Inner Guidance

29 June 2009 — aristomenes

Inner guidance is the trump card of the healer/transformer. Without it, transformation becomes more difficult than need be and really can only go so far. One of the symptoms any transformer faces is the sense they get at some point that they are alone. There may be information and supporting others, but that support only goes so far, and most transformers in fact feel more opposition than anything resembling support. Transformers are usually tempted at every turn to “get with the program” and “cope”, and those closest to them may even convey that if they don’t “normalize”, something is wrong with them.

In other words, life often seems to send transformers messages contradicting the impulses and drives within them. If this were not so, everyone would be whole. What a transformer realizes at some point is that they, and even other transformers, are not the only ones in need of inner healing. The world at large is fragmented, wounded and distorted in more ways than we can count, and everyone is more or less, in one way or another, in the same boat. The difference with transformers is that they have a such a strong sense of the need to heal and become more than they seem to be that a “normalized” lifestyle is intolerable. This is independent of culture and social/financial status, gender, belief system and even age. The need is within and the degree of its force depends on the person’s disposition. The degree and form of resistance one encounters, however, depends on variables such as those described above. Those variables are the boxes in which we find ourselves and that define qualify our very lives.

Our desire for something more or different tends to defy those parameters. If they are exceptionally strong, however, they may present serious blocks before the desire to realize/actualize our internally sensed potentials can be pursued with commitment. A starving peasant, for example, will look to feed their hungry belly and that of their family before they worry about further horizons. A relatively well-off single individual will usually seek to fulfill emotional needs, and establish interpersonal relationships to fill the void in their life, before considering that void may go deeper than they think. This is not the rule. For a few the urge to transcend the conditions of life is stronger than physical and emotional needs pursued by most people. Belief systems can enter the picture as well, and draw the individual with their promises of salvation, be they political, economic or religious/spiritual ideologies.

The individual who either prioritizes their inner urge to transform beyond established possibilities, or who has realized one or more of those options and has been left disillusioned, will be left standing at a precipice through their rejection of society’s options. They cannot go back, but they don’t have a clue where any forward motion will take them. At that point the only definition of  “forward” for the individual is probably restricted to ”anything other than going back”. Some freeze in place, going through the motions of their lives, but wishing things were different. Such people may soon discover that this is torture. Normalized society is seriously lacking for them, and those representing society for the would-be transformer can sense this and confront the individual. The “voices of reason” may point out that the individual is not committed enough to the ways and means considered proper and well-adjusted.

Often the would-be transformer can’t even explain themselves, or is afraid to do so for fear of seeming abnormal or “troubled” in some way. If they do complain they may be pressured to take “medication” to “correct” the problem. Or they may end up self-medicating in legal or illegal ways, or trying to find some distraction to cover their unexpressed need. The point is they don’t know how to proceed or may not even know what “proceeding” means to them. For those of a more financially comfortable disposition (at least not starving peasants or refugees) the information age does help. Such people can search for what stimulates them, and they may find something inspiring leading to the inner growth they crave. Such individuals usually know the right information when they find it, or may have dreams that point them in a certain direction, or a chance encounter may ensue that changes their lives, or they may have a revelation or profound experience out of the blue.

The common element in all of this is that something deep inside takes over and stimulates the “next step” for the would-be healer. This “something” is a glimmer of the inner guidance that can become the great boon in their otherwise challenging lives. Inner guidance illuminates safe paths in what would otherwise be impenetrable darkness where society generally refuses to endorse possibilities. Inner guidance reveals hidden resources that can prove to be treasures along these paths. Inner guidance answers our questions and gives us the encouragement and confidence we cannot find anywhere else, not from friends, parents, children, lovers, professionals or even our chosen religious icons. Inner guidance is the loving, supporting and invisible arm that catches us when we stumble.

