Adventures in pre-birth soul agreements and finding the correct path

As Sanity Claws so wisely suggested in the "May 25th has come and gone" thread, let's have a chat about finding our correct path in life. This could be the manifestation of a pre-birth soul agreement that was so strong that it was quite obvious, if we followed our instincts, which road to take--or perhaps we could recount those times that the universe had to...um...kick us in the pants to point us in the right direction. I'll start...

When Mr. MG and I became engaged, we knew exactly what kind of wedding we wanted to have--something small and local, with the ceremony on the deck at our house on a small lake, and a sit-down reception free of all cheesy typical reception trappings (NO Chicken Dance--evar!) at a restaurant instead of a party house. We chose the minister (Unitarian, because my family would have fritzed at my high priestess doing the ceremony), the flowers, my dress and my maid of honor and flower girl's dresses, the DJ, the favors (I handpainted runes on tumbled crystals and potted ivy in stenciled pots), the cake, the limo (actually a Bentley once owned by George Harrison, my favorite guy of all time), and the restaurant with ease.

And then...the florist went out of business. The restaurant went out of business and never told us--I drove past it and saw a sign on the door. The limousine company went out of business and didn't tell us till FOUR DAYS before the ceremony. And this airhead at our workplace squealed in alarm, "It's a sign!" (Oh, shut up, Kate...) But she was right, in a way. It WAS a sign. We heard after the fact that the florist had been a cheat. The restaurant had been terrible. And the limo company never actually had George Harrison's Bentley--they lied. We scrambled and our friends offered suggestions, and we got a FANTASTIC florist, a WONDERFUL restaurant that let us have the whole place (on a Saturday night!), and an...okay limo (okay, so it wasn't a Bentley--but at least they showed up!)

We were protected, and I felt truly loved by the universe, even if it all came about in a backhanded way.
:rofl:

Another example: I had my first "want to marry this guy" boyfriend when I was in my early 20s. We were very happy (at least I thought we were), but while I was dating him I had this terrible feeling that I could never shake, that I was going to die young, in my 30s. It wasn't even a "ooh let's dwell on this and creep myself out" thing--it felt like a certainty. A real omen. It was like a little troll sitting on my shoulder that traveled with me everywhere. I hated it, but it wouldn't go away. After about two years together, I realized this boyfriend of mine wasn't "all that" and I broke up with him. It was the correct thing to do, even though it hurt both of us for a while. And then, one day shortly afterward, I realized that the little troll on my shoulder was gone. Just...gone. That potentiality had been removed the very moment I broke thing off with that boyfriend.

And of course I don't need to remind y'all of the (seemingly) terrible, horrible, no good, very bad phase of my life when everything went wrong at work and in my coven, but it was all necessary to leave both; otherwise I wouldn't have been able to start this new--and quite peaceful!--life I'm living now.

I could go on, but instead I'll turn the floor over to everyone else. Whatcha got? :hi:

I'd love to hear the kind of stories that MG mentioned in her opening post but I'd also like to hear about how you found the new path after the door on the wrong path shut and how much time it took.
I've been dealing with the issue of the right path for about two years now. Yuck!

As far as I can tell (at least for my own personal experiences), a door closing and a door opening have been simultaneous but not sudden--more a fluid shifting from one situation to another. Of course, the severe bop on the head from the universe (the dramatic event it gives you because you need a clear sign, having ignored all the gentle throat-clearing sounds it HAD been giving you :rofl: )...THAT can be really sudden and shocking.

And then sometimes it's not a direct line from one path to another, as some meandering is necessary. Like...after I finished college I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my English major. I was a writer, but my hometown isn't known for its creative community and there were pretty much NO writing jobs EVER, so what else could I do? I eventually decided to go to grad school to become a high school teacher. Followed that first boyfriend I wanted to marry to "da big city" and went to school. Broke up with him there, finished school, tried hard to get a job in a really tight market, found one, and...HATED it.

For years afterward, my parents would lament, "Oh, what a waste of time and money that was! Why didn't you stick with it? Teaching is such a noble profession! You could have had a pension!" ETC. ETC. ETC. But I knew teaching wasn't my path. I didn't know what WAS, but teaching wasn't it. However, I don't consider those years wasted--I got clear about the BF, I learned how to survive in a big city on my own, I got a chance to live in a small town (hint: it is NOT always as cute as Cicely, Alaska, or Ballykissangel!), I learned teaching skills that I'm still using with MG Jr., and I touched a few lives.

