For my ninth birthday, my mother took me and my girlfriends to see the movie “The Sound of Music.” I loved imagining myself skipping through alpine meadows or waltzing in Christopher Plummer’s arms. The scene that really stayed with me, though, was of the Mother Superior telling the frightened young Maria that she could not use the convent as a place to hide from her life’s challenges. She must “clinb every mountain, forge every stream, follow every byway, till you find your dream,” even if it meant leaving the holy walls of the convent.

In my twenties, as it became clear that my life’s journey would be in the vehicle of Sikh Dharma, I remembered those words. They came to me as I struggled to let go of being ‘good’ or ‘right’ in order to be real and whole. Fortunately for me, at several critical junctures, there was an astute psychotherapist or coach or other wise counselor, who would not let me hide from the frightful parts of myself that I needed to integrate in order to be whole as well as holy.

My journey is far from over. May I and everyone who seeks to live the truth have the courage and the self-kindness to accept genuine care and guidance along the way.