Untying Our Knots on the Labyrinth Path
A Safe Place for Neurodiversity
The Knots We Tie Ourselves Into
If you’re like me, there are a million ways you twist yourself into knots in your endeavors to fulfill the world’s expectations of you. No matter who we are and what our personal and professional lives are like, there are different sets of expectations for each “hat” we wear. It’s easy to lose ourselves as we braid the different threads of our lives together to continue as ‘functional’ adults in the world.
Add in extra twists if you happen to be neurodivergent — ‘officially’ documented or self-diagnosed. The neurotypical world has absolutely no idea what it asks of us. It’s easy to succomb to overwhelm and feelings of futility, unworthiness and loneliness. The inner mind chatter can be relentless…planning, planning, planning our next moves. Always running on the hamster wheel. Society doesn’t give us much slack for being human and making mistakes.
Life happens and we often need to recover from one crisis or another, once we’ve put out all the fires. But when do we get to add such recovery time into our day, or our week? It’s all very exhausting, whether we feel it consciously or unconsciously. We often stuff it all into our subconscious “shadows” until we can’t anymore. Until it all breaks through our consciousness and demands our full attention. It often shows up as a physical or mental health crisis.
The Power of Compassion
Enter Compassion — for ourselves and for each other. I want this to be a space that supports you, my readers, in your quest to live a life of authenticity and freedom as the awesomely unique and precious individuals you are. We all deserve to give ourselves grace, and to receive grace from others. So here we are. We get to choose to give ourselves the grace we want to receive. We get to choose who we want to be in any given moment. It’s a practice that takes time, so we must practice patience with ourselves.
What does Compassion and Grace look like to you? To me, it involves forgiveness. If I don’t get everything I want to done in a day, I actively forgive myself for being imperfectly human and re-allocate the undone things to other days. If I have fallen short of compassion with a loved one, I ask forgiveness and a chance to make amends, and give those amends top priority.
I also give myself treats to keep myself going, like a cup of tea and my favorite background music when I’m writing. When I was home-schooling my son, reading a chapter of a favorite book and playing lullabies on mandolin as part of our bedtime routine at the end of the day was as much for me as it was for him, and he loved it.
“Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot. Seek the path that demands your whole being.” ~ Rumi
The Magic of Walking Labyrinths
Where can we begin to untie the knots we tie ourselves into so that we can also be good friends, partners, and parents ~ while also being the best friend we can be for ourselves? The one practice that has sustained me the past 18 years is labyrinth walk meditation. From my walking “meditation” on the labyrinth path has sprung many ideas for the ways I’ve added joy and happiness to my life “off” the path.
What’s a Labyrinth?
A labyrinth is an ancient path that’s been around for about 5,000 years. It has one path (unicursal) that involves turns, leading to a center. The center is a place to spend time listening to our intuition, which holds the wisdom we most need for living our best lives. When we are ready to take our leave from the center, the same path takes you out of the center and back to the beginning, the entrance. It’s simple, it’s powerful and it’s magical.
Labyrinths have been used for rites of passage in ancient cultures, engraved by doorways of houses as protection from negative energies, and inscribed into ancient coins. They’ve been built into cathedrals for spiritual purification before masses on high holy days, and alternatives to making pilgrimages to faraway holy sites.
Now, in the 21st century, walking labyrinths is for everybody. It’s use has expanded across spiritual traditions and labyrinth paths have also been built in secular spaces as well. Hospitals, parks, schools and universities are a few of the places that labyrinths have been created for the enhancement of community life and personal wellbeing. There are multiple designs, as well, originating in places such as Ancient Greece, Italy, France, Scandanavia, and in the Americas by Indigenous peoples.
What Can Labyrinth Walk Meditation Do For Me?
One of the aspects of walking the labyrinth path I love most is that it’s somatic. It involves my whole being — body, mind and spirit. I have trouble sitting still for very long, so walking a labyrinth path is a fabulous form of “meditation” for me. Meditation, for me, is something I do that keeps my attention focused in the present moment. As someone who is neurodivergent and has CPTSD, it’s so easy to dissociate from my body, and walking the labyrinth path keeps the connection between my body and mind, keeps both aspects of myself paying attention to one another.
The Baltic Wheel path in my co-housing community is woven among a grove of trees, so I can combine my walking meditation with “forest bathing.” The activity of critters in the natural habitat surrounding the path keeps me present in time and space, and out of my head. My mind rests for the time I am there. Breathing deeply is very important to this calming of the mind. Breathing deeply supports my body as it processes my experiences, and strengthens my intuition — that “knowing” all creatures have around what to do to keep us safe across a variety of situations.
Stepping onto the labyrinth path, I leave the outside world behind, release its expectations of me with a swoosh of my hands outward (such physical gestures can be helpful), and enter an enchanted world where I am accepted and loved as I am. Walking the labyrinth path resets my nervous system and renews my energy. The turns on the path bring me deeper into meditation, into communication with my heart and soul, and integrates my experiences together, weaving them among my body, mind and spirit.
There is no “wrong” way to walk a labyrinth path. Take the first step and keep walking. The path will show you the way and reveal her mysteries to you!
The Center
When I reach the center, I work some with Reiki energy for a few minutes. Then I just sit on the flat mossy stone facing the altar to soak up the beauty around me, eyes open and eyes closed. I take more deep breaths. I listen. What is my heart telling me? What is the natural world teaching me? What am I feeling with each of my senses? There are no coincidences on the labyrinth path, only synchronicities. I soak it all in with my whole being, remaining as present in the moment as I possibly can.
There is a shamanic rattle on the alter at the center of the labyrinth path among trees. I shake it to honor the four directions, and shake it all around me to clear my energy. It’s another way to physically release the worries I have been carrying with me on my shoulders to make room for new information to reach me from deep within.
I thank the labyrinth spirits with a bow when I am ready to leave the center. As I walk back onto the path to return to the world, my heart and mind feel lighter. I feel happier and more connected to the world than when I first arrived at the center.
Stepping Off the Labyrinth Path
What happens when we step off the labyrinth path? I often extend my walk on a conservation trail. Ultimately, I walk home and write some notes about my experiences and the inspirations I received into my journal as a reflection. Sometimes I draw something that lifted my heart, like the moss on the sun-splashed labyrinth path and surrounding stones.
I also pay attention to the dreams I have at night. Sometimes I color in one of my coloring books to calming music and/or nature sounds before I crawl into bed, to let the messages and inspirations I received on the path “brew” some more inside my soul/psyche. That often increases the likelihood of my enjoying a restful night’s sleep with memorable and informative dreams.
I don’t expect life-altering shifts in my understanding or perspective to happen overnight. Walking the labyrinth path is a gentle process, a dedicated practice. In addition to writing in a journal, creative expression often supports the blessings I receive walking on the path. I often combine them. The dedication I have given this practice has given me gifts on my life path over time, and contiues to.
Journal Prompt
Have you walked a labyrinth? What did you receive from the experience?
*NOTE: If you’d like to find a labyrinth close to where you live, visit the worldwide labyrinth locator.
lovely post. and how wonderful to have a Baltic Wheel Labyrinth right outside your door!