A NEW way

Trusting the voice of your True Self is a powerful way of attaining richness in life— from career success, financial abundance, happiness in your relationships, to sustainable self- esteem. 

By courageously stepping into authenticity, you go from trying to fit into the convention to honouring what you believe in.

You go from being a follower of set rules to being the leader of your own values.

You go from pandering to external judgement to allowing your intensities to be seen, heard, and loved.

Rather than forcing your way to achieve conventional success, you simply let your natural exuberance (and imperfections) attract your unique brand of abundance.

This new paradigm towards success and happiness is not the linear, predictable path that we know.

The old model says we need to work hard to climb a ladder; the new model says the only work you need is to peel off the facade and allow people and things to come to you. 

At first glance, the new path is full of uncertainty. The old way, with a visible finishing line, seems clear, concrete, predictable.

If you take the road less travelled by and let what naturally springs out of you ‘attracts’ the abundance, you don’t know what shape or form that may take (yet). 

The fact that we are not given an instruction manual to follow can seem disconcerting.

However, this is only because the most primal, fear-based part of our brain has not yet kept up with the realities of how the world works.

Indeed, you do not have any idea what the ‘award’ would look like in the end. But you know it will not be a job title after many years of passionless work, or an empty but ‘conventionally approved’ marriage, or a house with three kids’ with someone who repels you, or a company with values that do not align with yours. 

If you rely on your deep inner voice, you are not looking for any gaps to fill, any external regulation to comply with, or any outsiders’ gaze to satisfy.

You focus on nothing but Joseph Campbell’s famous advice of ‘following your bliss’.

This is paradoxically the most certain path because you know you have enjoyed the process.

You can leave the world tomorrow, and there can be no real regrets- because every day has been fun, and you are surrounded by people who see the real you. 

In contrast, the forced path based on adapting yourself to external demand is highly risky. What if the promised land you have envisioned is not what it seems? Even if it is, is it worth the time you have spent hiding you and squandering your passion? 

You have only one life, and every day you spend in something that is not true to your values take away from the potential richness that your true, sensitive, intense and passionate self has to offer. 

Even the beginning of this process can seem daunting; once you have started, it will soon become effortless. It will be an automatic upward spiral. You do not have to exert effort, because your health, joy, excitement will be enough to carry you through to the other side. 

“The flower doesn’t dream of the bee. It blossoms and the bee comes.”  - Mark Nepo

TODAY’S EXPERIMENT: POETRY READING AND VISUAL CONTEMPLATION

Find the poem, “The Journey” by Mary Oliver a few times and let your mind be open to what comes up for you from your own life experience.  After reading the poem, think back to any time in your life where you experienced a deep sense of knowing. Against the grain, you knew “what you had to do”.

Reflect on this experience, could you identify a strong inner voice that has supported you along the way?

Is that a voice you could trust, no matter what happens?

How did it feel to honour your voice? How did it feel, in other times, when you did not honour that voice?

How might that voice speak to you in your world today? Perhaps as a whisper in your mind, or your dream?

In your visual journal, respond to the above with words and a quick scribble.