“Smack Me If I Have All The Answers”
This is a subject I intend to return to again and again, in many different guises: We have to begin to trust our own inner knowing/gut feeling/guidance/inner voice/intuition — whatever words feel most comfortable to you — above all else. We tend to allow much of our personal power to be sucked up by others.
Yesterday I started thinking about an article I read recently by a doctor of naturopathy. At first her advice seemed reasonable, since it was about homeopathic medicine. Then she apparently was nudged by her ego voice which told her to go for it — and she did. She commenced to wax pedantic on all manner of topics, from healthful foods to sleep habits. Specifically, how many ounces of broccoli to eat how many times a week, all the way to what time we should go to bed every night, and for how many hours. There seemed to be no exceptions allowed.
I know this is the information age, but some of us seem to get carried away. Do adults really need to be lectured on when to go to bed and how often we should experience “evacuation of the colon?” And who is doing the lecturing? Isn’t every fourth person you meet an “expert” on something these days? Personally, as soon as I hear someone being introduced as an “expert” I head for the hills.
How do we discern where the expertise ends and personal opinion begins? I had an intuitive reading by phone a number of years ago from someone whose work I admired. About the fourth time I listened to the audiotape of this session, however, I got a funny feeling. Although 75% of the information was obviously received from Spirit, the rest seemed to be his personal opinion. Ordinarily I have no quarrel with people stating their opinions. But it is incumbent upon a healer to differentiate for the public between information or conclusions arrived at from a higher source and that which rests solely on the say-so of the ego mind. This healer — and a few others I’ve run across — didn’t do so.
As with any other position where people seek you out — politician, doctor, Minister – one has to guard vigilantly against loving the platform more than the truth. Isn’t this happening everywhere today? Everyone’s a pundit. I hear increasingly nutty opinions every day by all sorts of folks who take themselves way too seriously. And there’s always an audience.
I got pulled into this power matrix briefly myself when I began teaching adult classes about our inner wisdom, and here’s why — Reason #1: A lot of people treated me like a guru. I was shocked. They couldn’t divest themselves of their own common sense and wisdom fast enough, so eager were they to hear a “definitive” truth. Reason #2: I was insecure about Diane’s worthiness. It feels safer to hand out information as though it is 100% guaranteed certainty than to couch your knowledge in terms of degrees. “This is fact” rolls off the tongue with a satisfying smoothness that “At least in my experience, here’s what works” never could.
I believe that the human race will not continue to evolve unless they get this issue straightened out. It’s that basic to the fulfillment of our potential.
I still accept too much information as “fact”, but I’ve trained myself to notice more of my behaviors. More and more I catch myself in my old habit of throwing away what really feels right to me in favor of someone else’s “right.” I ask myself, “Does what they are saying really apply to my life, or do I need to check that out by getting quiet and sitting with it for awhile?” Or alternately just acknowledging the cognitive dissonance I feel. That’s guidance too.
We don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water. If we pick and choose what really seems right for us from the constant onslaught of wall-to-wall opinion, we can only become our truest self.
If any of this doesn’t fit who you are in this moment, please set it aside. You’ll be that much closer to your own truth.