True Inner Guidance
How can we know the difference between true inner guidance and wishful thinking?
Shall we throw the cat amongst the pigeons and tell you that there is no difference! What we hear you asking is this: “When I get an idea to do something, how do I know it is the right thing to do?” Perhaps this is based on your past experiences of things not turning out the way you expected them to. Let us first deal with that subject.
When things don’t turn out the way you want them to, so many of you have become accustomed to telling yourself that ‘it was never meant to be’, or you say ‘the Universe has other plans for me’. We are not talking of things that are unimportant to you, but of things that you have truly wanted and have not come to fruition. As we have said before, your feelings are your best friends, and in this way, wishful thinking and inner guidance are one and the same. For when you think of what you want and begin to align with your inner sense of joy at the idea of having, or doing, or being that thing, your Inner Self begins immediately to bring that thing to you. You receive inspiration, and you are encouraged with good and positive feelings that energise you.
In your day-to-day life you have decisions to make concerning business, or what road to take on your journey home. Tuning into your feelings is the best way to practice sensing and acting upon inner guidance. Through daily ‘checking in’ to your feelings, you will gradually become so aware of your inner guidance that you will sense subtle changes concerning seemingly unimportant things. You see, your soul wishes you a life of joy, love, abundance, good health, and happiness, and it seeks to steer you in those directions through all of your waking hours. The litmus test for deciding if what you are thinking is ‘wishful thinking’ or inner guidance is to sense your feelings. If you cannot sense your feelings, or define them, then sense your breathing. Your breathing, the physical manifestation of the drinking in of life force energy, is reactive to your emotions, even very subtle ones.
Sit quietly and think of a decision you want to make, even a seemingly unimportant choice between two holiday destinations. Imagine yourself, let’s say, in Greece, and then imagine yourself in Spain. What happens to your breathing? No difference between the two? If that is the case, define what you are looking for and how you would like to enjoy your holiday time. Your Greater Self already knows the opportunities and conditions in both places. Once you have defined what it is you want, imagine yourself again in both places. The picture that summons the more expanded, easier, fuller breaths is the place to go, for your soul is telling you that that place is more perfectly in line with what you want. For those of you who have difficulty in knowing what you are feeling, observation of your breathing is an excellent place to start. If this exercise is too subtle for you, visualise those things that are less related to one another. For example, imagine doing something that you don’t like doing, and watch your breathing. Then imagine doing something that you love to do, and feel the difference! This is your own built-in Yes/No mechanism!
Wishful thinking is what we encourage. Stretch your imagination, visualise all the possibilities and do not limit yourself. You can have what you want, and your Greater Self wants you to have it!
You said to just do what feels good to us. Taking drugs feel good, so should we ignore the consequences?
When we speak of ‘feeling good’, we do not speak of the momentary elevated feelings of excitement that a person may feel when stealing a handbag, or doing any other things that stimulate chemical reactions in the body. This kind of ‘feeling good’ is temporary, as are the effects of drugs. Those who are addicted to drugs, or those who are engaged in other kinds of addictive behaviours, are not coming from a place of joy; they are coming from a place of lack. All addictions serve to try to fill a place that feels empty within that individual. Humans wrestle with two basic limiting beliefs: “I am powerless” and “I am not loved”. Drugs and behaviours that heighten the senses seek to deaden the inner feelings of loneliness and despair that many humans feel.
When we say, “Do what feels good”, we are talking about joyous adventure. When you embark upon joyous adventure, your heart is open and you are like a child, ready to embrace new possibilities in all that you encounter. Drug taking, for the most part, seeks to deaden negative feelings, and therefore is an action that springs forth from lack, not from joy. When you pursue that which makes you feel good, you are more open to the flow of creative energies. You feel enlivened, inventive, and enthusiastic about life, your future, and the people around you. Again, we repeat, do what feels good, for it is good for you!
How can people who have learned to struggle for things in life, turn that energy around and experience more joy without feeling that they are slacking off?
We see that the majority of you have inherited the belief that you must work hard for all that you have. This stems from your inner feeling of worthiness or lack thereof.
So many of you have such strong beliefs about worthiness, and although you are beginning to understand that each individual creates his or her own reality, you still hold onto strong judgements concerning worthiness. The Universe is totally impartial. It cares not whether you are a just person or an unjust person, and it cares not whether you are a hard-working person or a lazy person. The only thing the Universe responds to is your attention to a particular subject. If you feel that you must work hard in order to win other people’s approval, then that will be your experience. If two people were to win the lottery, one who was a grumpy man who never smiled, was always impolite and troublesome with his neighbours, and only cared about making money and lots of it—and he actually won a considerable sum—and the other was a hard-working single mother who hadn’t taken a holiday for several years, who viewed life as a struggle—and she only won the smallest prize, you would all scream, “That isn’t fair!” despite the fact that this is consistent with Universal law.
The Universe is impartial. You are creators; you create your own reality. Your reality is your choice. Your reality is your choice. Your reality is your choice! You don’t create some of it, you don’t create most of it, you create all of it. You choose your reality inasmuch as you choose to think the thoughts you are thinking and to feel the feelings you are feeling. You are beings of free will. Free will does not come in measured doses. You either have it, or you do not. So which is it to be?