And you know what? I didn't find my path after I quit teaching EITHER! I wandered into retail for a while, advertising for a few years, and then finally educational writing :think: at a business where I met Mr. MG.

So...PHEW! Paths meander, for sure, but eventually you get there. And sometimes you don't know why you went down that path at all till way later. Does that make any sense?

I guess the best thing to do is ask for a sign, but don't be surprised if you don't get a clear one immediately, because sometimes the universe is holding off sending you somewhere (not always literally--sometimes figuratively) till the new situation is ready. Go too soon, and it's a wasted trip, you know? (Another example: When I was in advertising, a coworker who was a single mom kept trying to get me to join a singles ski group with her, but as much as I liked her, I resisted--never joined. I found out later that Mr. MG was part of that same group, and if I had joined, I would have met him three years earlier than I did...but what if I didn't like him at the time? or he didn't like me? See--it had to wait till we were both "ready".)

Talking too much. I'll shut up now.
:rofl:

I got a useless liberal arts degree with art major to please my mother (read: shut her up). I tried taking a 1-year leave of absence to figure out what I wanted to do, but she taunted me continuously, telling people I was a college drop out. As a result, post-college I meandered for 8 years, from crap temp job to crap temp job, before I finally found a landing spot that led to a path with traction. That path lasted nearly 20 years and gave me a secure home (something extremely important to me, given the drastic effects of my chiron placement), a new car and a nice nest egg with no debt. I had a place in the world.

Then the universe killed my career and sent a criminal to drive me out of my home.

And now I've been meandering, with no sense of belonging anywhere and getting bopped on the head, for 7 years. Every time I think I've found a landing spot, it turns into quick sand. Every attempt to re-ignite my career has met with a different sort of criminal act. I wanted a small (700-900 ft) ranch on 10+ acres. I ended up with an antique farmhouse (read: money-pit) on 5.7...oh wait, make that 2.5 acres. My nest egg is gone, I've been forced to take on debt and will now lose all the money and labor that I invested into this place.

BUT...some of the criminal acts put me face to face with my father's insidious, passive-aggressive abuse. Old, deeply buried relationship wounds wrapped tightly in abcesses have surfaced, been lanced, and washed clean with my tears. I learned to use power tools building a barn. I learned about organic gardening and medicine-making. I learned to strip wallpaper. I learned to strip old finish off of a hardwood floor, and to refinish it decently. And I've made it halfway through MLT school -- time will tell if I finish that or am forced to toss it. I had much security in my low-end, paid off condo, but I had zero privacy. Now, I've learned to miss society a bit.

It sounds like you believe you are having these experiences because they are part of your prebirth contract. How do you know that these events are not signs that you are going down the wrong path?

I'm not trying to get you to doubt yourself. I'm asking these questions of myself and wondering how others have sorted through these questions.

all I know is that I haven't found any path that sticks or that I can get through. I'm never sure whether life is testing and strengthening me or whether it's trying to re-direct me. Randy Pausch once said that the brick walls aren't there to keep you out; they're there to keep the other guy out. To test how much you want something. But it just seems that no matter *what* path I try to go down, I get bopped in the head. A door closes, a window opens. I try to go through the window, it closes on my head. I struggle to free myself, another door opens. I try to slip through, it slams in my face. For 7 years, it's been "no" "no" "no" "no" "no."

In the meantime, in the course of trying to find a path, I've learned these skills. They will come with me wherever I go.

I do know that when I bought this minifarm, it wasn't what I wanted, but it was what I was able to get. I knew intuitively that I was brought here to heal, that it would be a healing place. And after I moved here, for the first time in decades the program loop that used to run continuously through my head, "I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home," finally subsided. That, almost miraculously, the furniture fit the rooms perfectly, down to the color schemes of curtains left behind. That somehow against all odds and reason, things keep somehow working out.

and if it had not ended when it did I would be much less of who I am. I would have always stood back and let my ex have the center stage (all the time). He was that kind of person. And I wonder now how much of myself I was feeding him; supporting him in his position.

And... all the possibilities that are in my life now would not be.

changes myself, starting about three years ago when I learned my husband, now my ex, was seeing another woman. The divorce became final last summer, the day before my 60th birthday. I had already moved from Kansas to Santa Fe, but had trouble finding permanent work.

I've bought a small townhouse here and have just moved in, and I start a full-time, permanent job with benefits (gasp!) on Monday in the admissions office of the local hospital.

