The resting place – a story about gaining trust in the inner voice

Getting guidance via the inner voice can be a challenge for me because I tend to question “Did I really hear this? Or did I make this up?” Here, I want to share a story about gaining more trust in the inner voice.

The channeling homework

In 2021, I participated in a 6 months channeling class with Lisa Wechtenhiser. One of the homework tasks in June 2021 was to record a video channeling with messsages which our chosen divine being ( – in my case Archangel Michael – ) would share with the other participants in the class.

The video had to be 7 minutes long. What on earth would I talk about freely for 7 minutes while in front of the camera? I found that task extremely challenging and fear inducing and tensed up about it. (And we had to do not just one of these videos, but four. All about different topics and ranging in length from 5 minutes to 15 minutes).

Regarding the homework, I knew I wouldn’t be able to channel while sitting nervously in front of the camera. So, I took a walk around the fields, which is one of my favorite methods of relaxation, and tried to receive some messages.

I was a bit grumpy inside. Like, ‘I am sure I will not hear anything for this darn homework assignment! Poor me. What’s the point? Why even try?’

But then a little voice inside my mind said,

‘Why are you so sure that you can’t hear me when you haven’t even tried?‘

Oh, where did that come from? Okay, so maybe I just needed to keep an open mind and try.

I didn’t really hear an inner voice during the walk. It was more like getting the message from my inner guidance for myself that I needed to keep walking.

‘Keep walking‘ and ‘I’ll walk with you‘ ,

these were the statements that were always reiterated. Even though every step was painful due to the rheumatoid arthritis, I needed to keep going forward. In a physical sense and in a metaphorical sense.

What also came through was that we are never alone and always have company from the spirit realm on the journey. And we should’t forget to ask for assistance.

And then the channeling attempts were all about seeing things outside and taking them as messages or metaphors. So, I thought about the metaphors of everything along my way. The growth cycles of the trees, for example. The blossoms, bringing fruit, and then the phase of rest. And how that relates to our own lives.

Did Archangel Michael really talk to me about nature’s cycles? I have no idea. But I put it into the homework anyway because we were supposed to do it for certain length of time and I needed to fill time.

Then, I saw a fresh apple lying at the side along my way. It was not one of the apple trees here, but it was a fresh, bright green Granny Smith apple. How amazing and unusual. Normally, I didn’t find fresh fruit lying on the ground here.

I didn’t pick it up. But I thought about what a synchronicity that was since I was indeed short on apples in our frigde. And I could have picked it up as a gift. I interpreted it as a sign that I was always well taken care of and put that message into the channeling homework, too.

Next, I thought about how I had heard a crow barking like a dog at that place recently. And how that sounded funny and had pulled me out of a sad mood. So, I translated that experience into the following message:

‘If you are sad, I will send a crow which barks like a dog to put a smile on your face.’

When I went further, I came to a field where the wind was blowing through green barley. The sun came out and the barley made waves in the wind . I looked like waves on an ocean. A beautiful sight.

I thought how this would translate into words for the channeled homework message. Probably something like

‘I caress you with the sun and ruffle the hair of the earth with the wind.’

Even though my inner critic came out and said ‘Whoa, now we are going to wax lyrical about it’, I still kept it that way because the moment was truly beautiful.

Then I saw grey clouds to the left and the right and was wondering whether I would get home dry. But I did.
And then I translated that experience into

‘Don’t worry, I can part the clouds for you and make sure that you get home dry.‘

Then I went home and sat down in front of the camera to record my channeling homework video by basically repeating what I had just received during the walk before. It worked. I managed to speak freely for more than 7 minutes – with lots of repetitions and long moments of silence, though. But boy was it an awkward experience!

I struggled with this. Was this really valid channeling? Wasn’t I cheating because I was unable to do it freely in front of the camera without any preparation? And in addition, I didn’t really hear an inner voice most of the time. I just translated the experiences into messages. Was this valid? My my inner Officer of the Department of Doubt and Discernment was having a field day.

Towards the end of the recording session of the channeling, a surprising message dropped in, this time rather spontaneously.

‘And if you are hungry, I will provide a resting place along the way, make sure that the weather is fine and that you have something to eat. I fill your cup.‘

I was surprised about what just escaped my mouth. Where did that come from? Was Archangel Michael going to build another bench plus a table as a picnic place for me? Probably not. But I had said it anyway.

But then something happened which reminded me of that sentence again and which also restored trust that maybe I might not have made all the stuff up, but maybe I had received the messages correctly.

The fallen tree

Much to my surprise, a few weeks after I had done the channeling homework, we had a storm and an old tree at the corner of the field fell down. It must have been already rotten inside so that it could not withstand the storm.

