Your Soul’s Compass, What Is Spiritual Guidance? Part 5 Is It Guidance or Is It Me?

This is a question I get so much, as a coach. Am I hearing Guidance, or is it just my ego mind?

Joan and Gordon has put forth a very solid way of looking at discerning Guidance and Doubt.

They point out that “there is no recipe or formula that can indicate with absolute certainty if it’s God or Ego running the show. The proof is ultimately in the feedback.”

They recount Reb Zalman as sharing, “I must always have doubt where the guidance comes from. Doubt is not the enemy of faith. Doubt is the means by which we scrape off the barnacles from the ship of faith.”

So having doubt can be useful? I like the idea in the book that there are two faces to doubt; one positive or helpful, one negative or not helpful.

The Buddha is quoted as saying that the only way to determine true guidance is on the basis of your own personal experience (chalk one up for determining your own indicators and benchmarks in your self coaching process!)

“It’s a very rational point of view, being open to what’s true and what’s real. And so in that sense you question yourself. It’s a positive or constructive questioning because it’s in the service of knowing a greater truth, and it calls us to a deeper reflection”. Sufi guide, Taj Inayat, Your Soul’s Compass

The point is made that doubt can be an important ally when it opens us to deeper levels of experience and reflection. But the doubt that is negative, or a hindrance is the kind that slows or paralyzes our actions.

So one kind of doubt initiates inquiry, a deeper love for the truth and a greater connection to our true nature and guidance from the Source. While the other kind of doubt brings anxiety, ego chatter and blocks us to hearing or acting on true guidance.

I’ve always liked to say that if the guidance has the voice of love you can trust it, with the caveat to check in with the rational mind for ways to blend the guidance with linear time/space requirements, and the body to get input about physical needs.

And if the voice comes from fear, and you feel your energy dropping, feel yourself losing momentum or falling into negative self-talk, then that is the Critic Mind, the Ego talking. No worries though. I use that as a type of guidance itself to move back into gentle inquiry for the love-heart truth to surface with true guidance.

I hope this series accompanied by the wonderful book Your Soul’s Compass by Joan Boysenko and Gordon Dveirin has been nourishing for you. They have some wonderful additional thoughts on supporting yourself and supporting others as you expand.

You all might know my personal idea, that each journey is an individual journey as we have the privilege to exercise preference. So if you are called to this book, I recommend it as a support on your own journey. And count me as a friend and co-traveler along the way, as well.

To the journey!

Deborah

P.S. Don’t miss our next book, The Intuitive Way. I have a few more companions to join us in our study of Intuition, some wonderful information out there. You can sign up to be notified of our next book discussion or connect with me on one of the social media sites.

Your Soul’s Compass, What Is Spiritual Guidance? By Joan Borysenko, Ph.D and Gordon Deverin, Ed.D. – Part 3

“Everything Provides Guidance”; this is a subheading in the second chapter of the book. That pretty much sums up my idea about Guidance, as well.

The authors continue their discuss with some examples of “everything”; from the Felt Sense, to Signs and Synchronicities, Listening for Guidance, Intuition, and Dreams. We’ll be talking more on the blog about Intuition, and on Day By Day Radio, with Donna Seebo, as well (listen to her interview).

One of the things I was thinking about as I read this chapter was how every situation, and I usually noticed the more intense situations more, that I either liked or really didn’t like, had a wealth of information and guidance for me. But sadly, I often only realized that guidance in hindsight.

I remember once, being more and more uncomfortable in a summer job I accepted. I had a dream one night in which it was as if I wore a large floppy hat that obscured my view except from below my nose. So I couldn’t see clearly where I was, or where I was going. I kept bumping into things in the dream.

It was only after I left the job and felt the huge relief from my decision that I remembered the dream again. In hindsight, I could see how I felt, after leaving like I was removing what obscured my vision and allowed me to see my path again. And there was huge relief in that.

But I don’t have to chase sleep to receive Guidance. I learned how to learn what my indicators were that I was receiving Guidance, and not just various thoughts, “shoulds”, and “better not or you’ll…”.

I now teach an updated and expanded version of that same course. And I’ll be saying more about that as the weeks go on.

But for now, if you’re interested in learning how to decipher your own Guidance signals, I’ll share with you where I started.

I started by recounting memories, such as the dream above, when looking back I could see that I was receiving useful information, information that could be seen as helpful, supportive, affirming, and possibly even suggesting a change in course of action.

Then I began to think, make a few notes, about what accompanied that information. Perhaps it felt a certain way. Maybe certain thoughts always accompanied the information. Or maybe I felt the information in a certain place in my body?

I began to see that when helpful information bubbled up inside of me, seemed to come from out of nowhere, there were certain thoughts, sensations, directions and feelings that accompanied that information.

Likewise, when it was just my busy, monkey-mind messing with me, trying to throw me off track from a big change, that too was accompanies by a particular brand of thoughts, sensations, directions and feelings.

Maybe this will help you begin to play detective, scientist, and strategist for your own Guidance. And let me know here, what you discover. Sharing benefits us all.

Next time I want to talk a bit about Chapter 4, Intimacy…Seeing With The Eyes of the Heart.