Trusting Our Bodies, Trusting Ourselves… Finding Peace
If there is one thing a person could do that could change their entire existence and how they see the world, it is to learn to listen and trust the innate wisdom of their body and their inner voice. That part inside of us all that speaks to us whenever we get a “good feeling” or a “bad feeling” about something. Have you ever walked into a room and something inside you told you to turn around a leave? Was there ever a time when you first met someone and you felt as if you could just talk to them for hours and tell them anything? That is intuition. Now, have you ever ignored that voice inside and regretted it? The easy road is to follow what others are doing or what we are to to do. What can be difficult is to listen deeply to what is inside and follow our truth. It isn’t easy at first. If you are not used to doing so, you may think you aren’t hearing anything or worse, what you hear sounds wrong. Unless you have a serious chemical or hormonal imbalance, you probably are hearing your own inner voice, your gut instinct, your heart, your inner guide. We have been conditioned to not only ignore that guidance, but also to suppress or even medicate it with legal or illegal drugs. We are taught to override what our intuition says and to overthink events, experiences, and our choices. Yet, it is what has gotten us to survive and eventually thrive as a species. Our inner voice has been replaced with outside interferences. The time has come to regain our connection to that inner voice.
When I work with people, on or off of the table, one of the questions I ask is, “What does your intuition say?” Some eyes stare back with a blank expression. “What do you mean?” or “I don’t know,” are some of the remarks I get back. “How can I learn to listen…” or “How can I trust what I hear?” are also queries many people have in response. These are complex questions to answer and yet so simple in nature to experience. The hang up is a programming that has been instilled in each of us. Each reprogramming is an individual path that takes time. Once that programming has been eliminated, the act is one of our most basic of natures. As individuals and as a society, a training has taken place over a very long period of time; to deny who and what we are - innately intelligent beings. A conditioning is taught that we are born as sinners or imperfect beings. Of course we are imperfect, we are human. Mistakes are made, lessons are learned, and we build from there; pressing boundaries and asking questions along the way to assess the environment we live in. When we take the time to be aware of the circumstances surrounding the mistakes we make, forgive ourselves and others who may be involved, when compassion and love are at the background supporting us, we will be nurtured to grow. We evolve into better people than those who have taught us. That is the ideal.
What makes things so difficult is the judgements we make on ourselves. Compassion and forgiveness are keys to a door that our society has tried very hard to bolt shut. The locks are accumulating at a a rapid pace. The irony is that we all hold the keys to unlock that door. Forgiving ourselves, or someone else who makes the mistake, is the biggest power we have to opening the door that is the roadblock to creating a peaceful and fulfilling life. Letting go of regret and shame heals us. Some consider it a weakness. If it were, it would be easy to do. It is anything but. Think about it… What is easier, sitting on the couch and watching your favorite program on TV with a bag of chips or getting up and exercising then cooking a wholesome meal to strengthen and nourish yourself. Exactly. Forgiveness is difficult. Listening is difficult. Responding as opposed to reacting is difficult. The reason is because we are taught from an early age in our society that it is easier to blame others for our suffering. Why do you think there are so many lawyers? (No offense to you hard working attorneys trying to do the right thing.) Taking responsibility for your own actions, reactions, and perceptions is the mature thing to do. It is not easy. Not much worthwhile is. Funny thing though, once you start taking responsibility and letting go of blaming, shaming, and hating, life just gets sweeter and more peaceful. Love flows in like a waterfall washing away all that doesn’t serve in your life. Light shines where darkness covered up fears of the unknown.
This is great! What does it have to do with listening to your inner voice and trusting your gut instincts? I’m getting there. Stick with me…
From my own life experience and the lives I am blessed to have in my practice, these challenges are universal. They are the hardest to overcome. It is the ultimate wall to climb. I know people who have completed Ironman competitions, endured horrible childhoods whose experiences would make your skin crawl, and clients who have suffered severe injuries that have left them in chronic, constant pain, even a woman who cured herself of cancer with her sheer will (and lifestyle changes). The hardest thing they have ever had the good fortune to overcome was letting go of anger, hate, and shame then forgiving those who hurt them AND forgiving themselves for whatever they felt they were responsible for in inflicting pain or suffering on others and even their own being. Compassion and forgiveness is the ultimate super power! If we cannot forgive, we cannot trust. If we cannot trust, we cannot connect. If we cannot connect, we lose our ability to truly listen to what is going on inside of ourselves and others we care about. This end result is the epitome of our loss in our connection to our high power (God, Spirit, Universal Force).
