How do we know when we are 'on track' with our lives?

'Once you can truly let go of the need for validation and approval from others, you are ready to follow the path of the soul.' Freja ♥

Most of us have clear idea of what we would like to achieve in life. For many people this may mean working hard to enjoy a comfortable life style, doing a good job bringing up children or achieving career success. While personal goals can be clear cut and easy to measure for some people, for others they can feel vague, changeable or even contradictory. Whether our journey is as straight as an arrow or meanders like a river, how do we know when we are 'on track' with our lives?

There are two entities that drive and steer your life journey; your ego and your soul. These two aspects of your 'self' often contradict each other because their way of going about things is diametrically opposed. How someone chooses to live their life will largely depend on which of these two entities gets to set the agenda and make the decisions.

We all need an ego in order to experience being a separate individual. However, the ego is far more limited and limiting than the soul. The ego acts like stabilisers on a bike – while you are learning they are supportive but at some point you need to let them go or they will just slow you down and get in the way. The ego enables you to define yourself as a separate individual, but at some point, if you really want to evolve to your greatest potential, you need to say good bye to its limitations.

Like stabilisers, the ego is also concerned with safety. It seeks make your place in the world safe by helping you to 'fit in'. First and most importantly your ego seeks acceptance from your parents and family. Then, as you get older, your ego seeks to help you to 'fit in' with peers and society as a whole. Its primary aim is to ensure that you don't lose favour because being rejected or abandoned makes your position unsafe.

From the perspective of ego it is easy to know when we are on track. The ego relaxes when we receive recognition, validation, acceptance, love, money, promotion, praise, popularity – anything which offers assurance that you are 'doing well' in the eyes of others. While we all need ego reinforcements from time to time, when we live in accordance with ego, the approval of others is all that really matters. The more people like, reward and and praise us, the more secure we feel.

Contrary to popular belief, a strong ego is both positive and absolutely essential to our wellbeing. The more ego re-enforcing 'positive strokes' we receive as children, the greater our confidence and self esteem will be. If we trust our place in the world, it is much easier to let go of those external 'stabilisers' once we reach adulthood. If we reach adulthood with an under developed ego, then we remain in a childlike 'egocentric' state, continually seeking acceptance and validation from others. It is very hard to take the stabilisers off when you feel anxious and wobbly inside.

The soul requires you to have a strong enough ego to be able to live your life regardless of approval, praise or reward. Being dependent on external validation limits your potential for growth and also makes you vulnerable to power games. Approval can easily be withdrawn, withheld or denied and the ego finds it hard to remain detatched or to rise above such manipulations. Once you can truly let go of the need for validation and approval from others, you are ready to follow the path of soul.

The hardest part of living from the soul is breaking the deeply ingrained habit of looking outside for validation and remembering to look within. Cycling without stabilisers requires you to learn to inwardly feel where the balance lies. In the same way, to enable your soul to guide you, you must first find your inner balance. Once you can easily locate your inner centre and comfortably keep your balance, you are ready to go where ever your soul leads you.

Following the soul is very different than living from the ego because it allows so much freedom and possibility – you can literally go where ever you like. With so many choices suddenly made available to you, how do you know where you should be going or what you should be doing? Well here's the rub; there really is no where that you should be going or anything you should be doing – if you find that you are thinking in terms of 'shoulds' then you know you are back to ego!

Following the soul requires that you feel where you want to go. What makes you feel excited or joyful? What intrigues you and captures your attention? What challenges you to grow and brings out the best in you? What feels good and sits comfortably with your values? Asking such questions about how we feel from a place of inner balance enables us to follow the guidance of our soul and to intuitively know when we are 'on track'.

Although the soul speaks through your feelings, it is important to distinguish between a compulsive feeling and a genuine message from the soul. If a feeling starts to pull you off balance, encourages you away from your inner centre or towards gaining approval or validation then it is not coming from your soul, it is coming from your wounded or frightened ego. Although the soul will sometimes challenge us to the very core, its gentle whispers are always lead you deeper into your inner centre while simultaneously encouraging you to be courageous and free.

Freja ♥