Hearing the Guiding Voice of Spirit

There is a way to receive clear inner guidance for every question you have in your life, and that is by attuning to the wisdom of your own Higher Self. You cannot hear this voice when you’re taking directions from the small self, who’s always busy planning, strategizing, and thinking. These actions are all necessary for functioning in the world, but they come after receiving clear inner guidance, not at the outset of a new beginning. If you initiate any new beginning in your life by first figuring things out from the small self or ego mind, you are blocking your spiritual access to your biggest possibilities.

Your small self only knows how he or she used to do things. She operates in a limited field of her past beliefs and experiences of what used to work. She takes action from her historical strategies for accomplishing things. This is effective if you want to keep repeating what you used to know and how you used to create things in your life. But, by doing this, you’re actually blocking bigger possibilities that are awaiting you, and surrounding you all the time.

When you break out of your old, conditioned ways of responding to life, both psychologically and spiritually, you open up space to make great new choices guiding the way you live and think and be. Once you make that inspired decision, your small self, the advice-giving neighbor who loves to call up and offer her input, gets threatened. She wants you to live from her opinions and ideas. She may get on auto-dial for a while trying to sell you her version of how to create your life and how to move forward. When your small self is on the phone—and, rest assured, this happens with regularity for us all—gently but firmly say, “No, thank you.” Then ask Spirit, or your own Higher Self, for guidance.

To support yourself in hearing this inner guidance, go to a quiet place in your home or in nature for meditation. Once you find yourself in a peaceful place of Being, attuned to your Higher Self, simply ask for the guidance you seek with an open mind and heart. Then be quiet and listen. Pay attention to the ideas, intuitions, and insights that come to you. Don’t disregard them as too out of the box, or not sounding like what you used to know, or how you used to do things. If nothing comes in, be patient and trust the process.

The infinite has no timetable. It brings us opportunities, people, and solutions as we are aligned to receiving our greatest good. Our alignment to this good comes through Being, not through rushing around and doing. When you feel clear guidance, write it down in your journal. Allow the voice of your own inner wisdom to speak to you and show you what to do next.

Once you have your inner guidance, act! Now is the time for making calls, writing the book, initiating the move, reaching out to someone, or expressing yourself in the ways you feel inspired to do. But let your planning and action also come from Spirit, guided from your Higher Self. Simply ask your Higher Self, “How should I take action from here? What should I do next?” Write down what you hear or sense to be the guidance. Do this intuitively and see what happens. Then move into action, guided by Being, inner knowing, and your own Higher Self.

Great possibilities and joyful outcomes are always available to us when we’re consciously connected to the unified field, to Spirit, or the Source. Access to this field comes from letting our new vision for any part of our lives come from Being, not from forcing and thinking and trying to make things happen from the ego. The instant we realize we’ve gone off course and are moving from fear, not love, from pushing, not Being, we need to choose a higher thought to adjust our course. We acknowledge our passing emotional states with humor and humility, without any suppression or self-judgment, then simply shift back to our Being and our connection to our Higher Self. It’s a little dance in which we are increasingly led by our Higher Self, and cut into less and less by our small self with its limiting agendas, fears, and judgments.

When we feel clear about our next steps, then we take them. It may be as simple as inviting a new friend to have lunch or as sweeping as a new career direction, a creative project you’re embarking on, a relationship you are exploring, or a meaningful trip you want to take. Listen and follow.

Excerpted from Navigating Change: Conscious Endings, Visionary Beginnings by Christine Warren,  ChristineWarrenWorkshops.com.

Find out about upcoming programs with Christine Warren at Kripalu.