How often do you discount your inner wisdom?
I’ve been a self-help junkie my entire life, always seeking something greater, something more profound – the meaning of life, perhaps? Sometimes I don’t even think I knew what I was looking for; I just kept exploring. I’m one of those deep-thinking-always-searching-travel-the-world-looking-for-an-answer types – maybe you can resonate; the that’s you too?
It always seemed to me that there must be something external I needed to change in order to be happier, more successful, more fulfilled, and ‘enough’ of a person.
I grew up feeling low confidence, with a sense of abandonment, resulting in me being a person who often strived to over-achieve – to be a better friend, a better colleague, a better daughter, a better wife – probably so that I was good enough so that no one would leave me.
I forever judged myself on what others thought of me; how far I met their expectations – or didn’t! One day, I got ill; suffering Chronic Fatigue, I was left burned out from running around trying to be the best version of myself. And, so I then endeavored to be better at fixing my illness. I traveled the world learning about well-being – from Stonehenge to Bali – so that I could help myself and others to recover.
It’s an Inside-Out Job – and You Don’t Need Fixing
What I didn’t realize, at the time, was that I was ill because I was, at times, though I wasn’t perfect enough.
I had never stayed still and dived into how life works, and how I dance with it through my thinking and feeling.
For all the self-help books I had devoured, I was still none-the-wiser about my thinking and habits.
I knew a load about yoga, meditation, essential oils, homeopathy, and affirmations but what I now know is that external things – for example forcing positive thinking, changing my environment, or trying to be ‘more’ of something – are not where the answers lie.
What I was doing was continually looking to the external, instead of looking within, which is where I came to find my truth.
Listen to Yourself: The Power is Within
I never fully understood the phrase ‘look within’ and then, one day, someone asked me: “but are you hearing yourself?”
I still had no idea what that meant, but these days it has become as clear as anything. What I had always done was look to ‘change’ – and, in doing so, I forgot my innate power.
Instead of ‘forcing positivity,’ for example – which simply served to suppress my truth – I realized I could have been curious about the thinking and feelings underneath the forcing.
What emotions was I avoiding?
I’d spent so long running around filling my life with being ‘better’ that I had forgotten to hear my feeling and desires, and I was living my life for what I thought others wanted of me. It felt like I’d temporarily forgotten my power.
In forever searching for an answer to how to ‘fix’ myself to be ‘better,’ I had ignored the fact that I wasn’t broken in the first place – and what even was ‘better’ anyway?
So Here’s How Life Works…
Along with my self-inquiry journey (when I started listening to myself a bit closer), I heard something different, from a teacher called Sydney Banks, which profoundly shifted something within my consciousness. I began to understand something quite amazing about how life works.
- Understanding Life Via Thought in the Moment
What I heard was this: “we are constantly living in the feeling of our thinking at any moment.”
What this means is that our entire reality is created by our thoughts alone. In this way, we only ever see who we think we are because our whole life is made up via our thinking at the moment. Not anyone else’s, just ours. Because I often ‘thought’ I wasn’t enough and needed to be ‘more,’ I ended up feeling my reality as those things. However, our thinking isn’t real, and it isn’t permanent; it just feels it, because our feelings come from our thinking.
The thing is, we aren’t who we think we are. I thought I was a friend, a colleague, a daughter, a wife. I thought I had low confidence; I thought I was abandonable. I thought I was ill. But: I wasn’t any of those external things!
In truth, my constant striving to be better had nothing to do with the rest of the world wanting me to be better, and everything to do with my feeling of being inadequate from my own ‘inadequate’ thinking.
In reality, I probably was enough for all of them, in their thinking; I just thought that I wasn’t sufficient, and so I responded from a place of not feeling enough. I wasn’t any of that: we are always enough, exactly as we are.
In my power, I could see that I was who I was underneath all the thinking about who I thought I was.
As I stepped more curiously into this, wisdom trickled into my consciousness like a stream of realization, uncovering layers of thinking that I’d always believed to be true, but weren’t.
I realized I was not the external and I wasn’t any of who I thought I was. And, so, for a minute, I freaked out and wondered “who the hell am I then?” – And then I saw more depth (phew!)… In my experience, when you hit against something scary, you’re always about to hit a breakthrough with something that resonates with you.
- We Are a Miraculously Perfect Greater Universal Energy
I’d always stayed curious about spirituality. When I came across this profound understanding of how life works, I heard again that we were all guided by, and part of, one universal energy. This made sense to me because I believe there is something mysterious at play, whether it be nature, energy, or religion – whatever energy means to you – there are just some things that haven’t been explained, but our wisdom can intuitively feel that. There is an innate intelligence that guides us through life.
The thing is, all you need to remember, is that this world is a miracle! I’m sure you’ll agree, right? And so, if we are part of this same energy, we too are miraculous beings!
All is a miracle.
When we were born, we were born into a perfect, whole, little, energetic human form. Then, we developed the fantastic power of thought. We are still that ideal energetic human form; we just forgot we were magical because we believed our temporary thinking, moment to moment!
Our experiences of life seemingly contribute to who we think we are; but, underneath all of that, we are who we were born – whole, perfect and complete. And underneath all of that is our connection to this greater energy.
We are everything that is underneath our thinking: wholeness and perfection.
We tend to forget the truth of who we are – we can’t remember our power. So, how do we go about ‘remembering’ it?
- It’s in the Non-Action of Letting Go: Undoing & Allowing
It’s easier than you think – and doesn’t involve any work, other than staying curious. When I heard this wisdom coming from within, it was as if I had found all the answers. Life suddenly made more sense.
I realized that I had spent so long ‘searching’ and ‘doing,’ and that it had not got me anywhere; but when I heard something different, I also tried something different – I let go…
The simple understanding allowed me to settle back into who I was, letting everything else that my mind had creatively decided I was to fall away. Just seeing all my thoughts for what they were – just thoughts that I should be ‘better,’ or ‘more,’ or that I ‘wasn’t enough,’ which masked the truthful energetic perfection underneath them – and letting them be there. Allowing them to flow through me like continually evolving and changing masses of energy, knowing that it was all part of the miraculous energy of life, helped me to allow my belief systems to drop away.
Why are you so enchanted by this world when a mine of gold lies within you? – Rumi
I’m not saying don’t travel the world, or don’t stay curious about life – if you love that as I do, then follow that beautiful feeling gifted by your intuition. What I’m saying is there is no action required. By just seeing our thinking as what it is – transient thought – and knowing it will pass, we allow it to have less power, and we step back into our truth; our wisdom.
In the place where ‘searching,’ ‘over-thinking’ and ‘trying to fix,’ once lived, there is beautiful space. Space for clarity. Space for our innate wisdom, which is always there underneath. And, it is in our wisdom where we remember our beauty.
Sharing this message with you comes from my wisdom – from my inner knowing of all of this to be true. It came from a place of the undoing of years of conditioned patterns of thinking, just by doing nothing but understanding how it all worked.
So, rather than trying to inquire about how to ‘fix’ your unbroken self, all you have to do is let go and stay curious to understanding the nature of life itself. That’s what I do now – I’m grounded back in my truthful inner purpose – gratefully sharing this wisdom with the world, helping people make sense of their lives, too!
Remember, you are always already in your power; welcome back!