Yet, the paradox is that although we may seem to grow dependent on such guidance, we have nothing to fear in terms of losing our freedom. This is because the source of this guidance is ultimately our own being. Part of the process of healing and transforming is to make the initially still small voice of guidance stronger and more present until we recognize its true nature. Then increased recognition eventually leads to identification, and from there to further horizons of becoming. It’s ok to attribute this guidance to another source at first. Healers are primarily healers of themselves before anything else, which means they may not be ready to stand on their own or even in a position to recognize the possibility. In time the need to heal reflects the need to be free, and this will prompt a deeper recognition of the situation.

Their deeper being knows this, and does not push the issue. This deeper being never judges and never pushes unless that is the only option left, whereupon there will be prior warning. Even in those cases pushing comes because the individual wants to move forward, stuck as they feel themselves to be. In such cases the push is never more than one can handle. If one has a developing relationship with inner guidance, furthermore, they can communicate if they are truly ready to move on. They do not need to be a pawn of guidance, and guidance will make that point clear if they listen.

In short, guidance is a friend and more than a friend. It is a reflection of our potential even before we realize, let alone actualize it. There are two simple things we need to know to connect with inner guidance: 1) We must want it, intend it, choose it and stay receptive to it. 2) It speaks primarily through our feeling nature and intuition. It very rarely speaks in words, and when it does these are usually our own mind translating its nonverbal impulses. Sometimes it speaks through dreams or our visual imagination, and sometimes through a distinct sense of intuitive knowing. Yet always it’s presence is encouraged when we honor our feelings over our reason.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, limiting and conditioned impulses are those that hijack our verbal and cognitive faculties. Judgments are expressed in terms of internal dialogue, and even reasoned out in ways hard to argue. To use a religious analogy, our guardian angel tends to sit in our holistic right brain, and our advocate devil on our analytic and verbal left brain. This doesn’t mean our verbal faculties should be demonized. It is simply the result that all our lives we have been told what to do to the extent that even when we try to resist the voice of conditioned authority we react in the same thinking manner. The good news is that as the healer moves to trust their inner guidance and by proxy their own feelings, the verbal and reasoning aspect is slowly reclaimed. Our choices make sense, and we increasingly see the illogic of marching to the beat of the same imprisoning drummer, who all the more seems to be the pied piper leading lemmings over the cliff.

Describing elaborate techniques to connect with inner guidance is beyond the scope of this article. If the reader applies the two principles mentioned, inner guidance will manifest consciously over time, sooner or later. Methods, after all, simply elaborate upon these principles and formalize them in a structured or unstructured manner. You can, for example, sit and relax for ten minutes every day taking slow and even breaths. In these ten minutes you can focus on your heart and imagine a seat there. You can imagine also a shaft going to a point a few inches above your head, and further imagine a golden light there. Remember all the times you felt safe, secure, protected, trusting. If you can’t, simply imagine what that would be like, and aspire for a presence that would lead you to feel that way. If you have always relied on yourself and are uncomfortable with trusting anything or anyone else, simply imagine a part of you that you haven’t noticed before, something at a distance with more experience, wisdom and capacity to guarantee your safety, and simply know it is in and of that golden light.

Now that your imagination has set the stage, fill it with your desire for guidance. Remember, this is not some “entity” or outsider. It may not be the you you recognize yet, but it is of you, a friend that is more than a friend. an advisor, even a coach of sorts. Desire and choose it to be so, and know that your choice is sacred here. Nothing other than true guidance can come. Even if it did, you would know it because it would not be in agreement with your feelings. That is why the second principle, placing feelings uber alles is important. It is your safety net among other things. So as you imagine all of the above, call this light with your desire, aspiration and intent. Feel your sense of self sitting at the throne of your heart and call this light to fill that self. Guidance is not taking your throne. It cannot because you cannot take over yourself. So it is always you sitting there, and this light simply infuses and increases your own presence.

