You probably know that growth is the natural state of life, the natural state of existence.

Living things grow and expand. All that lives grows and expands. Right?

So to resist growth is to resist the natural order. To resist expansion is to resist your natural self.

Why is this a problem? Well, the opposite of growth is stagnation and regression. It is to shrink and atrophy. This risks decay and death, which is the opposite of life.

To resist your natural tendency for personal growth and spiritual expansion is therefore to risk stagnation and regression, which ultimately risks decay and death.

Those on the path of personal growth and self-improvement therefore acknowledge that continual knowledge of self is a journey of lifelong learning and spiritual expansion.

It is the ultimate journey of understanding—the journey to self—that unlocks all the treasures of life, all the abundance we want and need: joy, security, acceptance, peace, and freedom.

It is the journey to the Promised Land.

There are 5 parts or sections to that ‘Unknown Journey’ to your Promised Land.

We cannot avoid these parts or sections any more than we can avoid pain and discomfort during our lifetime.

Nonetheless, pain and discomfort are the small price we pay to reach that land of abundance and prosperity.

1. 1. 1. Bondage
      2. Calling
      3. Leap of Faith
      4. The Wilderness
      5. The Promised Land

Bondage

We start the Unknown Journey as slaves to our fears, limiting thoughts, and negative emotions.

Some people never leave this first section, preferring to live with what’s known, albeit fear and negativity, rather than step forward to an uncertain future and an unknown destination despite the promises of a better life.

Calling

We all hear the calling to a brighter future. We all hear that small and still voice directing us to where we are meant to be, to that land beyond the horizon we cannot yet see.

Some are deaf to it. Some listen but ignore it through fear or misunderstanding. Some doubt its promise.

Few act and follow its direction.

Leap of Faith

For those who have the courage to begin the Unknown Journey, they are at first filled with the enthusiasm of hope and joy of what might be possible.

They boldly step forward, not knowing what lays ahead but assured that it is better than what has gone before.

However, after some time, they reach the nexus point of fear and faith. It is their Red Sea.

Up ahead, over the waters, is the Promised Land. Behind them, the clamouring of fears, limiting thoughts, and negative emotions try to pull them back into bondage.

We have a choice: return to what we know as comfortable and certain, albeit slavery; or take the leap of faith and step forward knowing that we can never return to the past way of life.

The Wilderness

Upon taking the leap of faith, it isn’t long before our resolve is soon eroded with the winds of doubt and the sands of despair.

We have entered The Wilderness, the Dark Night of the Soul, which we are destined to roam until we learn to let go of all that still binds us to our past.

But this is a necessary time of purification and cleansing, of readying and preparing one’s self to enter the Promised Land. We can only enter naked.

The Promised Land

After the long journey of self-discovery, we are finally ready to enter the Promised Land of Goodness, Truth and Beauty, the land of our birthright.

We find a land brimming with joy, security, acceptance, peace, and freedom.

A land of abundance and plenitude. A land, we find, that was always here, a land rooted in this moment of now.

It had only been blocked from view by ourselves. We just had to learn to get out of the way.