A Path: My Path

Dear reader,

It has been a while since I last wrote an article and this is because sometimes it takes time and silence to really listen to what is happening within and around us and to wholeheartedly connect with it.

My attention at this time-and perhaps no accident that coincides with the European elections-is particularly attracted by the coherence, the connection and the continuity of life.
Perhaps only when we grow old enough and the life before us is equal or shorter than the life behind us, we begin to look back on our lives underlining what has been important to us, what things were difficult or easy in our lives, how we were making the decisions about our lives and in general what are the main themes of our lives and what gives it its meaning.

As a psychotherapist I often encounter these questions with the people I am working work and it is almost impossible not to observe, reflect and study them.
Personally, these questions accompanied me, or rather, always guided me in my life, especially with regards  to the criteria with which I needed to make decisions about my life that would eventually form what we call a life path.

I imagine that many people at some point or periods in our lives have felt the burden and perhaps the fear that goes with responsibility whether we have made or will make are the right choices, whether they will make us happy and work for our own good, whatever we think that is.
I have seen people 'staying still' for years when faced with a decision or a dilemma by ignoring it indefinitely and thus leaving a part of their self and life static.

I find that every man at any given time does what he can and knows best given his self-knowledge, knowledge and perception of him and of life in general. Any person, that is, makes a choice (and non-choice is a choice) each time in the light of the hiring and what is important to him, i.e., uses some-consciously or unconsciously-criteria.
These criteria or the reasons whether we created them, whether we learned them from others, are part of who we are or who we think we are.

As we become more self-aware, then those grounds on which we have made a choice are sufficient to support any result, even if this is unpleasant.
By understanding and accepting these reasons and also taking into account the factors that we do not  have control over, we feel a silence within ourselves and not tension, because we acknowledge that we did the best we could and learned the lessons on what we might want to do differently in the future based on what is important to us.

I understand that what I am describing may sound quite general, so it requires an example.
When I decided to create this blog and start writing, I was confronted with the obstacle of what is called the 'guard of security'. I have been writing my thoughts in some form since I was little, but publishing them on my own web site initially seemed terrifying. 'Have you got anything to say?', 'You will receive many negative comments', 'People might not be interested in them' were just some of the critical suggestions that this guard was making to me .
At the same time, I strongly felt that I wanted to express things, especially when they could potentially become stimulating thoughts for other people.

I made the final decision with the thought that even if one person takes something out of or benefits in any way from what I write, for me it was worth the effort. Someone might consider this selfish and that would be another point of view. For me, however, this signifies the quintessential of life, that all forms of life are inextricably linked and constantly influenced by each other.
In the same way that we would not exist if there were no plants to provide us with oxygen, in the same way we impact each other continuously in ways that we may not yet fully understand. But the fact that life is a huge interconnected web is undeniable.

A smile can make someone's day, a piece of information can be helpful to someone else, a little honesty and understanding can raise awareness and open a communication channel with a another person. Of course it might also not. 

From our experiences we constantly learn things about ourselves, about the world and about life. This knowledge of ours, the information that actually forms our individual path that we have created, could perhaps, if we share it, become useful to someone else and thereby ensure the continuity of our existence and coexistence.

When we recognise or remember that we belong to this magical web of life and that we are just a part of it (as individual consciousness) then our personal path can only be constantly connected and ending up as a drop with a special contribution to one big sea.

With Love,
Panos