Then the farmer hauled the tree to the side of the field (see picture below). And there, it served as the bench that Archangel Michael would provide as a resting place as the channeling had promised.

The location was perfect for my walk around the field since it was placed about half way. And nobody seemed to use it except me. The other people only used the real benches. And if the other benches were occupied but I needed to sit down to rest my legs and feet which had pain from rheumatoid arthitis, then I was very grateful to have this lying tree just for myself.

It was not just a place to rest when exhausted. It was also a place to rest when hungry, as it said in the channeling. Because prune trees were growing around that fallen tree.

The carving

A while later, I sat on another (real) bench along the field when I saw someone drive by on his bicycle. I looked at the brand of the bike and it said ‘Carver’.

I had never seen that bike brand before around here and thought maybe there was a message in that. Maybe I needed to pay attention to something. But what? I decided to look closer at the woodworm carving marks in the fallen tree.

So, when I sat down later on the fallen tree and as I glanced over the large amount of woodworm marks on it, I saw something special. It looked like an angel. A head, then a body with a long gown, two wings, and a sword. Seeing something resembling and angel alone would be awesome enough, but the sword pointed me to Archangel Michael. And that was the guide with whom I had been supposed to do this channeling exercise. Interpreting something into these carvings is very subjective, of course, like seeing images in clouds. Certainly, someone else might have seen something different. But for me it was meaningful.

So, even though that whole homework channeling exercise felt somehow forced and awkward and like I was making it all up, that chain of events with the sentence ‘When you are hungry, I will provide a resting place‘ and the fallen tree helped me to gain trust in the inner voice.

So maybe in my case, that is the way to go with attempts to channel. I can just start with something. Just start talking or writing even if it feels made up. And then at some point some message may slip in which might be surprising but turn out to be true later.

Spiraling forward: a story about the confirmation of the inner voice

During one of my walks in April 2021, as I sat down on a bench at the side of a large parking lot, I saw a twig in an unusual spiral form lying on the ground. There were no bushes near that place and the ground was made of paving stones. So, it was a bit unusual to find any twig there at all.

An inner voice said, ‘This is for you. This is like your journey. Spiraling forward. Even if you don’t move in a straight line forward, keep moving forward and keep growing like this branch did.’

I never know whether I am making this inner voice up or not. But I thought, why not? I‘d take this twig home. It was pretty and I planned to use it for decoration purposes.

At that time, I was also participating in a 6 months channeling class.

One participant of this class posted something in our facebook group about how he imagined the spiritual journey to play out for each of us. It was about climbing up a ladder. And while climbing up, we would increase our vibrational frequency and get more and more above the clouds which had blocked access to truth and guidance.

He looked for a suitable image of ladders online, but none of them felt right. Then he found an image of a spiral staircase which felt right and he posted it.

I shared that I had found this spiral twig a couple of days earlier and that the inner voice had told me that this was like my path, spiraling forward. Now I was much more confident in the message of the inner voice. It seemed that I hadn’t made it up.

When I am in doubt about the messages I receive from the inner voice, there are several ways for me to look for confirmation. In addition to the inner voice, the message could also show up in dreams, signs, songs on the radio, etc. And, as in this story, it can also show up in other people’s experiences or the messages they receive.

Building trust in the inner voice: the bike seat story

“We are so happy to hear that you are going to Berlin,” said the inner voice of guidance. “You will be treated like a princess. No, even like a queen. Like royalty. Enjoy your trip!”

And then they added, “And we have a surprise for you.”

In addition to this statement of the inner voice, I got an image in my mind of some people dancing or bobbing up and down with joy and excitement.

“Well, what is it? Won’t you tell me?” I replied.

“No, we won’t tell you. Because then it wouldn’t be a surprise. And the soul loves surprises!”

I had planned my spontaneous trip to my parents in Berlin for a few days during early May 2022. I wrote about it here. Some last minute concerns had been wiped away. Due to a sore throat, I had decided to take a COVID test. I would have canceled my train tickets when the test would have been positive. But luckily it came back negative. I felt relief. And now I was ready to go.

I wondered what the promised surprise was going to be.

And even more, I wondered whether I heard the inner voice correctly. I still struggle with the issue of discernment and trust in the inner voice. Most often, the guidance does not appear as an audible voice but more like thoughts in my mind. Thoughts where it is not me who is thinking them. It is more like someone is talking to me telepathically in thoughts. But it is hard to tell whether I am making this up. Is this wishful thinking? Or is it from guidance? It is often easier to discern when there is some additional guidance showing up on another input channel like in a dream, a song in the mind or showing up in the physical. So, I decided to wait and see.

