MONDAYS / On Finding Your Path
EPISODE OVERVIEW: How to hold our faith when the path ahead is unclear.
Hosted by Fiona Bicknell.
In this debut episode of Mondays, Fiona kicks off a new weekly ritual aimed at sparking reflection and awareness to carry us through the week. Drawing from a recent Kundalini class, we explore the theme of uncertainty — that feeling of being on the edge of something new without knowing exactly what’s next. The episode invites us to embrace life’s mysteries, practice patience, and build mental resilience when the path ahead is unclear. It’s a quiet call to let go of the need for constant certainty and trust that what’s meant to come will reveal itself in time.
The conversation weaves in insights from thinkers like David Whyte and Carl Jung, encouraging us to step away from rigid plans and open ourselves to a more intuitive approach. Are we making decisions from the mind’s need to control, or from the heart’s deeper knowing? The episode invites us to reconsider ambition, surrender, and the way we move through life’s uncertainties. With the understanding that life’s true path often unfolds in unexpected ways, this episode offers a moment to pause, reflect, and find comfort in the unknown.
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Good morning.
I'm aware that it may not be morning when you're listening to this, but I kind of hope it is.
This is something new that I am trying, and the intention is to offer a short, hopefully under 10-minute morning message every Monday to provide something that gets the mind going, provides a bit of a theme for the week, plants a few seeds for some contemplation, all in the hopes of helping to create greater self-awareness and insight into our behaviours and the way we move through the world and the way we want to be moving through the world.
So, welcome to the first Monday message, Monday Musing.
I don't know what I'm going to call it yet.
Okay, this week, this is based off of, I taught a class, a Kundalini class this morning, as in Sunday morning.
And what I've been doing for each of these Sunday Kundalini classes, I've just been tuning in a little bit to the energy of the moment I've been picking up on or paying attention to any patterns in conversations that I'm having or patterns that I'm seeing in client sessions to try and get a little bit of a picture of what energetic themes are we all working with.
And something that has felt really present over this past week is that a lot of us are feeling a little bit foggy.
We're in a Mercury retrograde, which can be contributing to that.
And yeah, Mercury retrograde is a time for reflection, a time for review.
And it isn't always a time that the path in front of us is very clear.
And I get the sense that a lot of people right now, and this is myself included, feel as though there's this energy of we are preparing for something, like we're being pushed towards something.
But what it is we're being pushed towards has not kind of made itself known yet, is not really clear yet.
It's like there's this feeling of we're ready for what's next, but we don't know what that next thing is just yet.
But we know it's coming.
And something that I have come to understand for myself, and I want to give myself a little bit of room here, that this is for right now where I'm at.
You know, we're always evolving and changing in perspectives.
They're always shifting the more that we learn and understand.
But something that, for this moment in time, I have recognized to be true for myself, is that this getting ready for the next thing and not knowing what the next thing is, that's consistent.
That keeps happening.
The next thing comes, and then I feel like I'm getting ready for the next thing, but again, I don't know what that next thing is.
And then that arrives, and then there's something new, but I don't know what the new thing is yet.
Anyway, all of this is to say.
This morning I taught a class centred around this theme, and we worked on a meditation that is designed to help keep us on our path.
And in Kundalini, the teaching is that the path that we are designed to walk is largely unknown.
That actually we don't really get to choose the path that we're here to walk.
And that doesn't mean, I'm telling you, don't have goals, don't have a vision for what it is you want to create.
But it is to recognize that, yeah, that life is going to humble us.
That we can have all of the best laid plans, and things come along that take us in a different direction.
And so this meditation we did this morning is all about building the mental resilience to be able to hold ourselves in these places because of not knowing what is next.
That actually when we are on our path, it won't be clear.
And there's this really lovely quote from the poet David White, who I reference him a lot.
I'm aware of this, but he's just a man that I've learnt so much from.
There's a video of him speaking about this that I think is like from the 80s or 90s.
It's quite a while and it's really stood true.
He said, how do you know that you're on your path?
Because it disappears.
That is how you know.
And on the opposing side of this, but on the same theme, there is also a quote from Carl Jung that I reference quite a bit.
He says, if the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.
And so we can look at all of these different ancient systems of wisdom.
And there's oftentimes this theme, whether it's Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, whatever it is we're looking at, there's often a theme of we need to rid ourselves of the ego, we need to detach from a sense of identity in the world.
And yeah, that our true path is often one that we don't get to define.
And that means in large part it is going to be unclear.