That is the downfall to society. Individuals see themselves as isolated islands, disconnected from a world that may want to do them harm. If I work from home, buy my groceries online, and receive all of my entertainment through a computer of TV screen (which shows us what we already believe), nothing can get to me. We stop being a part of each other. Hostility and resentment pervade, distrust and a sense of vulnerability start to grow, real love becomes harder to experience, fear becomes the prevailing emotion. Our society has already been living in a state of fight or flight for decades. Stress is the number one cause of disease in our country. The world used to be a collective of small villages working together to raise children, feed each other from the land with it abundance of natural resources, fend off predators or rival villages on occasion, migrate according to the Earth’s many cycles. Now we are a global economy containing individuals enslaved to objects and large conglomerates that tell us how many steps we need to take and how many pharmaceutical drugs we need to be on, provides us with artificial environments that make us weaker (and more disconnected) to the environment, and feeding our children artificial food and wondering why they have health and attention span issues. The process has only taken about 15,000 years. The last 5000 years have exponentially shifted us into more disconnect. The last 120 years have been a quantum leap of driving head first towards a new religion of high tech and toxic corporate ideals that are poisoning our mother Earth and all that live upon her.
There is nothing wrong with how connected we are as as a globe. Democracy and capitalism are amazing concepts that have educated the masses, freed disenfranchised races, and opened opportunities for more equality on every level, once we started getting our heads out of our asses. Unfortunately, there is corruption underlying every level of our government, education, and healthcare system (since the dawn of civilization). But this is another topic for another time. The point is, none of this promotes trust, compassion or connection. It has lead us to where we are today; fearful, suspicious, and divided. There is but one cure…
Individual responsibility.
See, I told you we’d get there.
At this point, there is no going back to the simple life. Unless severe catastrophic events push us back… What we can heal is ourselves. We can take individual responsibility for our own actions, reactions, and perceptions. Stop blaming others for where you are. Look at your situation and see where you are a part of the result. How can you move into a space of health and wholeness? Who can you ask for help in getting there? What can you let go of to allow the change to happen. Nothing shifts without action. Sometimes that action is big, sometimes that action is just waiting for things to settle. It is hard to see through a sand storm. Better to let a storm pass. Look around and respond to the circumstances. There is a difference between reacting and responding.
Listen deeply… Connect… Respond.
Convenience, artificial environments, and total autonomy has a cost. True community. Not the kind of social media community that we can friend on common interests like hobbies, charities, political parties, or civil stances. Communing on an interwoven relationship with everything and everyone. This level of connection is truer, deeper, healthier, and sustainable for everything and everyone involved. The debt in losing this or not investing in it is a price we cannot afford anymore.
A global community that allows for everyone to invest in each other in a connected and respectful way is the best of what we can accomplish. Living in a world where Love is God (or your other titles that feel good), compassion and respect are Mother and Father, and when we make mistakes we are to submit to the institution of reflection and forgiveness (out early on parole for digging deeper in your dirt). Everything else in between takes care of itself. Which means we take care of each other. The reason being, that when we take care of each other, we are also taken care of.
Energy is everywhere, everything is energy, and it’s all connected! Tech energy, money energy, health energy, primal energy, mental and spiritual energy… It’s all the same! It’s all connected. When we connect to ourselves and each other, when we listen without judgement, empathize with our fellow beings, forgive our misgivings, and move forward from there with love in our hearts, we heal, grow, and evolve to a higher frequency. It doesn’t matter what has happened to you, or where you come from, how old or young you are, how much money you make, your state of health or disease, or how many likes you get on social media. Any and all of us are capable of doing this. We are all capable of finding that inner peace that resides in all of us innately. We each have our own path to peace. No one can tell us how to get there. There is no “one way” or right or wrong way. We can go on the adventure and discover it ourselves with others’ help guidance. Ultimately, we are the ones that tread through our wounds, look with compassion, forgive, and find peace.
Get quiet and listen…
This all starts with the individual. Like in Sting’s song, All This Time, “Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one.” Start with yourself. Start with your breath. This is how I teach people to start to listen to their inner voice. Breath is a constant. It flows whether we pay attention to it or not. Breath is the only bodily function that we can control or let it do its thing on it’s own. It is voluntary and involuntary. Breath is a major influencer of so many of our other bodily functions. Use this to focus you mind on. Use it to scan up and down your body. It is like a decoder in a child’s mystery book. It can unveil so much information about what is going on inside of you. It can heal so many diseases if paid deeply attention to.
Sit back. Take several deep breaths in and out. Bring it in fully, as deep as you can without causing more stress. Exhale deeply, as deep as you can without causing more stress. Get a sense of where the breath goes in your body. Where can you feel it? Is there discomfort? Relief? What comes to your mind when you inhale? Exhale? Let your breath be in its natural state. Observe it as it flows in and out. Stay with this activity for as long as feels good. Close your eyes if that feels good. Practice this a couple of times a day in a quiet place and you will start to hear what is going on inside of you. Do it for longer and longer periods of time and you will master the language of your inner voice. Before you know it, you’ll have set a mindfulness practice that will only benefit you as you move through your life.
Clarity, ideas, and peace in the body, mind, and spirit will eventually permeate your daily life. Try it. What do you have to lose? What do you have to gain? This is an investment in you. The profits are exponential. The result… priceless.
( If overwhelming emotions or memories start to come up, seek a qualified, licensed, professional. This is where guidance is important. It’s your path and you don’t have to walk it alone.)