The next step is to simply receive, meaning listen with all your being for five minutes. Listen with your feelings, not your ears, but still listen. Then take a deep breath and go about your day. Simple as that. Guidance will come usually when you least expect it because initially expectation can be supported by judgment and hinder the process. It may need time to sink in. But even as you go about your day you can refer back to that golden light above your head, which is always there, like an angel’s halo. It may even be that religious iconography meant to depict this guidance with its halo imagery. The point is, encourage the happening gently. Then listen to your feelings, your gut, your heart, your intuition. They’re all manifestations of the same sense. In time you will recognize something is there, even if it may seem just that you realize the “obvious” where you didn’t before.

Guidance is a part of us and always has been. We simply have been discouraged since a very young age (or most of us at least) to ignore it in favor of other more imposing voices that have since taken up residence within our minds. At some point the healer realizes that these voices need to be deposed from their thrones, and will recognize them as the naked strutting emperors that they are. Then the true heir will be free to take sole residence with its most trusted advisor and friend: the guidance that is none other than the other side of our own emerging wholeness.

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Inner Growth

22 June 2009 — aristomenes

It happens all the time, inner growth does. It’s as natural as breathing, and it can be argued that it is as important to our living as breathing is to our survival. Inner growth is, in fact, about living. It’s not exclusively about going anywhere or doing anything or becoming something, although those aspirations are usually an important part of it. Inner growth is about making the most of the ongoing present moment, and that includes taking past and future into account each in different ways. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? We are always here and now, so why worry about it? I’m reminded of a friend who used to rag on me about my philosophical mind-set. In his drunker moments he would slosh beer around and characteristically slur: “Why are you wasting your time on that crap? Life is just what it is! Just live it!”

For some of us, however, this is easier said than done. It seems it shouldn’t be. For many life is usually set with lists of what’s proper/normal/acceptable. We are rarely spared the list of “worthy” goals (whether we fulfill that list or not). Fulfilling this list is supposed to make us happy. Things like money, career, family, good sex and an abundance of the basics for an acceptable standard of material and social living are what any normal person should want. If they want more, there is religion and a few good books, right? In other words, no matter what our origins or individual wants there is always enough to keep us busy from cradle to grave. Some even say that fulfilling any society’s acceptable standards is inner growth. Then our peers are happy, our family is happy, our mates are happy, even our god or goddess is happy. Why shouldn’t we follow the trend? However, some of us may have noticed that the last question is usually posed not as a question, but as a demand. I think that in itself should make anyone suspicious.

It’s one thing to allow for others to have their standards so we may maintain our own, and quite another when those standards are more of an enforced obligation than they present themselves to be. In other words, anyone who is not happy with society’s standards is in some way treated as if that is wrong, and sometimes even punished in no uncertain terms if they push to manifest their convictions, even though nobody is hurt by that. Living your life, on the other hand, as your own being knows you should is living. Anything else is just surviving, and any DNA system does that anyway.

So one thing our impulse toward inner growth does is challenge us to shift from a survival mode (bare bones basic, or dressed up and “civilized”) into something more alive, which implies also something more free. True living is, in fact, true freedom and true freedom is true living. What is so paradoxical about this is that freedom is valued by all species that bear live young in some way. Lock any mammal in a zoo and you will notice their behavior changes. They get depressed, or aggressive and they don’t mate easily. Some die. I read about a study once, comparing animals in zoos with humans in cities, and human beings in general. Lots of similarities there. I would go so far as to say that society itself can be like a kind of great zoo, only there don’t seem to be any visitors. It’s food for thought anyway…

The impulse to inner growth is always a force in our lives. That force never goes away, although it can be suppressed and denied. It happens even if our lives go to pot, because going to pot means cages are rattled and sometimes even collapse. Indeed we can get buried when our cages collapse, and sometimes we suffer for the insanity of those with bigger cages or cages with more ruthless or uncontrollable occupants. Without inner growth, however, life would be so profoundly meaningless, even survival would not be able to sustain it. We are simply not structured for just surviving. We must live and we must grow. The present moment is a treasure house that we must access, own and embody, and if we don’t we survive…maybe. Survival, however, is for cockroaches and bacteria. It is not for people. Yet people are clever and have found ways and means to defy their urge for inner growth.

