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How Do You Know?
By Cornelia Powell | August 19, 2009
~ Lavinia Plonka, from her article “June Bride”
What would be your answer if someone posed that question to you? I don’t know whether Lavinia’s mother’s advice about love is true or not — the nature of romantic love can get rather complicated, yes? But how do you know what you’re feeling about anything is true, much less the sticky subject of love?
Even when you think you are being rigorously honest with yourself, how do you know you can trust your decision — what do you use as a guidepost? How can you tell if your “wise-self” has kicked in or if it’s just your tricky mind telling you to take a right turn instead of a left, or that it’s okay to have another piece of chocolate, or that yes, this is “real love” and not just the “illusion of love”?
Sometimes I do a little check-in with myself when I’m wrangling with a decision: “Is my answer coming from my head, my heart, or my intuition? Where am I ‘feeling’ the answer?” My friend, Maria Gurule, a wise teacher and shaman, explains it something like this:
“Your head (your thoughts) may trick you; your heart (your emotions) may fool you; but your solar plexus/the pit of your stomach (your inner knowing) will never lie to you.”
When your “inner knowing” speaks — and you know when it does! — it takes courage to then act on that wise, intuitive, aware voice (especially when things “out there” are pointing in a different direction.) This is how Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations With God, counsels about making choices: “Look to your awareness, not to your thoughts. Your thoughts about things can betray you — and often do — because they are colored by emotions. Your awareness cannot.”
In our over-thinking, noisy frenetic culture, it’s important to slow down, be quiet, and listen inward — at least for a few moments each day. Otherwise, even your “aware self” may miss that ping in the pit of your stomach or not be able to hear the message of your wise “inner knowing.”
Gently breathe in and out with an easy, deep rhythm and listen for that still, soft place inside. It’s always there — a few quiet breaths away — and you can trust where it takes you. Here is where the difference in “real love” and the “illusion of love” — or the truth about whatever query is stirring your soul at the moment — becomes apparent. So when you imagine your life with or without something or someone, look inward to your awareness and you can indeed trust what you imagine to be true.
Topics: Empowering Girls, For Brides, Inspiration, Meditation, Relationship, Stillness & Relaxation, Women's Notes |