Which Voice Is It: Listening To Your Internal Guidance

 

When we turn within to listen to that still small voice, it can seem very illusive, for it is not like the incessant chattering in our minds. How can we tell the difference between the internal voice of guidance and that of our intellect? Join Rebecca Victor in this episode as she explores what we can pay attention to help us discern which voice we are listening to and find inward guidance and love.

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Which Voice Is It: Listening To Your Internal Guidance

I am wanting to share with you this idea, “what do we listen to when we are turning inward?” I know for me, when I took this journey inward, I had two voices. One voice that I was familiar with, but I pushed aside, was the voice of judgment. The voice that in some capacity in some way was always letting me know that I was not measuring up. “You could’ve done that better, come on, Becky.” (My name among my family and friends is Becky, my nickname.) “You keep saying that, but you never do anything about it. You wish you could do that, but you’re never going to be able to because you don’t have what it takes or whatever you need.”

It’s amazing, of all these voices that would often negate me, that’s one voice I would hear. It was a voice that I got very comfortable with. It’s a voice that came forth whenever I had to look at myself in relationship to something outside of me, because I had to determine, “Am I doing it right? Is it going to be accepted? Am I going to fit in with this?” That voice almost became like a taskmaster that I would use in order to keep myself in line, because there was this other part of me that was like, “Screw that, I want to get out and play. Who says that life has to be a struggle?”

There was a part of me that was always that defiant part. I like her. As much as I would try to bring her under control, I couldn’t do it. She, some way, somehow resisted this judgment. That part of me would always find its way out from underneath the thumb of judgment that I’d placed on myself. That’s one voice that I would hear. When people would say turn within, I’d be like, “I don’t want to hear the judgment.” What am I going to turn to? What am I going to hear when I turn within?

I found that there was another voice and it took me a little while to hear that other voice because the other voice was so different. I began with listening to other people when they talked about the voices that they heard, it’s a voice that’s nice, wise, and loving. I’m like, “That’s cool.” I would imagine in my mind a loving, wise voice, but I didn’t have a clear sense of what that felt like in me. As I began over the years to pause and say, “I do want to get to know me,” I had to first of all, believe that there was something worthy of knowing within myself, instead of trying to keep myself so busy that I could hide and pretend I knew, but not really.

Trust your journey and what's arriving for you or is coming up for you in your life. Click To Tweet

As long as I was doing what other people told me I needed to be doing in order to succeed then, I’m following what I need to do. I didn’t want to continue to do that though, but I didn’t know any other way of engaging. I didn’t know because that voice of judgment was hammering at me. As I made that decision time and time again, I practiced. I would go and I would move into meditation. For the longest time, I often fell asleep, because as much as I said I liked meditation, I didn’t want to meditate. I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. I’d fall asleep. That was one of the ways that I’d cop out on that. That was okay because I could look at it and say, “Oh,” or I could look at it and say, “What an interesting way I took care of myself.” “I wasn’t ready and that’s okay,” or “it was difficult to sit still.”

I remember working with somebody experienced in meditation and he said, “Your energy isn’t a still energy right now. It’s not one where you can sit. Go for a walk, play in the garden, and become aware.” That was such a powerful process for me. First of all, for it to be okay that I didn’t sit in a Lotus position and know exactly what happened, or what I needed to do. There are people who do that, and that’s great. It works wonderfully for them. It didn’t for me, but I could walk, and I would get lost and not get caught up in thought. The beauty of the world was powerful for me that I found myself lost in her. It was peaceful and I would play in the garden. I would find myself immersed in the beauty and the wonder of a plant moving up from the ground. Then, all of a sudden there was an opening within me where I wasn’t thinking, I was present – which is that art of meditating, to be present and not thinking – allowing something else to burst forth or to bubble up.

As I began to do that slowly, a little bit of time, and I would listen to what others were talking about, I would realize that they talked about this inner voice. The inner voice wasn’t an affirmative one for me at that time, but I thought if I listened enough, maybe there would be this inner voice. There was, but it wasn’t anything like the voice that I had been listening to, the voice of judgment. Instead, it was a voice that was gentle and quiet.

A voice that when I heard it, felt good to hear, but it took some time to trust it because it was a loving voice, and I wasn’t used to a loving voice. Actually, I was used to loving, I don’t want to put it that way, but I wasn’t used to a voice that had no judgment for me. I wasn’t used to a voice that, regardless of what I was doing and how conflicted I felt about what I was doing, didn’t lay a heavy guilt trip on me. It was a voice that was nurturing. It was a voice that had an energy of compassion and love, and it was very different. It was different because I kept thinking, “How can a voice of kindness and love help me to move forward in the world?” I kept thinking you have to work hard in the world in order to move forward. After all, if it’s all about love, everybody’s going to sit, like my image of children running around with flowers and I’d wonder, “Who’s going to work? Who’s going to make food?” I kept thinking, “How’s this really going to work?”