I am still angry at my ex for leaving me, but I suppose that this is something I knew about or agreed to before we came in to this lifetime. But he didn't have to treat me as shabbily as he did.

Even with the difficulties in finding work here, I have been very happy living here, so there must be a reason that I don't know about yet for moving here. I have absolutely no expectations of meeting someone or starting a new relationship. I do think about these things, the stuff about pre-birth agreements, or what may have happened in a previous life that is impacting this life, and other stuff like that pretty much all the time.

Things seem to be in flux for you. How do you know you are on your path?

Things are in flux for me too and I keep wondering whether they are this way because I haven't heard or acted on what my actual path is. I'm willing to admit that I seemed to have gone off my path before. Isn't it just as likely I've gone astray again?

These are the kind of thoughts floating through my mind these days, just trying to make sense of where I am.

What I am going by is how content I am to be living in Santa Fe, as hard as it has been to find work. And even though my ex is trying to weasel out of support payments to me, and stuff like that.

I keep on meeting really great people here, people I just connect to. Yes, you meet wonderful people everywhere, but for me there's something about living here. And I chose Santa Fe after extended trips both to the Pacific Northwest and the East Coast. As I like to put it, Santa Fe kept on calling my name. So here I am.

Today was my first day at my new job, and it just felt good.

I have zero goals or dreams! Hilarious, I know, but I had all that stuff when I was in my early 20s and completely crashed and burned. I got the "career" I was told I always wanted after getting the education I was told I always wanted, then spent a few years thinking about suicide every day and trying to drink myself to death. To be honest, I had obsessive/depressive problems as early as age 12, but everyone told me that you can't have these problems because you make good grades in school. I was always told that I simply couldn't be depressed because of something I had achieved. When I crashed and could achieve no longer my family wondered why I had been so foolish as to have chosen such an idiotic college major and career. Why did I have to go from being good to being bad? Why did this happen to them?

The only thing I can figure is that my path is to meander around and learn. I keep changing so much along the way someone outside looking in would hardly think it possible! I have always had a nagging thought that I am supposed to be collecting information on this trip; for what or who I have no idea, but I feel like I am supposed to collect ideas and impressions. I would love to know if anyone else is familiar with and ever-present idea like that? I have had that recurring thought as long as I can recall.

My path has included bad relationships of course, but for the past 14 years or so working on the one with my (now) husband, which has been both a wonderful relationship and a very bad one, then wonderful again. I feel very connected to him, we have had things to work out but keep plugging at it so far. It is like we got into the lifeboat together at some point along the way and started chatting and decided to just keep going. I really believe we agreed to get into that life-boat together before this life.

I have had many work lives, first as a music teacher which became failed music teacher quickly, then cashier, factory worker, and now various forms of office drone for a number of years (which isn't bad really). I was told by a psychic that work will never fulfill me so I just need to pay the bills and seek fulfillment in my non-employment interests and life. When she said that a lot of the pressure still in me to "succeed" lifted. I have had to learn many lessons in my jobs, and when I want a new job badly it seems that I need to identify and learn the "lesson" in the old one first. I had a boss that would change her directions, set me up to fail, and try to dig into my personal life. For months I beat my head against the wall looking for another job. Once consciously decided to let go of internally reacting to my bosses manipulations and let that be her problem as opposed to mine; I got a job in about a week. Universe said "all done here".

I am quite introverted and am very much a Cancer (July 20, 1964 b-day), so I often need to get off to myself and let the emotional build up from human interaction leek back out, I used to feel less-than in comparison to extroverts, but now I know that neither is superior to the other. I have spent too much time "wishing" I had a "real" path. Now I accept that the Universe doesn't perceive a path as a career, but for me, a series of learning experiences.

I may change my mind completely tomorrow.

I have lived my life the same way! I remember back when I was in my 20s, when I was in grad school. I was talking with my boyfriend, who said he had dreams of living in California, or maybe Maryland, etc. He had all these goals, and was concerned that I didn't have any. He kept bugging me to share some plan I had--or even come UP with one--so I made up something about wanting to live in a particular city back in our home state. I didn't mean it in the least, but it apparently satisfied him (that I had even some half-baked goal).

I just follow my nose--always have; I've never felt "driven" to do anything in particular. I'm a writer, but I've never felt the need to write the Great American Novel, seek fame (I was a theater minor in college but didn't feel the urge to move to NYC and start auditionin or anything, like my classmates did). Sometimes when I get down on myself I think I'm wasting my life, but then I realize that I AM serving a purpose--I seem to be living to help other people.

