“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” ~ Rumi
“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.” ~ Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
Over the last few years I’ve been much more conscious of living in the present moment. This has affected the way I look at the noise of the media and the things they think are important.
The media, social and otherwise, like to spew information for how we can all be living a better life. On any given day you will find articles about the 10 foods you should never eat, the 5 best exercises, tips for growing your business, how to remove belly fat, and on-and-on. This has all begun to grate on my nerves.
As I’ve focused on the present moment, I’ve become less tolerant of the tsunami of advice circulating over all the media networks. For the last few months I’ve been contemplating why I’m so impatient with all this free, and sometimes not so free, advice.
Today I can finally articulate what has been bothering me. All of the people offering advice are asking me to depend on them, or someone else, for the answers to my problems. In reality, I am the repository of all the help and support I will ever need. The answers to the questions I have about my life can’t be found “out there” unless my inner guides point me to bit of information I need.
I think I’ve known this all along. I’ve never been big on joining groups or organizations, particularly ones that want it’s members to follow a set of rules or policies. When I was growing up during the 60s and 70s it was fashionable for people on a spiritual quest to find a guru. There were even TV shows, like Kung Fu, that were enormously popular with that idea as a central theme. But as I progressed along my own spiritual growth, I discovered that I may connect with certain teachers for a time, but after I gained the insights I needed, I felt it was time to move on.
When I began teaching public school and now at the college level, I have been an advocate for students finding their own answers to the questions we all inevitably have about life. What works for me, might not work for you. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, we must all do the work of figuring out our purpose for being on this planet. That’s a lifelong process. I’m still working on how I can best be of use to the other beings living here.
Being your own guru means you’ve got to trust yourself. That’s sometimes a difficult and scary thing to do, but take it from someone who’s been at this a long time, you can do it! It’s all a matter of changing your focus from the outside noise to the quiet inside yourself. You might be amazed at how much happier you will be if you listen to what it is you really want and go for it.
I wrote this post to remind myself that I may find answers outside myself from time to time, but I was really the one who pointed that information out to myself. And I’m reminding myself to be a better listener to my emotions and inner guidance.
By the way, I’m applying one thing I learned this fall from The No Pants Project by adjusting the description of my novel, The Space Between Time, below. See what you think of it and let me know.
I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. It’s a fresh new year to learn, grow, and create something amazing. I’m looking forward to seeing what develops.
Thanks for reading, liking and commenting. I appreciate all of you.
Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2019
Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a little bit like Outlander in that it’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel. Only Jenna joins consciousness with her three-times great-grandmother, Morgan, instead of traveling physically. She is able to come back and apply what she’s learned to her real life situations.
The Space Between Time is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.
Sage Woman Chronicles 