It was fun learning that it was okay that I had those thoughts. It was okay that I felt that way. The journey was such for me, that the voice would continue to speak, to share, and wait for the time that I was ready to hear it and welcome it in. It didn’t go away. It was always there speaking, it was always communicating, but I didn’t know what it sounded like and I didn’t trust what it sounded like because it was so foreign to what I had thought it should be. I’m like, “This is too nice of a voice.”

 

Growing up I learned that life is about having to work hard, and I’m still working with that because there’s that adage that at least in the society I grew up in, you pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You work hard. You put your nose to the grindstone, you get her done. This idea that something’s going to happen marvelously and come along and do something, seems like you’re barking up the wrong tree. You’ve got your head out of the clouds. In many ways, being the creative individual that I am, because I’m very innovative, my head is in the clouds a lot. That’s where I create from. I would doubt my gifts and I would doubt the validness of what I was receiving from my inward guidance because it didn’t match what I had been taught that was valuable. Instead, it began to ask me to open to the possibility of something else that would have more value for me.

When I began to open up and hear that inner voice, it was so relieving. What was relieving is I didn’t have to jump right into it, like jumping in with both feet when you don’t know how to swim. Instead, I could put my toe in and test it. That helped because I like to get into the water subtly. There are people who like to dive right into that water and start swimming. I like go toe in, foot and ankle all the way in slowly. What’s so wonderful is that it didn’t matter how I went in, I got to choose how I wanted to experience this internal guidance, this internal voice, the internal love that was waiting for me.

I was so grateful that it didn’t have to be any other way, but mine, for me. As I sat and listened to friends talk about their journeys or my husband talk about his, it didn’t have to be anything other than what was meaningful for him or my friends, my children, my sons, their journeys. I didn’t have to place any type of opinion or judgment on myself or others, as much as become aware of the complexity and the diversity of this internal world that we’re all a part of, each experiencing it in our unique way. What I share with you about my internal journey, is mine and it may register for some of you, and for some of you, it may not. That’s okay. These sharings, these ideas are brought forth with the hope that they trigger something affirming for you in some capacity, to trust your journey, to trust what’s arriving for you, or is coming up for you in your life.

The greatest gift that you can give yourself is to let yourself be loved. Click To Tweet

As I learned and continue to learn, one of the greatest gifts I received in this journey was stated well by gentleman who said, “The greatest gift that you can give yourself is to let yourself be loved. Allow yourself to sit and to welcome, to invite love in. Let it wash over you, let yourself feel it bubble up within you. Let it come and embrace you. However, it is that love within you is there.” At the time I heard that, I was ready to do it. I think if it had come 2 weeks or 2 months earlier, I would not have been ready to hear it. I would have not known how to welcome love, but at that time, at that day, at that moment, it was the right time.

I remember sitting there, and there was such a wash of love that I had never experienced before. It was so incredibly opening, expansive, and gently joyful. It was all wonder. It was like life took on wonder at that moment. Because of that experience, I found myself coming back to my daily activities with a profoundly new way to see them, a way to engage with them. The profound way that I brought through consciousness and with intention anew way of engaging, a new way of seeing life, and because of that, my world has shifted. It continues to shift because of what I’m willing to allow myself to experience. In that experience, I realized the truth in Einstein’s statement about thought, that reality is illusory. It’s an illusion. That statement doesn’t mean that I can’t touch and feel things, but if the awareness of love and my being, and bringing that forth into my world and how I connect with people, has made that much of a profound difference within me, then I can only imagine what it will be as each one of us begins to discover that for ourselves, if that’s what we want to do. If it is what we want to do, what would it be like to join together to create something more for ourselves, that I think at this time of change we’re being called to do?

I celebrate you. I celebrate your life and your journey. I support you in trusting the path that you feel called to walk. Even when walking your path, you turn and say to me, “Lady, what you’re saying is ridiculous.”  Well, good, there’s something else coming up for you.

I want to thank you for reading. Please share with me any thoughts or any ideas that you’d like us to talk about, and we can do that for you. Your comments, your sharing, and your presence make a difference in this program in more ways that I’m sure than you’re aware of yet. I know I’m continuing to discover, and it’s amazing. Take good care of yourselves until we connect again on the next show. I celebrate you. Here’s to your life.