Inner messages: Where do they come from? How should we respond?
Did you ever wonder if a decision you are about to make is the right one or not?
How can you tell?
For most of us, even if we have a feeling about the future, we cannot predict its outcome with certainty. We don’t know whether to trust it or not. (Is this the guy I should marry? How come I get nervous around him? I then ask myself if this message is warning me of a poor decision, or actually taking me to my edge of growth on my evolutionary path.)
By being in tune with our life’s purpose, all manner of support and good fortune will follow us, actually seek us out. If we have a situation that throws a monkey wrench in our plans, we take this on as an opportunity for greater understanding, self-reflection, and growth. New perspectives and knowledge will come to us if we are open.
Being open means that we are listening. What are we listening to? A book entitled, Idiots Guide to Answering All Your Questions, by Dr. Know It All? Probably not.
What we need to listen to is ourselves: our hearts, minds and bodies. Our hearts tell us how we feel about something, and we’d better listen if we want to be true to ourselves.
Thoughts appear in our minds, good or bad, clear or confused. There is a message for us in each one.
Our bodies also tell us what might need attention. Pain and discomfort are just red lights. So, take a moment to stop, look and listen.
Our hearts, minds and bodies are all related. Just like our family. If one aspect is talking to us and we don’t listen, the issue will show up another way. At one point in my life I had to make a change in my own behavior, and the family dynamics smoothed out dramatically. My inner guidance was telling me that I’d better listen to my family members’ communication to me. Listening was my first giant step toward healing the issue within me and it paid off. As I changed my behavior, our family dynamics became infinitely better.
The field of psychology and psychiatry now acknowledge that there is an intimate mind-body connection. We all know by now, that if we are continually under mental stress and don’t do something major about it, we will begin to have physical and emotional symptoms. Digestive, heart and mental problems will most certainly arise. It is then necessary to deal with the symptom just to get along in life, but eventually, the cause must be addressed. So, if we begin to get a feeling that something is not right, we begin to feel afraid, we start to express inappropriate anger, we have negative thoughts that are not serving us, or we get sick in some way, we need to listen attentively.
What is our inner guidance, our intuitive nature telling us? First we listen to our heart, mind and body, and then we ask what is it trying to say. Take a look inside and acknowledge what is going on, no matter how scary it may seem. It is only scary because it is bringing up old memories of something that we have stored in our mind/body system that is scary – memories of abuse, real danger, pain, rejection.
We can’t change past circumstances, but we can change the emotional response to the events.
The question we now ask ourselves is: can we change these emotionally charged memories encoded in our brain, emotional body, and physiology so they don’t have a detrimental effect on us? Can we change what is stored in the limbic system of our brain that interprets all our experiences?
Absolutely. It is not by ignoring our symptoms and fears, but by acknowledging them, accepting them, and transforming them through a healing process such as The Empowerment Process.