As it turned out, not only was I treated royally with fantastic weather and tasty food, but there were at least three surprises. The first surprise was that the train had on-board entertainment and I got to watch a movie on the 5h train ride to Berlin. The second one was that I was contacted by a former colleague right after I had left Berlin. I am going to share now in more detail about the third surprise.

The surprise

So after a few days, I came back from Berlin late in the evening. And since I already had experienced two surprises, I didn’t expect any new ones. I got off the train and went to my bike which I had locked at the train station for a couple of days. My bike was still there and not stolen. That was a relief. But there was something unusual about it.

The first thing I noticed was a little rose flower in my basket. It was an artificial one, made from fabric. How lovely to be greeted with something like that!

Then I noticed that there was something strange about the bicycle seat. Not only was the plastic bag removed which I had used to cover the seat. But the saddle was low and the quick clamp was loosened.

WTF?

Then I took a closer look and realized that this was not my bike seat! Someone had taken my old bike seat out and put an almost new one in there. My old bike seat was very much torn on the surface. But I didn’t mind. I always used a plastic bag to cover it. And now I had an almost new bike seat with a smooth surface.

How lovely! Someone must have exchanged my saddle for a better one and put the rose in my basket. That must have been the surprise my guides promised me.

Some handicraft work required

However, after I arrived at home, I took a closer look at the new saddle and saw that there was a problem. The seat pillar was too thin. Even if I closed the quick clamp, the saddle would still move.

Darn. Now I wasn’t so sure anymore whether this surprise was really such a great gift and some resentment crept in.

Then the problem solving phase started. Sifting through ideas how to deal with this. I wasn’t going to spend money on a new bike seat because I was afraid that that one would be stolen the next time I went to Berlin leaving my bike for several days locked at the train station.

After an unsuccessul attempt to enlarge the diameter of the saddle pillar with thick fabric duct tape, we tried some handicraft with metal from soda cans. After some tinkering, we ended up cutting the metal of not only one but two soda cans and wrapping it around the pillar to make it fit into the bike frame. ( I am so grateful that I stumbled across this helpful tip in an internet forum.)

Then the saddle pillar fit and didn’t slide into the frame further while biking and I thought, finally, I can be grateful for this surprise.

Messages

But there was more. There were probably some messages to consider.

One of the soda cans was a Dr. Pepper with cherry-vanilla flavor. We usually never drink Dr. Pepper and I wasn’t even aware that this was available here in Germany, but my husband bought it because it was the cheapest soda can he could find at the grocery store. I wondered whether there was a message in that for me. Does having (Dr.) Pepper under my butt mean something similar to getting fire under my ass? I hope I won’t be pushed by my guides again to do things which I don’t want to do. Had enough of that in the past.

The other thing that might be a message was that the saddle had the inscription ‘MOODY’ on the side, along with icons which reminded me of moon phases. Was it an admonition to look at my moods and heal my moody conditions? Or should I read Raymond Moody’s books about NDEs? I am not sure. Looking at my moods of occasional grumpiness, fear, and anger and trying to get into a stable inner peace is always a good idea, but it is still work in progress.

The third thing to mention about the saddle is that is is from the brand ‘Selle Royal’. A royal bike seat. When I saw this, I realized that the inner voice which I heard before the Berlin trip had told me that I would be treated ‘like royalty’.

Not only did I have a new bike seat now, but I also had one more experience with the inner voice where I had learned to trust that what I had heard was real. And much more than any channeling class exercises, it is these little personal experiences which teach me to trust.

Divine guidance through an inner voice

Guidance from spirit can come in many ways, and one of them is hearing an inner voice. This input channel of guidance has its own set of challenges.

When I try to receive guidance this way, the first thing is that I ask. Usually, spirit does not interfere if we don’t ask. The challenge is to not forget that.

After having asked for guidance, then the challenge is to become quiet enough so that the voice of spirit can come through. For this, meditation is helpful.

The next challenge is to notice the voice of guidance. If the mind is cleared too much in meditation, the thoughts of spirit can be continuously ignored. This happened to Esther Hicks (who channels Abraham) in the beginning. She thought meditation was all about sitting around with an empty mind and letting thoughts go as soon as they arose. Therefore, she received the thoughts of guidance and just let them go. Spirit had to find another way to get the message through. They made her move her nose and paint letters in the air until she got the point.

So, it is important to become quiet, peaceful, and receptive. Waiting for an answer is like waiting for the thunder after a flash of lightning. It is with an expectation that something will be heard.

