How much easier life would be if, like driving, it came with a clear set of rules for the road. The good news is it does. Like learning to drive, it takes time, a genuine desire, courage, and perseverance.

It’s also helpful to have a driving instructor, a manual that gives you the rules for the road, which is your built-in navigational system, and plenty of life experience to learn from your mistakes and successes. But once you do, you have a lifetime emergency road service membership to pick you up whenever you’re stuck. It can also help you avoid road-rage! 

The story of a client I’ll call Carla helps make this clear.

“As a single mother on welfare going to school, it was all I could do to focus on the future and look forward to the time when I could support my two children without feeling like the rug would be pulled out from under me at any minute. Even after I happily remarried I still felt like my world was always on the verge of imploding. I was making choices I didn’t understand, that didn’t make me happy, and that didn’t serve my family or me.

“Thinking that I just needed to find ‘the perfect job,’ I entered therapy to explore the possibilities. Unknowingly, I had begun a journey that forever changed who I am. Therapy helped me understand how the fears and anxieties that protected me also held me back.

" I recognized patterns in my thinking and acting that no longer served me. I began to trust that the very truth and peace I sought reside within me. As my trust grew stronger, my anxiety and fear diminished. The effect has been transformative. I began my journey with no hope. Now I feel equipped with tools and knowledge that help me navigate the road ahead with joy and hope. I feel so grateful.”

Carla’s life was made easier by learning the following “Rules For The Road.”

1: Develop a strong sense of self. Value yourself and become your own nurturing parent whose love fosters a feeling of worthiness.

2: Get to know your inner world of feelings and learn to express them clearly and constructively. Healthy communication facilitates healthy relationships. (See my Formula for Communication.)

3: Take appropriate risks. It's how you find out about yourself and learn to trust your decisions and intuition. Don't let fear keep you from making choices that are right for you.

4: Transform negative behavior patterns that cause pain and problems. Become aware of the defense mechanisms that worked to protect you growing up. As an adult, they often create the pain they were set up to protect you from.

5: Connect with and express your core sensitivity. Vulnerablity is the key to intimacy and to accessing your inner wisdom, which is an amazing source of guidance, awareness and clarity.

6: Life is like two wings of a bird. The first wing, which is our job, is to focus on self-effort, not outcome. Try your hardest. Then trust that the universe, the other wing, will do its part and the bird will take flight.

7: Develop a connection with God or whatever you feel comfortable calling your Higher Power. Make time to quiet the mind so you can listen within, experience your intuition, know your Inner Self, and honor your Soul’s calling.

8: Be of service. Find ways to give to others, society, and the planet. Helping to repair the world is our most important job as human beings. All the great spiritual traditions speak of such service as integral to life’s purpose.

Our world is dominated by an outer-directed consciousness that leaves many feeling isolated and unhappy. However there is an alternative. The road less traveled is an inner road that takes us past the materialistic focus to an awareness of life’s emotional, psychological, and spiritual realms that offer true connection and happiness.

An amazing world is available to us if we balance the outer super-highway with an “inner-net” that allows us to navigate life, as Carla experienced, with trust, joy, service and gratitude.