Wellbeing Series Part 3: Trust Your Inner Guide

Throughout this series, we have been learning to focus on ourselves, on our actual needs (not the demands of life); we have started to listen to our bodies and our own natural wisdom.

Last month we began to experiment. 

We experimented with removing our crutches: do we really need that extra coffee, or do we actually need some good rest?

We looked at our habits and our learned behaviours; at our tendency, as humans, to follow the pack. We challenged those habits and considered taking a different path.

We sought out our inner child(ren) and we began to let them play.

This month is about starting to implement some changes. Slowly, gently, and with the understanding that we might not get it right first time, we will start to move into new habits, new patterns, new behaviours.

American spiritual leader, Ram Dass, talks about moving ‘from roles to soul’ during the course of his life, and while it is true that we learn our roles young, it is equally true that we don’t have to be defined or limited by them.

Carer, pleaser, parent, manager, boss - whatever persona we have adopted through life, it is always possible to find our true selves around and beside those roles. We might have several different patterns depending on our situation or who we are with. Often, however, these roles have been adopted as ways of coping, of adapting to our surroundings and the people we meet. They may be quite far removed from who we really are.

So this month is about taking note of how we feel when we are letting our inner child play, when we are giving ourselves the care that we really need, the space to be and feel ourselves - and expanding that into patterns that can take us through the day in ways that are more true, more authentic.

For me, that all starts with kindness. Kindness to ourselves, and to the people around us. It starts with understanding that the guy who has a go at you on the tube during rush hour, might actually be really worried about how he’s going to pay his mortgage this month. The woman at work who suddenly isn’t so friendly as she used to be, might be worried about her sick mother, her child’s exams.

It starts with forgiving ourselves, if we haven’t quite lived up to our own expectations, and expanding that forgiveness to others. It means accepting that we can fail, but that we can also pick ourselves up.

And lastly, it means trusting that we have all the answers we need, right here inside us. We just have to be brave enough to listen - and take action.

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