When I hear guidance, it is like thoughts coming into my head that I did not think. There is a feeling of being passive, receptive, and allowing. Being allowing is important. One sure way to block the guidance is the inner resistance to what is being said. When I feel that my guides are about to give me an answer that I do not want to hear, then I metaphorically press my hands on my ears and shout at them to shut up. This blocks my ability to hear the guidance.

The thoughts can come in the form of dictated sentences, already fully formulated. An example of this would be, if you answer the question “What are the letters of the alphabet?” and you receive in your head an automatic stream reciting “A,B,C,…” (of course, this would be your own voice, but I used this as an example for what it feels like.)

Thought can also appear as blocks of thought which need to be put into a formulated sentence by me.

An example would be when someone asks you to explain to him your favorite hobby and all its tricks of the trade. When you think of your hobby, you get the information as a chunk of information (about why you like it so much; when you started; from whom you learned; what you are actually doing, etc.) which is not put into words in a linear fashion yet. This is how a download of a block of thought feels like. It is there all at once.

The thoughts I receive are not audible most of the time. Only on rare occasions, I get an audible voice.

All of these forms (formulated sentences, blocks of thought, voiceless voice, audible voice) are valid guidance.

In the beginning of my journey, I insisted that I wanted to hear an audible inner voice. Somehow, I had the idea that in order to be real guidance the voice must be audible.

So, one morning during the receptive time between sleeping and waking up, I heard an audible voice in my head.
It said „freedom” in a very low bass.
Next week on another morning, I got an audible voice in my head saying something in a high pitched Mickey Mouse voice.

That seemed like a humorous suggestion for customizing the voice of my internal satellite navigation system. What would I want my inner voice to sound like? Apparently, my guides were making fun of me.

I felt humbled. But I admired the universe’s teaching methods, patience, and humor. And I stayed with the voiceless voice setting.

The inner voice can speak after I asked a question or even unbidden when I did not ask before.

A good time to receive answers is at 3 am or between sleep and waking up. That is when I am most receptive. Or anytime during quiet routine activities like taking a shower, biking, peeling carrots, etc..

In the beginning, I found it helpful to write down what the inner voice told me. Initially, pen and paper worked better than typing.

Later, the broadcasts of the inner voice became too much to write them down. It was not practical anymore.

Another special issue or challenge for this particular type of input channel of guidance is discernment. Am I making this up? Is this really from spirit or higher self? Or is it my ego talking? Is this just regurgitated stuff which I have read somewhere?

This is not easy to answer. The ego can come as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The ego can mask itself as reliability and responsibility when it is really attachment to the former self-definition and attachment to security and comfortable old pathways. So, be aware that any of your well-meant intentions can stem from ego.

A foreign language might help. You can ask the inner voice to talk in another language to you. My guide talks to me in English, even though it is not my native language. This might help. But then, my ego can learn to speak English, too. So, it is not a foolproof method.

The best sign that the inner voice is real is if we are told stuff that we could not have known by ourselves. I was once told in a dream and then by the inner voice to contact an old friend and share about the woo stuff I had experienced. The voice told me that this was necessary because the person was in trouble. I did not know whether this was true, but even though it appeared to be a bit risky, I acted on the suggestion anyway. And it turned out my old friend actually was in a depressed mood and welcomed my email. And to my surprise, she wasn’t turned off by my woo-woo experiences, but could relate to them.

Sometimes the trust in this inner voice is built by acting on the received suggestions and then evaluating whether this made sense.

Other ways to validate the inner voice are when similar messages pop up through other input channels (like dreams, songs, or posts on the internet). Or it would be a validation when a psychic medium channels my spirit guides and I get exactly the same message from there.

Recently, I came across the docuseries They Call Us Channelers by Kevin Moore who interviews professional channelers. I enjoy learning about their various life stories and about the many different ways they channel. Here is the link to his YouTube playlist.

Making contact with my spirit guides

It has been more than 2 months now since a negative spirit guide has been dismissed from my team. Here is what has occurred since then.

The guide who had to leave
Before the dismissal, I had a guide who showed up in visions with curly blonde hair and in contemporary clothing  who sent me the name ‘Aaron’. He was the one who pushed me to share my stuff in various online formats. Since he appeared frequently in dreams, visions, and as inner voice, I thought that he was my main guide.  But now, I have not seen him anymore. It seems that he is the one who got booted out.

Fear and confusion
My emotional state about what happened ranges from rather calm to fearful. Sometimes I am confident that I will be able to continue with the rest of the team of guides and I even long for communication with them.  And at other times, it seems just too tempting to shut down the connection because I assume that this will keep me safe from being bossed around by the inner voice in the future.

