By Jennifer Salkin, MA

There are times in life when I am full of optimism, enthusiasm and energy. A new and exciting goal has energized me. For example, I decide I want to learn how to speak Spanish. I see the path to achieve the goal and I start on the path. I sign up for an online Spanish class and download a language app. But, eventually that initial enthusiasm starts to fade. As I engage in the daily work to manifest the goal, there is a point where I start to get bored or cannot find the time to work on the goal. Often, obstacles start to pop up. I didn’t find the time to study the new vocabulary or practice speaking. Now my goal is bogged down and seems unattainable. I’m too far behind to catch up. What helps me to persevere, to continue?

One day I walked a labyrinth and felt the parallel to my experience described above. Unlike a maze, there is only one path in a labyrinth. The only decision to make is to continue to the center or to turn around and exit. The way labyrinths are designed, when first entering, the path takes you very close to the center- just one circuit away. But then the path takes you further away from the center. When starting a new project, it feels like the goal is easily within reach. But walking along, your path takes you further away from the center, the goal, to the outermost ring before entering the center.

This reminds me of how sometimes the goal feels further away than ever as I work towards achieving it. And then the goal is reached. And that is not the end of the journey. There is the journey back out. To me this parallels integrating the experiences of achieving the goal, the lessons learned, the growth experienced, brought out to other areas of life. Hough wrote, “life’s a journey, not a destination”. Walking a labyrinth can be an embodied experience of that truth.