Listening Part 4: Inner Guides
52 Weeks - Week 18
“You already know the answers. They’re within. Listen to your voice, your spirit, your inner guidance. It won’t lead you astray.” Live Purposefully Now
Inner guides are the guidance that is within you from the time you are born until you leave this life. These guides are the ones you made agreements with before you incarnated: to remind you of who you truly are when you constantly forget; to inspire you to greatness; to pick you up when you are down; and to do all the things you would expect of someone who loves you unconditionally. Your inner guides are as real as your own imagination, beliefs, feelings and knowing.
It can take a leap of faith to believe you have personal guides but think about all the other invisible and intangible things you believe in.
Inner guides take many different forms, depending on you and how you relate to the idea and its unfolding within your consciousness. They can appear as guardian angles, spirit beings, spirit animals, departed relatives or ancestors. Some have no form at all but are an inner voice, strong emotional feeling or bodily sensation.
I think our guides can be anything we want them to be.
They are here for us and adapt to our needs. Sometimes, I think my guides are different parts of me, not separate entities but my higher self or soul parts that give me wisdom I can’t seem to get without them. Other times I think they are voices from the mysterious depths of my being. Mostly however, I feel my guides are my friends—soul friends—that have incarnated with me but stay in the subtle realms. One thing I do know, they are here and support me in positive and loving ways, always.
There are many voices speaking in our heads. Some are kind, supportive and loving and others are belittling, cruel and judgmental. The negative, egoic voices can be very logical, persuasive and convincing. As I began to communicate with my guides the bottom line was always how I felt about what I was told or advised to do and the fact that my guides always spoke gently, directly and kindly. My guides always follow the 3H rule and never humiliate, harm or harass me or others in any way. Many of the other voices in my head did the opposite—and that was my main clue in telling the difference between them.
Sorting out the voices in your head.
Who are the voices that speak inside your head? Take a step back from reaction and listen. There will be positive and negative voices. Whose voice is it that critiques and judges you? Who praises you? Scolds you? Motivates you? Hurts your feelings? Soothes you? And on and on. Learn to recognize each and every voice. The positive voices are empowering. The negative voices can be helpful if you discover where they come from. You may already know that your dad is the voice of judgment, your mom the voice of worry, your grandma the soothing voice that speaks when you are afraid. If you listen with an attitude of tolerance you will learn about yourself and why you choose these voices. All the ways those voices made you feel growing up are usually the same reasons you may still hear those voices.
However, you are a grown-up now and deserve to be spoken to with respect. When you recognize one of your negative voices, take a moment and say, ‘hello’. If a voice in your head—yes, you own this inner territory—speaks out of line, you can show it the door. (Remember, it is only there because you let it in!) Or you can restructure the relationship, relating to that voice in a new way. For example, if the dad/authority/judgment voice (You guessed it, that was one of mine.) begins to belittle and says, “you’ll never be successful, you don’t stick with anything long enough,” don’t buy into it. Instead, offer a “no, thank you, not interested,” which changes the tone and the way you respond. Examine what the voice said as if it were meaningful advice. Thinking about the above example I realize I do stick with what I start most of the time and have been successful many times in my life. I stopped this voice with honesty and my own grown-up knowing of who I am.
As you give these voices direct attention—meeting them with an open heart and calm mind—their power over you diminishes and they lose their ability to wound. All the voices that speak to us have a deeper message that relates to our self-esteem. Over time, as we begin to know these voices and all the parts of us they represent, we grow in confidence with who we are, and our voices—both positive and negative—become allies.
Contacting Your Inner Guides
These strategies start where last weeks post, Listening In, left off. Being able to still your mind, find your center and focus your attention set the stage for connecting with your guides.
1. Preparing yourself for guidance. The most critical thing you can do to prepare yourself is to relax, letting go of anxieties, daily stresses and doubts. Easier said than done but we all possess the most important tool we need—our breath. Focused breathing has immediate calming and centering effects. Flowing on the river of our breath keeps us moving downstream, out of the eddies, whirlpools and stagnant ponds of our minds and emotions.
2. Use your focused breathing to accomplish two things that will assist you in clearly and effectively communicating with your guides. First, it clears your energy field of anything negative that will hinder your focus. Second, it will raise your energy level simply because you have cleared your field.
3. Asking questions. To receive the information you want, you need to ask clear questions. A good trick is to write your questions down or say them out loud. This forces you to be specific and sensible. Many times, I have had a question idea but as I attempt to ask it, it keeps changing direction or fades part way through. All the while I’m hoping my guides will follow what I mean even if I don’t. Practice formulating coherent questions so you can ask exactly what you want to know.
A beneficial practice to free yourself from trying to control your answers is to ask and let go. Forget about the question as soon as it is sent, knowing the answers will come easily and effortlessly at the right time.
4. Receiving answers. Listen in. Actively. Open your inner ears. Go deep. Be still and wait for your answers. If what you are seeking doesn’t happen right away, maybe let go of expectations and see what does happen. Be willing to receive your information in unexpected ways, and not always the answers you want to hear.
5. Building trust. Q&A with guides is an easy flowing exchange if you are relaxed about it. Start with easy questions. Test your answers to make sure they are true for you. You don’t have to believe something just because your guide said it’s true. Find your truth. We are in an equal opportunity partnership. Their big job is to help us remember who we. Our job is to remember and live accordingly. I think it is extremely helpful to have someone on my team who sees a bigger picture. Trust builds with experience and awareness, and most importantly, love.
Resources
All of my information is based on over 40 years of experience with my inner guides and how I hear and interact with them.
Journal Prompts
· How do you feel about connecting with your inner guides? Explain.
· What kinds of information do you want from them?
· Write about your attempts to connect with your guides.
· What did you ask and what did they answer?
Final Thoughts
The answers I receive usually come in the form of words spoken in my mind. How do I know this isn’t just me talking to myself? Well, to be completely honest, I don’t and in fact I have this recurring thought that it is all me on some broader, deeper level and I am really speaking to the wiser parts of myself. I’m okay with that. I’ve been doing this for a long time and have a multitude of reasons to trust the information I receive.
If you are truly interested in making inner contact, I encourage you to keep practicing, even if at first it seems like nothing is happening. Let me reassure you, lots is happening and as your awareness grows you will know it.