Video Blog Transcription:

(00:00):
Welcome to the Natural Way of Being video blog. This video is titled “Finding Your Own Way through Life.” So it seems to me that more and more people are telling us what to do these days. And not only that, they're telling us how to do it.

A common thing, perhaps at work, is that there's this script that we're invited to follow, or basically told to follow. They might call it policy and procedure or whatever else. And basically, it's almost like a flow chart, if you will. It goes something like, "When this happens, you do this, and when this happens, you do this." I think maybe it's from liability or whatever else, but it's designed so you don't have to think about it much. It’s very formulaic.

(00:54):
So that's one thing that's telling us what to do. And then our culture itself kind of tells us what to do. It seems like there are always several things that are kind of like the politically and socially correct way to be, you know? And, these are valid. It's how we grow, it's how we change, how our culture changes, and how we do social change.

And then of course the people around us are more than happy to tell us how to live our lives. Our family, our parents have been telling us how to live since the day we were born. And often that does not stop when we become adults. Other family members, siblings, our own children, tell us what to do.

And friends, of course, and a lot of this is well-meaning, they're trying to help us, but they're saying, “Oh you should dump that guy. Or he's not right for you.” And it's great that they have their opinion as a friend, but it's like still we're being told what to do from things outside of us- like all the time.

(02:04):
What happens is we go through a lifetime of this, of people and things and culture telling us what to do, and we become conditioned to look outside of ourselves to know what to do. And then we get to the point where if we don't know what to do, we look outside of ourselves to find out.

We ask, “Tell me what to do. I don't know what to do. What's the right thing to do?” And it's cool that we want to know the right thing to do, but what I'm suggesting is maybe we're not looking to an effective place to find that.

(02:41):
And it just so happens that we have this built-in natural resource, that's designed to tell us what to do. We could call it our heart or our intuition. And it's designed that when you're in a situation and allow in the energy of that situation, you’re kind of seeing what's going on in that situation, and you kind of focus on a little bit, and your heart will always tell you what to do.

And not only that it'll tell you what's the right thing for you to do in that particular situation. So I guess that's my premise or my spiritual truth going into this: your heart will always tell you what to do.

(03:26):
So "How do we access that?" becomes the next question. And the simple answer to that is we ask, and we just stop a minute and hesitate and say, “Okay, these people are telling me to do this, and this is what's going on. So what is the right thing for me to do?”

It's asking your heart or asking yourself, or asking your intuition: “So what is the right thing for me to do in this situation?” And there are all different ways to do it.

One of those, some people call self-inquiry. It's kind of a specific application of self-inquiry. And it's designed to ask, “What feels right? What is the right thing for me to do in that situation?” And you ask that question sincerely, and then you kind of wait for something to come to you.

And so we ask, and then we just quietly pause a little bit and wait, and then something comes to you, it’s like, “Ah, that's it. That feels right, and that's the right thing for me to do.”

(04:36):
So from there, it's a matter of trusting what comes to you. That's what we're some of us falter and have difficulty. We've got a good gut, we have good intuition, but we don't trust it. And that may be because we were conditioned to not trust it from some of the things we were talking about before: other people telling us to listen to them and not to ourselves. But we've already covered that.

So the next thing is to trust it and, and to trust what comes to you, and trust it so much that we're willing to act on it. We’re willing to kind of put it on the line and act on it, even when it might be contrary to what other people are doing, even if it's contrary to what other people think we should do. Usually, the people around us have an idea of what we should do. And maybe we will be in alignment with that and maybe we won't.

(05:39):
And by the way, I think I should clarify this right now. When people do tell us what to do, it doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. That's just being controlled by it too. That's just the other extreme, it's rebelling against it. So if someone tells us what to do, it's fine to consider it. And it's just saying, “Okay, she's telling me to do this, and so how does that feel? Does that feel like that's the right thing for me to do?”

So I have no problem with doing what people tell you to do. I'm just suggesting that you maybe question it a little bit, consider it, and say, “That's right for her, she thinks it's right for me, but is it right? Does it feel right for me?”

(06:24):
To continue, it's challenging to do this, because it may be a little swimming upstream. It may be different than what the people around us are doing or what they want us to do. It may hurt someone's feelings. We may be guided to speak the truth to a friend, and it may hurt her feelings. You know, she may get mad at us. She may not like us for a while. She may not invite us to her party next week.

There may be some consequences to that. There may be some costs to speaking our truth or the thing that comes to us. But at some point, it gets down to a choice: “You know, I know what it's like to not act on behalf of my truth and what came to me. Now, it's just really important and if there are consequences, so be it. I'm to bear those, and do what I need to do here.” And that's kind of where it needs to get.

(07:22):
Another challenge with allowing the thing to do or your truth to come to you is in the practice of it. And so what it requires, if I'm waiting for the thing to do, I have to sit with the state of not knowing what to do for a while. And that is not comfortable.

Our mind is used to knowing what to do. It has the script: when A happens, you do this. And in my routine, when this happens, you do this, And it's clean, and we don't have to think about it much. We don't have to deliberate and wrestle around with it.

But when we are allowing it into our heart and into our intuition, it's a little more gray down there. It's not as black and white; it's not as clear-cut. We've got values in there and feelings in there and experiences. And so it sometimes might take a little time to sort through the unknown.

(08:27):
And that's what the inquiry is: “I don't know what to do. What feels right? Does this feel right? No, that's not quite it. Does this feel right? Yeah, that's closer.” It's feeling our way through it, which I've talked about before in these blogs, but the feeling of that is a little uneasy. So I just want to be transparent about that when I recommend people consider these things. 

But as we do it more and more, we become used to it. The challenge is there's a tendency to give up on it before we really allow it to become more smooth and more natural.

(09:08):
So the really cool thing about acting in accord with what feels right to you and taking that time to kind of do a little soul-searching inside about what the right thing for you to do is, is that it just feels like you're getting your life back.

It feels like the thing that you're doing is an expression of you. It becomes an expression of who you are, and what you're about, and what feels right to you. And that is a really nice feeling. To me, it feels peaceful, like there's no conflict.

The challenge with the old way is when we act on what something outside of us suggests we do, sometimes we do it, but then there's a conflict where our hearts saying, “I don't know if that was the right thing to do.” And then we're left with conflict. This (new) way is a little more work on the front side when we're searching inside for what to do, but then once we do that, there's peace on the backside.

(10:18):
We get to feel like, “You know what? I did the right thing for me, at the very least, in that situation, and I feel good about it. And it feels like I did the right thing. It just feels right to me.”

So anyway, that is my video blog for this week. Thank you for watching. I wish you to have a great week, and to have the courage to wait for what feels right to you and then act on that. And see what happens! I'll see you next week.