How To Follow Guidance

Self-care or selfless service? Hold someone accountable, set boundaries, talk it out… or live and let live? Fight for a relationship, or let it go? Take action, or wait? Follow your dream, or get real and pay your bills? If only there was one formula.

In reality, there is no one way and there is no life that is stress-free. Which leads one to wonder why stress now has such a bad rap? Perhaps selling stress as ‘bad’ was created on purpose by the pharmaceutical industry (and now cannabis industry) to increase sales of their products?

Following guidance is not about ‘getting it right’ and typically there is little confirmation at the exact time of the event or situation. It is not a reward system where you follow guidance and get a reward for doing so. Nor is guidance a straight line, or logical.

Guidance is furthermore not always for you; sometimes it is for you to do something for someone else with no reward or even thanks given to you. Wow. So why do it? What is the point of guidance, if not for my own benefit, you might be asking.

Guidance is for your benefit, always. Just not always what your ego has in mind, and not always for human benefit, but always for your soul evolution, which is the reason you chose to come back to Earth and have yet another human life.

Learning to follow guidance is a process. It typically starts with the use of tools such as oracle cards, or conversations with your guides, as a newbie on the path of  spiritual awakening. Guidance will start off staying within the boundaries of the paradigms you currently can handle, with few anomalies. Past life regressions, life-between-lives regressions, oracle card readings, psychic readings, will all have to match your level of development and what you can currently handle.

Spiritual growth requires the development of inner knowing and inner authority. It requires the heart, not the intellect ~ Gary Zukav

Spirit is kind and will initially pave the way for you to get hooked on the idea of awakening. You will often get what you want and will receive much validation that you are on the right path. Spirit is building a relationship with you and to build trust you have be validated, which means you need proof you are right. You will need some evidence that you will get what you want, because that is all you know in the beginning. For most people, trust and faith is built on successes and wins. That is the nature of human and Spirit is the ultimate awesome teacher that understands what it takes to win a human over to a path of awakening.

Some people stay at this initial phase of following guidance for the rest of their life. Perhaps it is their life path to do so. They will talk to their guides in the shower, and they will continue to have a great deal of evidence given to them that they are right, and knew either what was coming, or what to do next.

Everyone will be working at the level that is appropriate for them in their lifetime. There is no right way or better way. Just like some people need to go to college in order to get through this life, while others do not, one is not better than the other. Although, I am sure each person thinks their way is better, and it is… for that person.

For those of us destined to work energetically, with Source, as we mature on our path, will begin to trust our connection with Spirit and will (hopefully) get bored and frustrated by simply getting what we want. We will discover that having a gift has not changed how we feel about ourselves. It does not automatically make one happy, or save your marriage or give you money. Or if it does give you money, you are still not happy and you still have problems and challenges.

Reaching this point in one’s life, you are finally really ready to begin to live an awakened life truly cultivating the language of Source… which is energy (for there are no words). This is not for everyone in every life, and like all paths, the blessings are mixed.

How does one work with this level of guidance from Source? Because there is no language to describe the energies of Source, it is difficult to describe. It is like trying to describe making love to a young teenager who can only think in terms of sex. The difference between sex and making love is energy. How do you describe that to someone who has never experienced it and cannot even conceive the differences?

Our inner guidance comes to us through our feelings and body wisdom first – not through intellectual understanding. The intellect works best in service to our intuition, our inner guidance, soul, God or higher power ~ Christiane Northrup

First off, with few exceptions, one needs to be able to meditate in silence. I actually don’t know of any exceptions, but they may be out there. The few people I have met who are blown open energetically are that way due to childhood abuse, and are not grounded or balanced. I do not encourage that as a path of choice.

Meditating in silence you are listening. This is not necessarily better than any other kind of meditation, just different. Working with a teacher, such as a shaman, mentor, medicine person, or bruja, who is an energy master, is a great benefit, but very hard to find these days. An energy master is someone who can raise energy without the use of drugs. Drugs are a tool, not a practice. Well, at least in my experience and opinion. The same applies when using sex. Tantric energies are amazing, but again they are a tool, not an everyday practice.

Secondly, you have to have arrived (usually through hard work) to a place in your life where you are no longer invested in receiving recognition for your ‘amazing spirituality.’ You also need to have healed your obsessive need to help others (raging co-dependency) with little or no boundaries for your Self. You will need to be comfortable with detachment. Detachment does not mean you do not have feelings or emotional reactions, it means emotions and feelings no longer own you. You still feel deeply, but without losing your center or your own connection. You feel, but because you are able to maintain a connected balance you can also choose rather than react. And of course, like all things on Earth, this will never be perfect.

Thirdly, you need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, with not knowing, and receiving guidance step-by-step, without knowing where exactly you are going, or when. This is a level of trust of Source that has to be developed, although I have met perhaps two individuals in my life who seem to live with this level of trust as a natural element of their lives. So, I personally found it to be quite rare.

Finally, you need to not be invested in ‘getting ahead,’ in other words while all guidance will definitely be to help you evolve, you may not see or experience much personal benefit on the Earth plane, or in this life. You will never be quite sure if the Guidance was for you, or for you to help others. And you should be in a personal place where that doesn’t matter to you.

Using words to describe how to work with the energetic language of Source is impossible, but I will try to give some insights that might be useful for those using silent (listening) meditation as a way to hear and receive teachings – not as a way to ‘stay calm.’

Ultimately, we must learn to trust ourselves. When we do this intimately and intelligently, the world opens full of meaning before us. We find that we ourselves are the doorway to a fathomless understanding of the source of life itself. We need only to learn to walk through it.” ~ James Thornton

Let go of any speculations on outcome. That would be like trying to predict the colors of a sunset. Not only is that impossible, it ruins the whole experience. Instead allow yourself to focus on the next small step. Like walking on a forest trail in the dark, all your senses alert, with no fear, but rather an excited curiosity. Feel each footfall, each action. Feel yourself taking each action. This is a kind of heightened mindfulness, self-awareness. Even if you don’t like something, as sometimes you might smell a dead animal in the forest, check in and see if you feel okay, centered. If so, keep going. If not, wait a bit to figure it out, especially if you are being guided to help someone, rather than help yourself to something.

Allow yourself to make mistakes. You can always correct and adjust as you go along and ‘mistakes’ are an inevitable part of learning, even though the ego doesn’t like it. This is like making love, no formula, just a heightened awareness of, well, everything, and it is a dance. When making love you feel yourself, your partner, smells come to you, sounds, touch, sweat, soft, hard, all pour in like a symphony. With each moment you make a move and you can instantly feel the repercussions; and you adjust the dance again, responding, playing, acting and receiving.

How can you start to do this?  Start small. Even for example, taking a walk on a trail you have never been. Go slow and try to dance your way through your walk, using all your senses and rhythms. Try cooking as a dance, with no recipe, just your wandering through the experience tasting, smelling, back tracking, adding, subtracting. Sit in front of your pet and start talking or looking and see what happens and enable the unfolding. You can only learn this through experience and that means trying, practice, and enjoying the wonder of what you are learning.

And continue to meditate in the silence, asking Source to teach you and in the silence accept whatever comes, and surrender. Surrender the ego. Let go of your fear and allow yourself to be led, in the Silence.