If you, like many others, have been taught that it is noble to struggle, then cease doing so immediately. Ask yourself this question: What is the pay-off to living with struggle? So many of you belong to unspoken and unnamed clubs. Let us name them for you. There is the “Struggle and Debt Club”, the “Difficult Husband Club”, the “Nagging Wife Club”, the “My Parents Don’t Love Me Club”, the “I Am Wounded and Abandoned Club”, the “My Body Is Sick and Weak Club”. All these unspoken clubs, which many of you belong to, have a pay-off. You have developed a culture whereby you identify with others who have similar wounds and difficulties. These become your confidantes and your allies. Although there can be great value in this sort of comradeship, for there is much to learn from a mirror when it presents itself to you, what many of you fear is the loss of recognition, sympathy, love, and compassion when you finally rescind your membership of one of these clubs.
If you are struggling with a physical, emotional, or financial condition in your life, ask yourself this: What is the pay-off for me? What am I getting out of this? What decisions about my life would I need to make if this problem suddenly went away? Are my relationships based on being supported with this problem?
So many of you hold onto the very problem that you seek to rid yourself of because you fear the consequences of releasing it. Also, if a worldview, or an illness, or a financial condition has been in your experience for so long that it has literally become a part of you, it is interwoven in your energy. Then the fear arises that, if you release it, who are you? Once a condition becomes concretised in this way, becoming a part of you, it takes consistent choice on your part to create the new condition and belief you want to have. If there is something that you want that you do not already have, then you have not wanted it enough. All conditions exist because you allow them to. Are you ready to release struggle along with the belief that you are only deserving if there is struggle and hard work? Be honest with your answer and you will know instantly how to resolve the situation.
How do we stay centred when loved ones around us are experiencing pain and suffering?
You are creator, are you not? And is not the person who suffers pain also creator? As you acknowledge yourself and the other as creators of your experience, you as the observer of that suffering, and the other as the attractor of that suffering, then you will both be empowered. You see, pain and suffering are the way in which others call out to you for love.
Remember that it is your beliefs and thoughts that create circumstances. As you stand back and observe the suffering of another, ask yourself what this person needs to have believed about themselves in order to have attracted such circumstances? As you ask this, the answer will come, for you will have moved from pity, which incapacitates the one pitied, into compassion which empowers those who are challenged.
If you have a question, the answer is always love. When you understand that the other is making a request for love, you then have the opportunity to move into your own centre of love. At this point you become powerful and centred. Because you are sure of your own ability to create your experience, for you have chosen to move into love and compassion in the midst of suffering, you pass on that message to those who are suffering.
You see, suffering is relative. Let us relate a story of a young man. This young man had been tormented all of his life with deep feelings of grief that he could not express. When he was a young child his father died, and his mother remarried just months afterwards. She remarried a total of four times before he was 20, and it seemed to him that every year or two he had a new father, one who would leave, and then his mother would begin again with courting and dating. This left him angry, but above all in pain.
He never had much success in dating young women. All of them complained that he had no feelings, and they left him. He got to a stage in his life where he wanted to change, but did not know how. Therapy did not work for him because he had experienced violence at the hands of one or two of the surrogate fathers and so he had taught himself to be ‘strong’ and not to cry. His early childhood decision was not to feel. As he grew older he got more desperate, unable to express feelings, and also unable to find and keep a companion. Just as he was at the end of his tether, he had a serious motorbike accident that caused him to break both arms and both legs. He spent the next six weeks on his back, helpless in a hospital. No longer could he run away from his feelings into work, alcohol, or racing his bike. He had to face himself. Those who did not know him thought it was a tragedy. Those who knew him thought it was the best thing that could have happened.
When you observe suffering, we encourage you to remember not only that it is a call for love that is being made, but also ask to yourself how the suffering is serving that individual. If it were not serving that individual, it would not be in his or her life. As personalities and as souls, you only hold onto what works for you, and that includes suffering.
One of my spiritual goals is to embrace all that I can with unconditional love. How can I accept someone who behaves in ways that are offensive to me?
We delight at this question! Do you know that you are creator? That you are the attractor of all conditions into your life? As you determine something to be ‘offensive’, you are in the mode of resisting it, pushing against it. As you push against it, it launches itself into your experience, for that is where your attention is.
The Universe responds to attention. As you set the intention to embrace all with unconditional love, then your attention to that subject brings to the forefront all that is associated with it. The opposite of unconditional is conditional, is it not? So, as you set forth to create unconditional, the Universe makes clear to you all of the conditions you have in place that are blocking your experience of unconditional love, and this includes human behaviours you disapprove of.
If you were to set the intention of becoming more patient, everything to do with patience would then bubble up to the surface for you to release. What this means is that all that generally makes you impatient will be presented to you so that you may take the opportunity to release it forever. Have you not heard the saying? “Be careful what you ask for, for you may get it.” It brings a smile to us when we hear such questions, for we are then able to prove to you that you are indeed creator. That which you love glides into your reality and that which you judge marches in right along side it. Just as we have explained that each subject is actually two subjects, the positive aspect and the negative aspect, the same applies to all that you desire. If you want peace, you will need to release turmoil and anger. If you want abundance, thoughts of poverty will need to be transformed.
When the Master said, “Love your enemies,” he was referring to this process, for those whom you judge, hate, or condemn have come to show you yourself. They are your teachers!
Having said all of this, we tell you it is your right to determine your own boundaries and what is permissible in your own home. However, we advise you to remember that no one is in your life by accident; all is by design.