I know that keeping my inner peace is important. So, I am trying to get back to inner peace whenever fear surges.

Also, I keep thinking about what part of my past experiences has been tainted by that guide. If I am to share this stuff, I don’t want to mislead people. I don’t think that I need to throw away everything and start from scratch. But the very strict guidance with partly threatening dreams and physical pain is probably not that common and might be more because of the negative guide.  On the other hand, there are many stories  of people who got ill after not obeying guidance. Did they all have negative spirit guides? Probably not. Maybe getting sick is just a natural consequence of resisting the soul’s calling.

Keep the faith
Around the time of the channeling where the negative guide was chased away, the word ‘Israel’  came up frequently in unexpected places, and also ‘Jacob’. So, I looked up the story of  how Jacob wrestled with an angel and was renamed to Israel afterwards. Is that a message that there are special karma bonus points after one has survived such a struggle? lol
Anyway, it seems to encourage me to believe that something good will come from this.

Also, I get the number ‘2’ showing up frequently and in unusual places, which, to me, means to have faith.

Making contact with my guides
Currently, I am trying to make contact with the rest of the team. Each evening before sleep, I am lying in my bed and asking them to give me a physical sign that they are there. An electrical tingling sensation or a muscle twitching counts as a sign that they are trying to get my attention.

But sometimes, the muscle twitching gets into a cramp, or the tingling sensation turns into a shooting nerve pain. Then I tell  them that they should not hurt me and need to  try again. To establish rapport takes practice and patience on  both sides of the veil.

Who are they? In dreams or visions, I got several different faces and names so far. But it seems like they were to be understood more metaphorically than literally. For example, the first one I got was a big man with the name ‘Max’.  That seemed to mean that  he is the biggest or greatest of them. His message for me was to spend more money on food and clothing for myself. I tend to be content with simple and cheap stuff. Sounds like he is encouraging me to show more self-love in these areas.

Messages by the other guides were about manifestation with joy and faith and about using my voice.

They all say that they want to encourage me with joy rather than by threatening me (like the negative guide did before). So, that looks like a positive change.

Whenever I ask for their guidance, listen, and then actually follow their answer, they send me signs of much appreciation and celebration. As if they know how hard it is for me to find that trust again and as if they want to show me how happy they are that I try nevertheless.

I still do get dreams and visions. Some of them talked about the importance of coming into a joyful mood. But often, the dreams are less blunt and their meaning is  harder to decipher.

In summary, making contact with the team of guides takes trust, practice, patience, and a lot of fine-tuning.

Do I have more slack now?
In the past, it felt as if my free will was getting less and less and I was on a very short leash. When I did not obey the guidance, I would get sick or other trouble would happen. Even though I don’t have throat chakra issues at the moment (like breathing trouble in the past), I still do get uncomfortable physical symptoms when I procrastinate too long without blogging anything. This time, it is a pressure between my shoulder blades (which feels like someone is poking his finger into my back).  That means, even now, I do not really have an unlimited amount of slack.

I have been told that there are two available tracks. I can either take the slow path (do what I feel drawn to do, e.g. journaling, taking long walks, just being at peace) or the path of fast growth (blog more, do a webinar). Or I can even take a mixture of these two. So, that means I will still have to do the webinar about guidance. But it does not have to be right away and it does not need to be live (as I originally thought).

My guides have asked me to post at least once a week. However, I told them that I cannot commit to that. Then they asked me to at least state my commitment and firm intent to share all about the topic of guidance. I thought long and hard, but found again that I cannot even make that commitment, especially not after I had a negative guide.

At the moment, I just want to feel safe. I do not want to feel pressured. From that feeling of safety, I hope that intrinsic motivation and joy will arise to share – not only on the topic of guidance but also about the phases and challenges  of the spiritual journey.

 

Divine Guidance Workshop

After much resistance and many pushes by the universe, I gave in and held a pilot version of the divine guidance workshop.

It was the ‘lite version’ of it. Just half a day with only six friends in my living room. No hassle with having to book a venue, no marketing, no traveling.

This event was not only heavily enforced by nudges and pushes of the universe, but many details of it were also guided.

A dream about the target group
When I wrote the script for the workshop, I was not sure who should be the target group. Materialists? Lightworkers? Buddhists?  Christians?

When I asked, I got the answer “We will send you a dream”. And then I dreamt about one of the participants and interpreted that as the prototype of a member of the target group.

Dreams about the chapter on the basics
I wondered whether I should include a chapter on the basics of the spiritual journey in order to let people know that guidance will shift their identity and will also result in a loss of free will.

But wouldn’t this information  deter many readers who might just want to know how to find the right romantic partner or how to make more money?