I also live my life in short-term "episodes"--I enter into a situation (relationship, job, whatever) and stay there as long as necessary, and when it's time to switch to something new, the job goes away, or the relationship ends, and I'm off. I joke that I'm like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap--when my task is done, I leap out and into a new adventure.

Perhaps your purpose is the same, GTRO? Do you think you could be living your life to clear karma by cleaning up relationships with others and/or help others out? I have realized that not every lifetime has to have a singular purpose; sometimes we take care of a lot of tasks in one stretch.

And perhaps our purpose IS to help as many people as possible, if we've chosen to spend a lifetime doing that. :shrug:

I have thought for a long time that I was dealing with quite a bit of Karma. But I don't mean that in a negative way because despite bumps my life is pretty good! I think of so many people with terrible difficulties in the world and I realize how narrow our Western perception of "success" is.

I know I have had major spiritual/religious Karma to work through; some from this life, a lot from past lives. That has been very difficult for me, and still is; it's huge. And some of the people/situations that have appeared in my life for short periods of time had to have a Karmic purpose, no other explanation.

I have been put in a position to need to try to help others in various ways with some regularity. I don't always feel like I am the best at it, but I can say I always try when the need to help presents itself. It seems like every time I become gung-ho in acquiring some bit of knowledge it isn't long before someone appears who needs that passed along to them. It isn't my doing, it just happens.

I ran across a couple days ago.
http://www.jovianarchive.com/NewcomersCenter/Pages/Home.aspx
(The guy's voice annoys me, but I listened to the recordings anyway. The site is confusing, and the costs are way over my head.)

However.
This system uses four categories: Generator, Manifestor , Projector and Reflector.
As with every other category system, mine is one of the 'minorities', ie. "Projector".
According to this system, I'm not supposed to accomplish anything! :rofl: (whew!)
I'm supposed to wait for 'the invitation', and be a 'guide'.

Still not sure what I think of it. Projector is the type they offer a discount (endowment) because we need special help understanding this system :blush:
The first two types can put it into practice right away. But for US (Projectors), it takes awhile to get a grasp on how it works in our lives.

I'm a manifesting generator. Now to find out what that means.

I'm a manifestor also.

I don't understand this system but I was called a manifesting generator, not a manifestor. I don't think they are the same thing.
In any event, I thought they said some interesting things, some almost spookily accurate.

I looked through it yesterday. (I'm a 'generator' fwiw with a 'triple split definition')

It seems to be an Astrology cocktail served up in a Mary Kay business model.

You get a sample bit of info and then are directed to the pros. Everything seems to be dependent upon your birthdate. The only information in the Tubes, aside from this site, serves as a gateway to a paid service. I have never heard of this method before, and don't know who its inventor is. I couldn't find a discussion group (or even a thorough explanation their chart).

The podcaster's voice is dripping with... not greed but something else.

Now - everyone needs to make a living, but I have my doubts about this one because it is so clearly pay-to-play.

I saw ad advert when I was reading The Mountain Astrologer online. That's what led me to the site. It's supposedly a composite of astrology and I Ching, possibly more. Like I wrote, all very confusing. I'm sure it is proprietary. FWIW. I didn't like the voice either. I thought the instructions for the first two 'types', generator and manifestpr, were interesting. Tell and ask, IIRC. I just unsubscribed from the email notices when I got the new monitor connected tonight. No biggie.

It is tempting to go down the "wedding" road with this one, but since that wasn't really the point, I will refrain. If anyone wants to start a wedding thread, I do have a few stories. Suffice it to say that the other night I had a long involved dream which included a cast of characters, and I do mean characters, involved with this wedding. Your wedding story is awesome!

I never know what my path is, except for maybe a day. Sometimes I feel that I am here just to do something little--sort of like a butterfly flapping its wings. And I won't really know what that little thing is exactly. So basically, I just flap my wings a few times daily and what results, who knows?

Of course, I do get clues. Someone here said "meandering." I may be the best daydreamer in the world, and my mind meanders. I feel like I'm kind of walking through a maze, with various clues strewn about. When I think I have the maze figured out, oops, there's a roadblock! Time to shift gears and regroup. I feel that it is important to see the humor in this.

