You Already Know the Way

I was climbing the steep, rocky trail toward the top of Fern Canyon when I saw a man standing still, staring down at his phone in the middle of the narrow path. He glanced up and said, “Sometimes it’s hard to find the trail.”

I nodded, smiled, and carefully stepped around him. But just a few steps later, I paused and said over my shoulder:“If you look up, it will reveal itself.”

He chuckled quietly, and we both carried on.

I didn’t know where this message came from, but I know it to be true. And in that moment, it stuck with me.

How often do we stare down at a phone, a map, or someone else’s opinion, looking for direction, trying to figure out the right way forward?

I’ve been there.

So many times I’ve looked outside myself for answers…

For someone to give me the map.

To tell me who I should be.W

hat was the next step was.

What success should look like.

Even earlier that day on the trail, I had a whisper of guilt rise up… someone else’s voice, and I lost my path forward.

“I should be visiting my mom right now. I should be writing that article. Working on my business. I should be… somewhere else.”

The inner critic was quick to pull me away from the very ground beneath my feet. It was a moment of should, instead of presence.

That voice is familiar. It’s the voice of conditioning—society, culture, old family patterns. It tells us to achieve, produce, strive, and hustle. That success looks a certain way: a corner office, 2.3 kids, the perfect partner, a house with more space, the next promotion, the next rung on the ladder.

But what if that voice isn’t actually the truth?

What if it’s just noise?

Because here’s what I know in my bones:

The trail reveals itself when we look up.

Not to someone else.

Not down.

Not back.

Not into a screen.

But when we lift our gaze and trust the path rising to meet us.

My truest inspirations don’t come from scrolling or searching.

They come from listening to the inner impulse, to the whisper within, to what I call our “original knowing.”

That deep, natural instinct that tells you:

This is where you belong.

This is what lights you up.

This is your trail.

For me, that’s always been nature.

As a little girl, I’d get lost in the forest near my childhood home in Northern California, escaping the chaos of a volatile upbringing. I’d build fairy houses, run my fingers through dirt, and listen to the wind in the trees. That was my sanctuary. My truth. It still is.

Even when I’m told to “be careful”—bears on the trail (yes,I just saw one after passing the man on Fern Canyon!), but I go anyway. Because the impulse to be with the earth is louder than the fear.

Another truth? Writing.

It’s always called to me.

But early criticism—”You’re a bad speller,” “That doesn’t make sense”—crushed that joy for a long time. I believed I wasn’t good enough to write, and for years, I silenced that impulse. I played small, I paused, and then I stopped altogether. So many of us do this. We abandon our inspiration because it doesn’t look “practical.” It isn’t “safe.”

And yet, it’s ours. Our trail. Our nature. Our voice. For me? I picked the pen up 40 years later. I love writing and expressing (You think?!?)

You could say I lost time, but I would argue it was life’s process, designed specifically for my learning, yes, sometimes the hard way.

With love and intention,