I have recently discovered something about myself. When something feels off to me I physically clench. Physically. Clench. My entire body tenses as if I am being attacked. When in dangerous situations, this could be a very useful reaction. However, when having a conversation and someone is explaining how they do a thing, not so useful. If fact, it is quite detrimental to any learning experience. Surrounding yourself with only that which you already know will not teach you anything.
So, how did I get to this point? To be frank, I have no freaking idea. What I do know is I pay attention to my instinct. That’s a good thing, right? Absolutely.
Here is where I think I may have gone awry, though.
In “listening” to my instincts I have avoided all manner of situations; most I certainly do not need exposure to, but some that were simply different for me. In conversation, these encounters generally become a discussion. Online, this turns into a means of filtering exposure. “Just keep scrolling.” That’s the saying, isn’t it? If you do not agree just keep scrolling. Apparently, that means I keep scrolling until I find something I already know. Pity.
Now this is not to say if you feel a profound feeling of discomfort for something that you go against your instincts. They are there for a reason, use them! What I am saying is if your knee-jerk reaction is to shake your head and say no, nope, no way; to stand on your soapbox and voice your view out of a sense of helping to inform with correctness; to frown at another and tell yourself how wrong they are; then maybe that is the time to check yourself.
When something is truly not for me, my initial reaction is not ‘they are wrong.’ My instinct is ‘this feels off.’ A subtle but profound difference I have learned to help me better navigate my interactions with others. My use of “wrong” is judgmental (physical human body related), where “off” is instinctual (energetic body related).
For me, language is everything. My reaction language is how I check myself. You cannot internally lie to yourself even when you externally do. One can certainly deny, deny, deny, but you will know it is a lie, lie, lie…
So, what do I do? First, catch myself when I am thinking something is not “right.”
Check.
Second, understand that just because something does not feel right for me does not make it wrong. What it means is ‘it’ is not right for me. Nothing wrong about that!
Check.
Every step after is simply a matter of paying attention. Do I feel I need to know this? Is this something that keeps popping up into my awareness? Why am I tuned into this information/person/place/thing/etcetera? Is this a learning, assisting, or clarifying experience for me or anyone I am in contact with? These are some examples of what I do. The beauty of it all is your checks and balances system is completely up to you.
Let me share with you another example. I am not completely confident yet about where this fits in, so I will share only because it has been gifted to me and is, in my humble opinion, a beautiful example!
A topic of great debate is how to connect to spirit. There are so many methods, so many terms for methods, and so much information on all those terms and methods that one can truly get lost on the information highway! Do not fret; I am here to add to the mass of information…hm, okay…I will try to not make you fret with my addition to the mass of information.
Imagine a large, white, round table with nothing on it. Envision people, and this can be those you know or strangers, comfortably hanging out facing each other around this large table. Each person holds a cup. For this example we will say the cup is the size of a plastic red party cup. In each person’s party cup is colored sand – a different color for each person. I may hold a cup full of red sand, you have blue, the next person holds pink, then green, orange, yellow, gray, black, chartreuse, and so on; as many colors as there are people.
Then as one, everyone flings their sand across this very large table.
Staring at this table covered in multiple colors of sand, some swirled together, some mixed to make a new color, some on its own, what color stands out to you? What color stands out to the person next to you? In my imagination, blue stands out for me. Maybe you see pink, or yellow. The next person may be drawn to a mix of color that creates brown. As I write this, blue has faded and orange stands out.
Now, instead of all those colors substitute various methods of connection. What are you drawn to? What stands out for you? Is your attention pulled in just one direction or more than one? Simply because your attention is guided in one direction does that make all the other directions wrong? No, of course not!
What it means is, at this time, those paths are not right for me.
Just as blue initially drew my attention then faded as orange stood out, we are drawn to new methods and understandings that come into our awareness while we move away from others.
We all are where we are.
Paths intersect and overlap, but my path is mine and yours is yours. I may have been where you are and you may have been where I am going – after all, time and age are irrelevant. No matter how we understand things, when we share from a genuine sense of loving others – this thing we are all able to do is a genuine sense of loving others even when we do not understand how or why – when we are genuine in that sense then there is no right and wrong.
With love, Yoli
