us at: https://substack.com/@thechosenpath