Then I had two dreams which both indicated that it would be silly  to cut away the foundation and therefore decided to include the chapter on basics.

Advice on the date
In November 2016, I was finally ready to stop procrastinating and set a deadline – just so that I could get that task off my chest.

But when should the pilot version of the workshop take place?

I asked the inner voice and heard “End of March 2017”.

So, I set the date to March 31, and everyone of the participants had time on that day.

Help with single chapters
When I wrote the chapter on synchronicity, I needed a good example as a story to include.

But I was at a loss. I did not want to just quote the old story of Carl Jung and the scarab beetle, but rather tell my own story.

As if to answer this request,  a bird flew against my window. It was a special bird – a canary.  And it had a special connection to our family on that day. You can read more about it in the chapter on synchronicities in the script.

An email which should not be sent
After a draft of the script was ready, I sent it to a friend. He wrote  a lot of detailed feedback into the comments.

When I attempted to answer all his remarks in a lengthy document, my computer program just did not save my answers. About two hours of work were lost.

I took that as a sign that this answer was not to be sent – for whatever reason.

Advice on whom to invite
Three weeks before the workshop, the inner voice told me,  “Can we talk? I don’t want you to ruin this. You need to invite F., too.”

I said, “Yes, I can do that, but F. usually works on Fridays and he will probably not be able join.”

The inner voice replied, “He will come. I promise.”

So, I invited F., and indeed, he participated. And it turned out that his presence was a blessing in several ways.

 

During the last two years, I have learned over and over again in how many ways an endeavor is guided if my higher self wants to make it happen by all means. At first, there are gentle nudges and not so gentle pushes. After the realization that resistance is futile, there is surrender. And in the end the whole universe conspires to support it.

***

I am very grateful to the six participants of the pilot version of the workshop who took the time to test this and who gave me valuable feedback and to all fellow bloggers here on WordPress who have shared how guidance shows up for them, who have encouraged me, and who have offered help in many different ways. Thanks a lot to all of you!

The link to the free script  of the divine guidance workshop (downloadable pdf) can be found here .

The universe’s bag of tricks

‘I want you to hold a workshop,’ said my spirit guide, while I was taking a walk alone outside in Jan 2015.  ‘A what? No way!’ was my initial response. ‘You know how much I hate having to organize my children’s birthday parties. I sure don’t feel like organizing a workshop.’

In front of me, a man was walking with a large dog on a leash. And right after my thought of resistance, he wrapped the dog leash around the belly of the dog in such a way that it became really short. This seemed to imply, ‘Remember, you are on a short leash!’   Afterwards, the dog was supposed to hop into the trunk of a car. But it refused. The man shouted, “Are you crazy?” and just lifted the dog into the trunk. That seemed to mean this would happen to me, too, when I resisted. Sigh. I would probably  have to yield at some point.

I had written a post about the many forms of divine guidance  and  was told by my inner voice that I should somehow turn this into a workshop format.

But doubts crept in. I would have to offer exercises. But how do I practice dream recall techniques in a workshop setting (when people are hopefully not sleeping)? More doubts came, about having to book a venue, marketing, travel, money issues. All of this resulted in me downright refusing to even think about it.

But the universe has its bag of tricks to convince resistant children.

The dishwasher mirrors my stubbornness
I seem to have a special affiliation with electric gadgets. They often stop working when I am not aligned with inner peace. And this time it was our dishwasher’s turn. The start button refused to work, or worked only after pushing it about 20 times. Not funny! Apparently, this was mirroring my stubbornness. Ok, breathe deep and say ‘Thy will be done’. And then the button started to behave well again. I am always amazed when forgiveness works.

Truck advice cheers me on
In summer 2015, I had agreed to write an outline at least, in order to demonstrate my willingness. I came across a truck with the inscription  www.nicht-bummeln.de which means ‘don’t dawdle’. I took this as advice to get started and wrote an early draft version.

The unsolved error ticket mirrors me
In December 2015, my efforts had somewhat stopped due to overwhelm in other areas of my life. I was extremely exhausted with no energy or creativity left over. There were no further pushes by the universe regarding the workshop. Maybe I didn’t need to do it after all? I turned within and asked, ‘Do you still want me to take care of this?’ This time, I did not get an inner voice or dream as an answer. But the universe used another very creative method to let me know.

In October, I had created an error ticket about a technical issue. And in December, about two months later, the ticket came back to me, not with a solution but with the innocent question , “Is this issue still not fixed and do you still want me to take care of it?”

My initial knee-jerk thought was, ‘Yes, of course, you [Bleep], unless you have invented any self-fixing bugs, you better take care of it!’

