Selecting Guidance

No one can make you feel inferior

without your consent.

Eleanor Roosevelt

THIS IS MY STORY

There are people in our lives who play significant roles.  Some have been with us all of our lives while others may be time-worn friends.   In addition to  new friends and  there are folks we meet while traveling, shopping, conferences or waiting stations.  Whether having life residency or merely passing through, people can hold  power over us whether we acknowledge it or not.

If we are not confident in our selves, the words of others may hold more significance than our own.   The words of strangers may offend us or cause us to second guess our selves.  It is difficult to keep moving forward if we consistently get side tracked by the opinions of others.

Then there is Divine Guidance appearing in dreams, prayers, conversations, books, movies, and spiritual advisers.  We can receive guidance just walking in nature or contemplation or washing dishes.  Ideas can come out of 'no where' while we are physically active doing something totally unrelated. 

As human beings we frequently are amused by the words of spiritual enlightenment, but sigh as we return to our daily lives.  As human beings we frequently obsess over words of significant others, especially if they were critical or unkind whether meant or innocently spoken.  If we are truly aware of our heart's desire, we will know which conversations need to be pursued.

It is important to discern what information is in our best interest and that which is not.  We can learn from any opinion, but we need to decide if the opinion fits our situation.  Guidance needs to be in our best interest, but not at the cost of others.  The information is healthy when we can feel it resonate within and our mind immediately takes hold and moves forward into successful supporting ideas.

If someone is directing us to minimize who we are or attempts to control us through power, this is not guidance, but tyranny.  Respect is offered to our superiors, but we maintain our personal code of ethics.  Divine Guidance will never instruct nor suggest we harm our selves or others.

When in question, it is always good to consider these  suggestions: 

*Seek out a trusted mentor and share the information, really listening to a new perspective. 

*Sit with the information just like it were incubating. 

*Experience what it feels like at night or the next day. 

*Form an idea as to how this information will impact life years from now. 

*Avoid impulsive decisions.

*Discern if this wisdom is aligned with the highest good.

Divine Guidance offers us courage, hope, and the desire to be better.  Tyranny keeps us in line through negative and demeaning control.  Divine Guidance offers us opportunities to thrive and become connected with our talents and life purpose.  Tyranny has a selfish motivation in keeping us working while dissipating any sense of our personal self.  We must choose our guidance accordingly.

 

Looking Beyond the Title

Each has his past shut in him

like the leaves of a book,

known to him by heart

and his friends can only read the title.

Virginia Woolf

People see only what we allow them to see.  Our childhood reprimands and well intentioned parental directives are safely recorded within.  Shame and guilt establish origin in these very early years.  Parts of our selves get tucked away before they have had time to begin.

Generally speaking, men seem to have the 'buck up' or 'it is what it is' attitude pushing themselves forward, burying emotion and challenge deep within.  Women have the tendency to repress such memories, but like well wrapped china.  They are stored carefully and unwrapped with delicate hands on occasion to be wept over and then returned safely again.

In either case, both men and women repress emotions not realizing how these unresolved feelings drive our behaviors.  If asked about therapy to address the past, men usually respond with something like, "Why would I want to dredge all of that up?  I want to just leave it alone! It is over."  Perhaps women have a higher awareness and are more apt to experience the cracking of the emotional foundation where things can no longer be stored. 

A woman is more apt to drudge through her history as though she were rooting through family heirlooms stacked against a basement wall.  She is willing to sort through water damaged boxes discarding tarnished or shattered pieces that no longer hold any value.  The task may take weeks or months, but when she has extracted what she no longer wants to save, she has fresh new spaces to maneuver through more easily. 

Male or female, we may not be able to sort through our hidden chapters.  We may require the help of a trusted friend or a qualified therapist.  There are a variety of tools to help us such as:   keeping a journal, dream recording, prayer, meditation, contemplation and energy work to name only a few.  Nature is a wonderful container to sit in when we don't want to explore alone or a quiet retreat center or chapel.

Either way, it is human nature to want to use our voice, to be listened to, and to be understood.  Deep inside we long for others to accept us, but if we do not allow trusted others to look beyond our title, to read our pages and in between the lines, we will feel fraudulent.  It is when we open our selves to experience compassion from others that we feel unburdened.  With self-forgiveness love empowers us and our life story becomes a manuscript! 



Triangle Approach

The most important thing in life

is to know yourself.

Thales

This morning I was visiting spiritual sites, getting caught up on some of the current thinking.  The word "triangle" jumped out at me on the Tom Kenyon pages.  The triangle is my favorite symbol and has been the most prominent one in my life.

Tom Kenyon suggests a "Triune approach to duality" that seemed quite easy for me.  If you can, visualize a triangle with positive perspective in one bottom corner, negative perspective in the other bottom corner, and the 'self' above in the top of the triangle.  The approach suggests that when we have a reaction to someone, whether positive or negative, we would do ourselves a favor by floating above the perception to get a broader view, to see what we are not seeing by being so close. 

It makes sense to me.  If we are using binoculars and find ourselves in rapture over a rare bird in a tree, we may be so singularly focused we miss the bear appearing from the other side of the landscape.  (I know, a stretch, but you get my point)

We are often called to make a too quick assessment of someone or we take them at face value only later amazed at the glaring qualities we originally missed.  I am not suggesting paranoia or the idea that we hold people at a distance. 

Each and every one of us have positive and negative aspects in our character and we decide which we use and when.  When we view others however, our perception is frequently too narrow.  If we would gently pull our vision back to take in the entire essence of the person we may discover so much more.  We may not be so quick to judge, either way.

So the next time we become immediately attracted to someone, mentally float up above and scan the entire landscape.  The same holds true if we are instantly repulsed by someone.  By pulling back, we will be broadening our perspective, viewing additional information which may alter our perspective.

For years I have tried to understand myself, and just when I think I do, I change.  So this triangle approach is good to be used on ourselves as well.  When we feel our behavior or thinking shifts, we can pull back and see the in's and outs.  We can better explore if our shift is permanent or temporary, is it action or reaction, does it need to be modified or enhanced ... well, you get the idea!