I feel that I will still be meandering, still in the maze, until I'm outta here. One thing I won't be as an elderly person is "set in my ways." Well, maybe I won't like driving unfamiliar places, but my mind and my path could still change at any moment.

But I'd love to hear the latest trials and tribulations--I got married pre-Facebook/MySpace/Twitter/personal Web pages (but only just!) That's got to put a new spin on things. Would've made collecting RSVPs easier, though!

Okay, C, sounds like you're also a part of the Happy Wanderers Club, eh? Let us not forget that butterflies flapping their wings create storms in the Amazon. :evilgrin: And those of us who have no plans have lower blood pressure!

I'm one hell of a daydreamer too--I've always gotten in trouble for that, but on the plus side I'm able to do visualizations better than your average bear.

My husband S. and I share a birthday - July 4 - and there is an eleven year difference between us. I was 23 and fresh out of a relationship when we met in 1993, and he was in an unhappy marriage. He and his mate divorced and we married 02/09/02, nine years after we met. There's so much there that I'm leaving out, but I could talk for hours. We married outside at a public park, and there was a hawk in attendance, as well as a flock of birds that circled in the sky three times during the ceremony, then flew away. We've been together for sixteen years in all, we have a four year old son, and our relationship seems tumultous at times, and tranquil at others. There are little coincidences we share in our family histories a generation or two back that have always inspired me to think about family karma. We had very different childhoods from one another, and that difference really shows in the issues that we struggle with today.

I dropped out of university three times before deciding to just go to work and live on my own for a while. I enjoyed that, but went back to school when I realized how limited my options might be later in life. Strangely enough, I returned to school the same summer I met S., and I remember those first couple of years as very challenging and energetic. I was without a car, and always riding my bicycle to school and work and about town, and having a new relationship of a kind that I'd never dreamed I'd be in. I was reading runes at the time, and had also visited a psychic. It's funny how little I remember of that session, but at the time it all seemed very fitting, and some of it a little frightening, and I remember making the decision to create a future different from what she suggested may come to be. And how!

School was enervating and surprising. I majored in English, and had an intuitive flash one morning at the bike rack outside the Lang & Lit Bldg that publishing would be the industry for me after I graduated. I was taking writing workshops at the time, and won a writing competition as an undergraduate that usually was won by graduate students. This inspired me to apply for a writing fellowship at another school in PA, and I won that as well. I studied in PA for one semester, then returned to my home institution in order to graduate. Well, because poetry seemed to be working out so well for me, I explored graduate schools, and ultimately landed in a program in Austin that allowed me to study, write, and play for three years.

Almost immediately after graduating, I was hired by the university press here - an academic publisher of some 90-100 books per year - five years after I decided I wanted to work in publishing. But I've been aching to get out of it almost as long as I've been here. It's quite puzzling to me. I've landed a job in the field of my "dreams" but I feel trapped and powerless. I've been the assistant to the director for seven years. I've applied for positions three times over the years so that I can move out of my rather limited role and learn new skills that will allow me to progress further in the industry, and I've been rejected three times. I've struggled with my own anger, procrastination, contrariness, resentment, you name it. My boss, the director, was a child in WWI England, and has sufficiency issues. As well, she's distant and critical. My mother has sufficiency issues, and was distant, and critical. Her mother has sufficiency issues, and was distant and critical...

But how much of was due to a prebirth contract or some kind of preordained path? It sounds like you think your marriage was part of the contract but what about the career stagnation, if you don't mind that word. I thought of that word because you are in the same job for years and did not get the jobs you applied for.

At least when it comes to doing "normal" things like having long term relationships or children. I think the drama of a relationship would do me in. It was bad enough dealing with my Mom's stuff all those years let alone coping with someone who isn't blood.
As for vocation, I recently got a kick in the pants when my decision to become a network administrator was given a thumbs down by the Universe (in other words, I sucked at the course and it bored me to tears). I was in a depression for about 3 months wondering what I was going to do. Then my imagination was sparked by, of all things, a bunch of vintage postcards/photos collected on a disc that I bought through eBay. They were present in my final web project that did so well and I've had a bit of fun with them here and there, and people have enjoyed it. I've gone so far as to make up a character who was NOT born too late, as I feel I was. An abbreviation of her "life story" is on a Myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/keyboardwrecker

For some odd reason I feel like I'm finally ON my path, or close to it. At least I'm having a bit of fun and making people laugh at the absurdity of the life of Ruby Mae Niedlmeyer...