Does this sound familiar? A client recently lamented a feeling of being stuck, that things weren't changing. His exponential spiritual growth explosion had slowed to a mere trickle. Something was wrong, he said. He must be causing this. Was there something he needed to release? Something he should be doing, or shouldn't be doing? It had to be him, he reasoned. Everything was going so well. What was he doing wrong?

It is familiar, isn't it? I certainly have gone through this very same train of thought, time and again. After all, we are creatures of the physical plane. We live in a reality governed by linearness: through time and space we measure our external world. We measure distance traveled, years lived, and lives that pass through the sands of time into memory. We use linear thought to measure our inner world, too — our spiritual growth. Why wouldn't we?

The problem is, our inner worlds don't come pasted into the pages of a calendar. They don't appear in the numbers of a tape measure. Our inner worlds are connected to our souls, our essence, and these aspects of us simply don't measure things the way we are used to. Our souls measure experience in terms of, well, experience. Expansion. Not in numbers of experiences, ticking them off some long list somewhere. But in quality of experience.

Here's an analogy that came to me today:

Imagine eating a piece of fresh banana cake. You made this cake yourself, having selected ripe organic bananas and combined them with good quality flour, fresh eggs and butter, and some wonderful vanilla essence. You baked this cake until it was fragrant and golden, let it cool with anticipation, and then finally cut into it while it was still warm — moist, flavorful cake tasting of the fresh ingredients you used combined with the love you gave to the experience of making it. The cake is delicious.

The cake is so delicious and you enjoyed the experience of baking it that you decide to have that exact same cake every day. Every day you select the same fresh ingredients, combine them in the same way with the same attention and care, and enjoy your fragrant golden cake in just the same way when it is baked.

You love that banana cake.

But is your experience of the banana cake really the same every time? What is to be gained from preparing and having banana cake every day, indefinitely?

More importantly, what if you want a salad?

Neither the salad nor the banana cake are better than the other. They are simply two different ways of nourishing your body and soul.

We forget this. We especially forget it when we are on a spiritual path. Following a spiritual path, having those big a-ha moments, sharing wonderful insights with others, feeling a connection with our guides, and remembering our life purpose are all wonderful experiences. They are so wonderful and they feel so good that we strive to repeat them again and again, to have that banana cake over and over.

We forget that a salad is just as nourishing. A salad is simply another way of feeding our bodies and souls. It looks very different from banana cake, and certainly could not ever be mistaken for banana cake, but in no way is is less than banana cake.

All forms of spiritual growth are valid.

But if we are looking for banana cake we will miss the wonderful salad right in front of us.

Just because your spiritual path up to this minute has looked and felt a certain way is not a reason to expect it to go on looking that way in the future. We forget this. We forget it and we fail to see that we are indeed still on this wonderful spiritual path, only it looks and feels different. We forget this and only look for the banana cake, thinking that if it is missing that somehow we are to blame, that we have done something wrong.

Trust yourself.

Trust that once begun, a spiritual path is never un-chosen. You will always walk that path, in some form. It may not look the same but you are always learning, growing, and evolving.

You cannot help but do so.