Why they (we) do so is a far more involved question than may appear on the surface. Cliche answers like “we are scared” or “we are selfish” or “its just human nature” are either insufficient, simplistic or insulting and they never really help. I believe some of us sense that. Some of us cannot outsmart ourselves and “get with the program”. Survival for its own sake, and even with all the trappings of social “normality” is anathema, practically toxic to us. We yearn for a freedom we often cannot even describe for the naysayers and “well-intentioned” skeptics who confront us about it.

Following the beat of our peers is never enough. Revolting against our peers only to seek the same old same old versions of normalcy through radical and maybe ruthless means is not enough. Being in control is not enough. Being accepted and loved is not enough. Being in the lap of luxury is not enough. The problem is that we may not know these things are not enough until we get there, usually after much trial and tribulation. It doesn’t mean all these things are wrong or harmful in themselves, although I would certainly say some are. What they have in common is that they leave us high and dry, as if life is one of those lovers who takes care of their self and then leaves us in the lurch, listening to the durge of their complacent snoring.

By accumulating and accumulating experiences, acquisitions, friends or whatever we can end up thinking there is nothing that can satisfy us or that we are insatiable. I think the issue is far simpler: we are placing the cart before the horse. We are seeking acceptance when we lack self acceptance. We are seeking material prosperity under conditions that force us to deny our inner wealth. We are under the impression that we must sacrifice our selves for our families. We are limited where it counts and forced to invest apart from our interest. We are, in short, diverted to building elaborate houses on flimsy foundations.

It sounds crazy, but if you think about it, the resistance of others and our selves to our inner growth is like a demand that houses are built on sand, like making foundation-building criminal. We even have a word for this accusation against foundation building that can only occur by prioritizing what goes on within us as opposed to what happens outside of us: selfishness. This is a different kind of selfishness than the callous lack of empathy and compassion permeating societies since time immemorial. That kind of selfishness is actually applauded behind the scenes, although frowned upon in public. That kind of selfishness seeks the trappings of survival, no matter how elaborate and dressed up as these may be, with terms like fame, fortune, success and living the dream. It is the other kind of selfishness that is seen as an “eccentric” quirk at best, but can easily be treated like a contagious disease as far as most people are concerned.

Yet, the word “selfish” is a misnomer. Self-ish, is something that mimics selfhood, an impostor of it, a caricature of the real thing. The focus on what goes on within us that some call “selfish” should really be called selfness. After all, we are trying to be real and our own self is as real as we can get. For any rational human being, this should be obviously something worthwhile. Being real means having access to what is really fulfilling and acting in a way that matters. Being unreal is insane, to the point some of us cannot shake the conviction that what most of society considers as normal or at least “part of life”, the good and the bad, is nothing short of insanity. So we seek to grow out of it, and by growing out of it we seek to be free to be who we are. The point is that we cannot grow unless we start from where life is real, here and now at the ground zero of our own being, who we are, how we feel, what we want truly and without excuses and compromises.

And yet it is not really about getting or becoming, and not about a process from a past to a future, but about the real now moment that is constantly renewing itself. We are not just in this moment, we are it, and cultivating its possibilities is where fulfillment starts and where it ultimately ends up. That may sound a bit mystical or otherworldly, but its not. It’s here and now, and this is the great teacher, the ground where we may build our foundation toward living no matter how we choose to do this living. If the foundation is real so are we, and if we are real we don’t have to worry about doing it the “wrong” way.

Inner growth, for me, is about realizing and actualizing our being real. Living for me is about being real. I think this includes everything we may think will make us happy and many things we haven’t even imagined yet. But if we are true to what we sense within, we will imagine them, and know they are our promised treasure.
If we can imagine, we can aspire. If we can aspire, we can realize. We can have the pie and eat it too, because that is what being real is all about. And that is the great challenge for anyone driven toward conscious and self motivated inner growth. It is to recognize that reality is not a matter of democratic vote and majority opinion, but starts right here within, at ground zero, the foundation, the here and now, me and you.

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