But the mind that always wants to know, the mind that always wants to protect us and keep us safe, it doesn't often like being in that space of the unknown.
And yeah, it takes some work sometimes to build up this resiliency, to be able to hold ourselves on a path that is largely unknown.
And the place where I often try and, like the way I try and find balance here for myself, and this is not me saying this is the correct approach, or there's one way to do this.
This is just me sharing what I have found has been working for me at this point in time, take it or leave it, whether it feels good or not.
And I like to have a loose vision.
I like to have a direction that I feel like I'm headed, but that direction is based more around a feeling and a loose image of what it is that I'm trying to create.
And where I try and surrender and allow things to be unknown is the how, the how I get there, what path it is that takes me there.
And also I try and surrender the details of that vision.
And I know this might be counter to some of the guidance out there around manifestation or goal setting.
Yeah, and I'm not saying don't get specific either.
The way that I practice for myself is I get specific when it's just, when the very next thing becomes clear.
When I know the next step to take, when that has arrived and from an intuitive place, I have a very clear yes, that this is the next step.
That's when I bring in my strategic mind and I make a plan around it.
But I don't worry about what it's going to lead me to next.
I hope I'm tracking here.
I hope this makes sense.
And so I've got another couple of quotes here to share.
Really, what I'm trying to get at for this week or the seed that I'm trying to plant for this week is to open up a little bit of a contemplation in the mind around your path and looking at where it is that we might be holding ourselves to a certain way of being or a pre-prescribed path that our mind believes is what we should do or have to do to reach a certain goal.
And yeah, can you contemplate or can you question if there is any room for surrender or room for movement to allow yourself to be in a bit more of an open space of this unknown and letting things become clear rather than the mind trying to define them for you.
There is a quote here from Carlos Costaneda, and he is the author of Don Juan.
I actually haven't read this book, but I have so many quotes saved from the book that I probably should read it at some point.
Anyway, he says, all paths are the same.
They lead nowhere.
The question to ask is, does this path have a heart?
If it does, the path is good.
If it doesn't, it is of no use.
And so I'm going to suggest bringing, using that question, does this path have a heart?
Think about how you can bring that into your decisions this week.
Think about how you can bring that into your planning this week of what it is you're planning for in your life.
And really feel into, does this have a heart?
And yeah, my suggestion is to try and see, like, can you discern between when there is something, a path that the mind is presenting to you versus a path that your intuition or your heart is presenting to you?
And just notice if there's a difference in the body to how each of them feel.
And nine times out of ten, that the path with heart will not be clear.
You're doing something or you're choosing to say yes to something and you don't know why and you don't know where it's taking you.
And that's kind of the point of this contemplation is, can we get comfortable with being in that place of the unknown?
Because it's when we practice and learn how to hold ourselves there that opportunities can arise that, you know, we open ourselves up to things beyond what the mind could fathom was possible.
And to round us out, I am going to leave us with some more words from David White.
He has an essay called Ambition.
And in this essay, he talks about the ways in which ambition can be a powerful thing.
Yes.
And I believe this as well, that, you know, to be very driven, to have, like, to be motivated, to be able to look to other people's achievements, to inspire us is incredibly important.
That, sure, we want to be able, like, the mind needs to see to believe, oftentimes.
We do need role models.
We do need to see other people achieve great things, to teach our mind that it is possible for ourselves.
But at the same time, we want to practice striking a balance between being inspired and falling into the trap of feeling like we have to follow a certain path or do things in the same way, or there are certain steps that we must take in order to be able to create XYZ for ourselves.
So in this essay, David White speaks about the ways ambition can drive us forward, but also the ways it works against us.
And there's just a short passage that I'm going to read here that is something that I come back to again and again.
And it is highly likely if you've done a reading with me or if you are a coaching client that you have heard me talk about this, but I just find it so useful.
He says, a serious vocational calling demands a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field that surrounds us and from which we recharge ourselves, as if breathing from the atmosphere of possibility.
A life's work is not a series of stepping stones onto which we calmly place our feet, but more like an ocean crossing where there is no path, only a heading in a direction, in conversation with the elements.
And looking back, we see the wake we have left as only a brief glimmering trace on the water.
So I am going to leave it there.
I hope that this has maybe sparked some questions for you in your mind.
I hope that maybe some of these words from these thinkers have offered you something or that they might pop up throughout your week as you're making decisions for yourself and give you the capacity to maybe to feel into your intuition and feel into the heart a little bit more versus the head.
I hope you have a really beautiful week and I'm sending so much love.
