Trusting our inner knowing can be challenging when someone we are close to or someone we admire tells us what is best for us.
All of us are born connected with our spiritual Guidance. Young children, whose parents value them as individuals and foster their inner knowing, grow up trusting their inner authority. But many of us grew up with parents who, in their desire to have control over us, consistently undermined our inner knowing.
When we were young, our parents were naturally the authorities on what was good or bad, right or wrong. They were big and we were little so we naturally assumed that they knew much more than we did. When they discounted our inner knowing, we may have learned to discount ourselves as well.
One of my mother's favorite phrases to me was, "Don't be ridiculous." I heard this phrase so often in reference to my thoughts, feelings and desires that I learned to not trust the rightness of my inner knowing. I learned to believe that others knew more than I did about what was right or wrong for me. I learned to deny much of what I knew inside and instead trust what others were telling me. I lost touch with my spiritual Guidance, as did many of us.
After many years of relying on others to point my way, I finally became reconnected with my spiritual Guidance. However, it took me many years to trust my own truth instead of what others were telling me was the truth.
A client and I recently had a session where she shared with me that a friend of hers, a woman whom she considers to be very spiritually connected, told her that she should be doing something differently with her work than what she was doing.
"I'm feeling confused by this," stated Clara. "I know that my friend meditates a lot and is a wonderful spiritual teacher. Yet why does she think that she knows what is right for me? I hadn't even asked her about my work. She just volunteered the information."
"How did it feel when she said this to you?" I asked.
"It didn't feel good. It felt invasive."
"So what is your confusion?"
"I'm confused about my work. I love what I'm doing, so I don't get why she said this to me."
"What makes you think that she knows what is right for you?"
"Well, she is a spiritual teacher."
"Why would that give her authority over you? Why would she know more about what is right for you than you do?"
Clara was obviously struggling with trusting her own authority. It's easy for all of us to think that someone, especially someone whom we admire, knows more about what is right for us than we do.
As we explored, Clara became clear that her friend was off base. It came as a surprise to her that someone whom she felt knew more than she did about personal and spiritual growth could still be coming from her own wounded place in terms of thinking she knew what was right for Clara. Instead of helping Clara trust her own inner authority, her friend was undermining this trust by trying to impose her own beliefs onto Clara.
Trusting our inner knowing can be challenging when someone we are close to or someone we admire tells us what is best for us. Yet when you understand that ONLY your personal Guidance knows what is in your highest good, you will no longer give authority away to anyone else regarding what is right for you. It is one thing to be open to learning about what others are telling you - we all have much to learn from others. It is quite another thing to give others authority over you.
When you have a deep desire to learn about what is in your highest good, you will listen to that quiet Guidance that speaks to you through your thoughts, feelings, images, and dreams, or even through the rocks and trees. Guidance can also come through others, but you need to always tune inside and see if it feels right to you. Staying in alignment with your own soul means that your own sense of rightness needs to be your highest authority, not someone else's truth.
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