woman standing on a road contemplating her next step divine detour

Divine Detours

in Purpose and Fulfillment,Soul Alignment by Ronda Renée

Can you say “Plot Twist?!?!?!!?” Divine detours naturally bring with them unexpected twists and turns. You know the old adage “we make plans; God laughs?” This is often how we experience a Divine Detour.

A while back, I happened to be catching up with a past client turned friend, Michelle, and like many of us she has had some unexpected developments arise in her journey over the years. At the time she was actively moving toward a change in her life but had discounted the possibility of working in the profession she had experience in. She felt she was ready to try something new. Out of the blue, she got a call from a recruiter with what appeared to be her dream job in her dream geographic location. But it was not at all what she had planned!

That’s the nature of Divine Detours… you might feel it’s simply when god messes with your plans but there’s so much more to a divine detour meaning. While we can initiate change in our lives, divine detours are generally going to have a level of the unexpected and unpredictable. While things not going according to plan can be labeled a disappointment in that you didn’t get what you hoped for or get where you planned, as in Michelle’s case, in the end, a divine detour will always get you more than you could have hoped for.

The Purpose of Divine Detours

A Divine Detour meaning is multifaceted.There are some great gems that can come out of things not going “according to plan.” Which one of these divine detours results is your Soul offering you?

You get to practice a new level of self-mastery. If only true self- mastery were a “one and done” kind of experience. In actuality, you will repeatedly be given opportunities to demonstrate new levels of self-mastery. Even when you have done a lot of “work” and believe you have overcome certain patterns, tendencies and pitfalls, when things don’t go according to plan you have an opportunity to put your newly accessed level of self mastery into action on the playing field.
You get to experience (or stretch) your own capacity. Let’s face it; your comfort zone is comfortable. But we can’t grow there. We only grow by being stretched. Expanding your capacity ensures you are going somewhere you’ve never gone before. And being able to expand your capacity is the best way to be able to navigate anything life throws at you. And the only way to expand your capacity is to come up against our edge then move past it.
You get to clarify what you really want and what’s really in alignment with your Soul. Very often even when you’ve been given a divine detour opportunity, you discover that what you were going after didn’t bring you the fulfillment you had hoped it would. Before you charge forward and try to force your original plan, take a pause and feel into if where you are heading is truly in alignment with your Soul. Unexpected developments are often course corrections in disguise. Don’t miss your Divine Detour!

You learn to trust yourself. Self-trust is one of your most valuable assets. It doesn’t mean that you never make a mistake or you are never uncertain. It means that in every situation you can trust yourself to take care of yourself. Rather than being at the affect of your circumstances you know that you are always in command of your experience. It is only by stepping into the unknown that you learn to completely trust yourself.

You learn to trust the universe. When you let go of control and allow yourself to be guided, you begin to understand that the universe is always looking out for you. When we hold on and try to control the outcome we create suffering for ourselves. If you resist where your divine detour is leading you, it can be very painful. Alternatively, when you learn to trust the universe to guide you to exactly where you need to be, you can experience the shifting sands of life with so much more ease!

Your mind gets creative. If you always have a safety net or a fallback plan you never have to rise to the challenge to figure out how to handle things. As uncomfortable as it sounds – and feels! – it is only when our back is against the wall that we’re forced to come up with the most unique and creative solutions available to us. You are much more resourceful and resilient than you give yourself credit for!

You become (or hopefully remain) humble. Anything that can be taken from you is not essential. This is a hard one to embrace for many. Nothing external to you defines who you are, denotes your value or proves your worth. Be it people, possessions or profession; nothing but your truest essence is actually essential. They are nice to have but you really can live without them. When these things are taken from you, it often makes you very humble. It also makes it very clear what is truly important in life. Divine detours can offer us the opportunity to reorient ourselves to this truth.

You cultivate a renewed sense of gratitude. Building on that last point, people, possession and professions will come and go over the duration of your lifetime. As circumstances change and life evolves, the landscape of your life will revise itself again and again. Our opportunity is to learn to appreciate their presence without grasping when you have them and bless them when they are gone.

You eventually surrender to a vision greater than your own. For years I have joked that my job is to “listen and obey.” The recovering control freak in me hates this concept! But time and again I have seen that when we are taking our prompts from our Soul and from the Universe, we are always protected, safe and exactly where we need to be in the moment. And whenever I start to think I am in charge I quickly get reminded that there is a force greater than myself at work in my life helping to ensure that in the end you are fulfilling your purpose.

You learn that you can never really know where you are ultimately headed. Adding on to the previous point, who am I to believe that from the limited awareness of my conscious mind (reported to be about 5% versus the 95% of the subconscious mind!). The truth is we can never really know where we’ll end up. Sure, we can point in a direction and head that way but the minute we think we know exactly how things are going to turn out chances are we are actually limiting ourselves and what could be. This is one of the absolute best gifts of divine detours!

And finally…. You can never really be off path. You can never really be off path. Here’s the best news of all. As I like to say to my Divine Navigation clients “you can’t be late to your own party!” Even when it looks like a divine detour is taking you off path, you aren’t actually off path. Either you are directly headed where you are meant to go or you have taken a side street because you have something you need to pick up, learn or release in order to get to where you are ultimately meant to go and become the person you are ultimately meant to be. More often than not when you feel you are being knocked “off” path you are really being knocked “on” it!

Which of these selfmastery upgrades offered by divine detours are at work for you at this time? I’d love to hear! Along the way, be sure to make the most of every unexpected twist and turn that comes with your divine detours and you are always fulfilling your divine purpose! Here’s to the journey; surprises and all!