Many years ago I went to a sample sale right before the holidays. Display items from a high-end department store were for sale at rock-bottom prices. 

I spotted a treasure across the room and I had to have it. 

It was a very tall and slim artificial Christmas tree. This tree was perfect for my quaint Victorian house that had a tiny living room. The bummer about the tree was that it didn’t collapse. All year round it had to stand tall in all its glory.

I didn’t have room to store this thing in my garage and yet I went with it.

I swore I’d never get a fake tree, so it was insanely odd that I should fall in love with it. 

We shoved the tree in my BMW with the top three feet sticking out of the front passenger window. We drove home with the rain flying in the window, excited about seeing this treasure in my house. 

It was too tall for my ceiling. So I did the obvious thing… I bent the top of the tree over.

 

 

 

That tree moved to four different houses with me over the years, but it only got to stand at its full height in my current home. Everyone who saw the tree immediately commented on how much they loved it. I called it the Dr. Seuss tree. I trusted my urge to buy it and loved it until almost twenty years later when some rats got to it in the garage.

So where do you go off the beaten path in your life? Do you ever feel like something is sooooo right but to a majority of those around you it seems sooooo wrong? Do you doubt your judgment? Nobody knows what’s best for you better than you. Even if it goes against what the experts have said and what studies have proven. 

In my early thirties I went through a phase where I craved cheesecake all the time. I loved to cook and began making a different kind of cheesecake every week. I would eat most of it myself.

 

People at the gym would ask what I what was eating to get such great abs. When I confessed that I ate cheesecake every day, they didn’t believe me. They were all eating plain chicken, baked potatoes, and vegetables. How could I go against the norm and not be fat? I trusted my cravings and body. I enjoyed my choices.

I’ve learned over time that I can trust my whims even when it comes to topics I don’t know about. When I begin questioning what the experts would do or asking others for their advice, I tend to cloud my previous clarity. Then when I breathe and ask my Inner Guidance for the solution, I land right back at my first choice. 

Most of the time those left-hand turns you take off the beaten path lead to the greatest successes. 

Some years ago I woke up with my side feeling sore. I discovered a tick in my skin happily chomping away. It was definitely a gross sight! I knew I’d gotten it from a hike I had taken the previous day. I asked my mate to yank it out with tweezers. He suggested I look on the web for the best way to remove a tick. Argh!

What you have to understand is that I was just a tad freaked about this insect embedded in my waist. I wanted it out now. I didn’t want to spend extra time going online, but I did. I found a video of a guy rubbing a swollen tick on his dog twenty times clockwise. The tick backed out of his dog with ease. 

No tweezers or lighters required, and no breaking the body in half or leaving the head in the skin.

I’ll admit, it sounded far-fetched. But I had my mate try it anyway. After about fifty circular revolutions, that nasty insect backed right out of my side on its own. Success! It was an odd strategy and it worked brilliantly.

In conclusion, I’m here to cheer on your weird tastes, odd ideas, and intuition. Trust your gut, joy, and passion. If you choose a viewpoint or action that’s off the beaten path but feels good to you, you’re headed in the right direction. Trust those left turns, and have fun on the ride.

What odd ideas or choices do you need to embrace?