Have you ever been confused about what it is you are doing?  Or questioned why you are doing what you are doing?  Or even worse, who you are at this moment, given all your confusion and frustration?

That's where my story begins.  Ready?

"No Exit," Mister Tibbs shouted to get my attention.  Maybe not so much shouted as perhaps purred as loudly as he could.  The first time, I did not pay much attention to the meowing I heard, seemingly arising from outside.  After all, cats love their strolls and adventures in the darkness, even in the colder evenings as of late. 

The second loud meow–or maybe I had missed some and this was already number three or seven–gave me a jolt and I ran downstairs.  For a moment, I thought the call came from the back deck, where I let my precocious calico, Miss Kitty, walk in and out as she pleases.  Did I forget her outside?  'It's way to cold for her to stay out for a long time,' I muttered.  To my great relieve, she stared right at me from her comfortable position on the sofa, questioning my panicked look.

I shook my head.  Was I dreaming? I checked out the street, but no cat in sight.  Strange!

No sooner did I sit back down in my office, when the next determined and frustrated meow pushed me out of my chair yet again.  This time, the meowing led me into my bedroom at the other end of the hallway.  I heard Mr Tibbs's voice from behind the closed door of the walk-in closet.  This slinky shiny black and white feline had managed to lock himself into the closet.  No big surprise because he loves to roll around on floors and hide pipe cleaners wherever he can.  How long had he been there?  'Poor Tibby - how could I not have noticed your dilemma right away?'

He walked straight past me into the bedroom, clearly expressing his displeasure about my slow reaction to him.  Then I gasped.  The new carpet, a nice Berber (I've only moved into my house 9 months ago), showed two long track marks with lose threads draped across the floor.  Mr Tibbs had dug into the carpet to find his way out of the room.  How could he ruin my carpet! 

But wait!  I entered the closet and closed the door.  How clever, Mr Tibbs!  My frustration turned into a smile, not in spite but in light of the damage he caused.  Yes, he had evidently tried to find a WAY OUT, but failed.  In the end, he resorted to calling me so he could find his WAY THROUGH the door by meowing loudly.  And he succeeded.  Well, what a lesson for me!

I spent the next hour bent over the carpet, doing my best to mend the physical damage with the perfectly bend needle I found at the bottom of my sewing basket - made for the job.  All the while, Oskar, Mr. Tibb's brother, cheered me on and entertained me.  The tears of relief that were dripping down on the carpet fascinated him and so he tried to catch them.  Quite hilarious, I must admit!

Finally, the strange and apparently disparate events of today, and the last few days, began to make sense to me, as they only can in the non-linear and paradoxical world of synchronicities, inner knowing and insights.  Thank you, my dear felines!  I will share a sampling of the reflections with you that flooded my mind while kneeling to creatively weave the pulled threads back into the pattern of my Berber.  Even that action carries a symbolism of its own.  I am curious to hear what questions arise for you during your reading of my story.

So here it goes.  Few people had signed up for the last group of seminars I announced.  I received meaningful comments about my musings, but only (can you hear the frustration?) from a small number of individuals. I put an ad into Kijiji and Craigslist, noticed over 200 hits on the ad, but not a single message or phone call indicated any interest.  Do you get the idea of how I felt these last few days?

Discouraged, I was searching for a WAY OUT of the impasse I had reached.  Am I doing the right things?  'You need to get out of here,' a voice inside my head demanded quite persistently.  And despite taking myself through my own coaching process, I just couldn't quite shift the sense of futility and stuckness.  At least not until Mr Tibbs showed me the way.

I had missed the obvious.  The WAY THROUGH was important, not the WAY OUT.  I now recognized the demanding voice as that part of me that likes to see results; the perfectionist who likes to do things well, complete them and take them off her plate, and the fixer who feels uncomfortable waiting and becomes impatient.  It was the part of me that would have like to see, okay, let's forget it all then and let's do something else.

However, I did not need to find a WAY OUT.  I need to sit with who and where I am right now regardless of what happens. It appears I need to gain and regain this awareness and integrate it into my being from all different angles until it is deeply infused and incorporated into my cellular memory and has changed my very DNA. 

Did it really matter how many individuals contacted me regarding my blog?  Why am I writing in the first place?  I am writing because I want to share my reflections with you. No need for ulterior motives, validation or confirmation!  It's not about the end result, after all.  The essence can only be found in the process and the direction.  If you resonate with the writing, if it serves you in some way, then that emerges as a true bonus and additional gift.

The universe does have a funny sense of humour, don't you think? Two of the recent postings on my Facebook site speak exactly to this experience.  Go figure that I chose Goethe's quotation for my daily quote in this past week, "The important thing in this world is not where we stand, but in what direction we move."

How could I miss the connections!  I had stopped moving.  Deep inside me, I wanted to hear applause for the stand I was taking, not the direction I was taking.  I wasn't moving when I dug in my heels (Mr Tibbs dug in his claws) and agitated about whether the blog was worth my time and effort.

Equally serendipitous is my choice of Aldous Huxley contention that I also posted. "The spiritual journey does not consist of arriving at a new destination where a person gains what he did not have, or becomes what he is not. It consists in the dissipation of one’s own ignorance concerning oneself and life, and the gradual growth of that understanding."  Well, did he write that for me?  I just need to learn to get out of my own way so I can find my way through the challenging moments.  Why am I still looking for what I don't appear to have or be?

It's Mr Tibbs who deserves a round of applause.  He realized that digging in his heels while looking for a way out did not get him what he needed.  For him, the WAY THROUGH was to meow loudly and persistently enough to attract my attention.  When I opened the door, he found his WAY THROUGH.

Guess what happened next?  As soon as I finished repairing the carpet, I went back to my office.  Two email messages jumped out at me: 1) an inquiry about the ad I had posted; and 2) an incredibly encouraging and heart-warming response to my website and the blog from a person I have never met.  My deepest gratitude to you!

By surrendering to WHAT IS, as Byron Katie calls it, I "dissipated my own ignorance of myself and life" and found the WAY THROUGH the moment while being right with and in it. Mr Tibbs' use of 'No Exit,' Sartre's famous existentialist play, emphasizes to me the crucial importance of my inner resistances.  How freeing it feels when I release and transform those built-up and unconscious expectations of myself and others.

I wonder how you feel about the difference between taking the WAY OUT and the WAY THROUGH.  What moments come to your mind when you chose one over the other?  What resulted from your choices?

As always, I welcome your comments in whichever way is right and comfortable for you.  We can leave it as a private matter, post your story or comment here or include it in my next newsletter if you permit.