But then I calmed down and remembered that the universe often uses mirrors to reflect back to me what is buried in my consciousness. I admired the universe’s sense of creativity and felt humbled (and was able to answer more calmly).

WordPress posts about letting go of doubt
Even though I got plenty of messages, I still doubted them. ‘Is a pattern really no coincidence? Do I really hear my inner voice correctly? You want me to hold a workshop? Really? Me?’
On Dec 17, 2015, I got three messages to let go of doubt. Two of these came via blog posts, one was delivered over lunch by a friend. Three messages on one day about the same topic. That was no coincidence and made a pattern. The universe was telling me to let go of doubt.

Dream advice about handling fear
I turned within and asked how to deal with the fear and then got a dream about handling fear that suggested to take it step by step and to trust.
Additionally, my iPad sent me some push notifications of an app with the text, ‘I should be telling you that it is better to be safe than sorry, but sometimes safe can be boring.’
Another push notification said ‘Guts over Fear  is today’s new song’.

Inner voice begs me to visualize
My spirit guide begged me, ‘Allow the vision of yourself being on a stage speaking to people.’ Since I had downright refused the idea to do a workshop, I would never indulge in daydreams of how I would talk to a group of people about this topic. But obviously, daydreams are important. Thoughts coupled with emotion manifest reality. Therefore, I needed to allow some visualization exercise.

Magpies are telling me to express myself
I was staring out of my kitchen window when a magpie appeared on the street. And then another one and yet another one. Until there were six or seven of them. Magpies keep showing up often for me since several years now. When I was active in a forum, a new participant showed up with  the nickname ‘magpie’. And one day, I stood behind a guy with a sweatshirt with the inscription ‘magpie’ on it. Though there are several meanings connected with these birds, I interpret their frequent occurrence as a message to express myself and to consider the importance of voice (i.e., speak rather than write).

Cosmic push notifications
On Feb 16, 2016, my iPad suddenly started to switch from standby to active mode when sending me push notifications of apps. Apparently, the ‘do not disturb mode’ setting had been disabled all of a sudden. Hmm, what did this mean?
On the same day, I got a post and an email both with the word PUSH in it. That was a pattern again.

Ok, got it. Apparently, the grace period was over, and I got a push to get moving now.

Dream series about what is holding me back
In February 2016, I then had a dream where I was dancing Latin rumba with my spirit guide. I was dancing gracefully, but my legs could not move freely since they got stuck in the long Latin dress which was tied together on the floor. In my dreams, dancing is a symbol of communicating about the spiritual path. That meant that I could not communicate to the fullest extent since something was holding me back.
But what was holding me back? I asked spirit to show me. As an answer, I got  a mini-series of up to three dreams per night on about five consecutive days which addressed all the reasons which were holding me back. It was so much that my guide asked me in between, ‘Are you sure you can take more?‘ The most important point was lack of commitment and that this would make me prone to give up at the slightest obstacle. Other points were fear based decisions, desire for reward, doing too much for my children, dwelling on the past, laziness and sloppiness, and being concerned with what others think about me.

Sickness as a consequence of resistance
I have pain in one foot. Homeopathic treatment, which is my preferred method, just shifts symptoms around at the moment but does not heal. I remembered that the refusal to express myself in writing resulted in breathing issues in the throat. The throat chakra reacts if there is lack of expression. Likewise, I think that the issues in the foot might point to the root chakra (connected to trust and personal power), and I get a hunch that the pain will lessen once I commit fully to this workshop project.

Feeling drained versus energized
So many messages and the threat of illness as a consequence made me willing to comply. I got that I have to work on the workshop project.

But then another blog post came up that said that it is not enough to do things just because we feel pushed to do them. No! We need to do them because we enjoy them and because it makes our heart sing.

Yeah, I know that. Except that my situation feels like standing on top of a high building, staring down into water and being told to jump. ‘Just jump! And don’t jump just because we threaten you! Jump because you really enjoy it!‘  Well, nice suggestion. But, frankly, that did not feel feasible for me.

So, I turned within and asked, ‘Show me. How I can become more intrinsically motivated?’

And the answer came. These past weeks in March 2016,  I felt quite exhausted and drained as if no energy was left for mundane tasks of preparing meals or other household chores. I felt only energized when I worked on stuff which was related to the workshop about divine guidance. I took me a while to figure out that this stark contrast between feeling drained vs energized was probably the answer to my question.

Thanks for the information, dear universe, but the feeling of exhaustion sucks.
Note to self: Always be careful what you ask for!

***

The workshop has grown into a pile of about 40 slides now, but it is still in a draft version.

