Your own walk: thinking vs. actual

You are a pathfinder ahead of other people, so they can walk a path you have found safe, traversable, and desirable. If your path is walkable but leads to a cliff, it is not a great path. If it leads to the golden shire but is made of lava pits, not a great path. Your path will be challenging, voluntary, and humanly possible. And it has to be walked by you first.

I claim, "I am walking the path of freedom from suffering; I am a happy person." But I wake up at 10 AM and show up late to sessions after playing video games. Am I walking my talk? There is a very big difference between thinking what my path is and actually living the life of walking it. If we present ourselves as competent masters and don't live that life, we are wearing a mask, and the more we invite people the more we burn out from performing.

Effortlessness comes from internal consistency. You don't doubt your ability to use a fork because you are 100% sure you know how to eat. Pick up chopsticks for the first time and there is effort and tension, because the experience you know does not match the tool in your hand. An AA counselor should not be drinking. A monk should not be having affairs. I don't want to build you up so you can rise to your downfall; it sounds grim, but that is where you are headed without consistency. This is a warning.

If you are a sobriety coach, your daily practice of sobriety is your business. If you are a voice coach, your daily practice of using your voice is your business. You are not selling expertise from a distance; you are inviting people into the work you are already doing. When you don't believe in your path, you are selling something you don't believe in, and you will not be able to offer freely. If you are not living your path yet, start today. Not as preparation for the business. It is the business.