Shouldn’t I feel super ashamed now that I am so stubborn and resistant? No, there is another way to look at this. Rather than to burden myself with additional guilt,  I can choose to think about it as an interesting research project. Resist and then observe with what tricks my guides come up. Can I do my PhD in resistology and procrastination?

I often wonder whether it is difficult to be a guide. I sure would have given up already on someone as stubborn as me! I so appreciate their patience and perseverance and am always in awe about the creative and humorous communication methods of the universe.

 

 

Spirit guide rant about grief

The destination of the spiritual journey is remembering who we truly are (and then living from that). This is a shift in identity and necessarily entails the loss of the former self-image.

And that loss can be painful. So, there are emotions which have to be looked at, acknowledged, and then let go. They come in layers like in an onion.

Below my layer of anger about feeling exploited, there was a layer of sadness. Sadness about having to let go a huge part of my identity. And the universe nudged me via several posts here on WordPress and a movie (Inside Out) to take care of that layer of sadness again and to grieve.

So, I did grieve. Rather shortly, but very thoroughly. Noticed how the grief came in waves; and how I was about to drown in it.

But then two light bulbs burned out on two consecutive days. Oh no! Not that old problem again. They used to burn out when I was very angry. I thought I was done with that.

What is going on here? I thought I was encouraged to take care of the grief. Why do I get these consequences now?

So, I turned within and asked, “Can I have advice on what to do about the grief? Do you encourage me to grieve or not?”

Here is what I received from the inner voice (of spirit guide A.). It comes as a voiceless voice, like thoughts appearing in my mind which I did not think myself. Sometimes as sentences, sometimes as blocks of thought which I have to put into words. Even though this is not an audible voice, I perceive it as high in intensity, almost shouting at me, impatient to get his point across. I share this as an example of guidance received in an inner voice dialogue.

A: “You can hear me. Don’t pretend that you can’t!
So you want to grieve? Yes, you can do so. And you need to do so. Grief is more appropriate than anger now. You have acted on the anger. So let that go.

Now take care of the grief. Acknowledge it. Heal your wounds. But don’t drown in it! I see that you want to stay home, sit in a corner, hug yourself and cry. But if you take a decision like staying home when there is a party outside, cutting yourself off from friends, wallowing in self-pity, then you are making it real! You are cutting yourself off from Source. You are saying, “Nobody loves me, I am sooo sad that I am not loved, I am a victim, I am hopeless, it is totally justified that I feel like crap and stay at home and cry and will never ever talk to anyone again, especially not about my f*cked up spiritual journey. Because I am such a fraud. Because I believe that it is inappropriate to feel sadness if I am committed to inner peace.”

That is bullshit. BULLSH*T. Do I need to repeat it again? [BLEEP!]

Acknowledge the sadness, yes! But don’t give in to it. That means don’t let yourself be pulled into it. It is like a giant arm which comes out of a dark lake and grabs you and pulls you into the water. See the arm , but don’t grab the hand. Don’t drown. Because it is built on a lie! You are grieving the loss of your former self-image. But you have never been that! You are the consciousness that contains it  and contains everything else. You are the screen on which the scene is painted. Don’t identify yourself with that little person part on the screen. Let go of the attachment to that person.

If you give in to the grief too much, you are making it real. You are telling yourself that grief is justified because you have really lost something.

However, loss is not possible.

Remember past events when you have lost something. Hasn’t it been replaced with something better? Sometimes you need to make space for something new. It is like decluttering your closet. Make space to breathe. And then you can get new clothes.”

K: “Why is this so hard? Why do I have such a hard time to feel grief and yet not get sucked into it? Clearly, the light bulbs indicate that I have gone too far, don’t they?”

A: “Yes and no [smiles]. There is no wrong path, remember. There is no ‘too far’. You are just presented with the consequences of your thoughts. Always. Free of judgment. So, do you want to think these thoughts?

You must learn not to do what the feeling makes you want to do.

If the anger makes you want to kick someone else’s shin, you have learned not to give in to that urge, right?

Same here. If the sadness makes you want to cut yourself off from friends, then do not follow that urge. Acknowledge the sadness, yes. But do not get led into an action by it.

Watch from the witness place. Stay conscious.”

After that pep-talk, the current wave of grief lasted a few more days and then subsided. At least for the time being. Since this process comes in a spiralling movement which feels like back and forth, back and forth,  I am not sure whether this phase will return or not.

I wanted to make the point that inner peace is not about suppressing emotions, but about acknowledging them, feeling them,  and then letting them go. And inner guidance is always available to us.

The riddle of acceptance

The spiritual seeker is told frequently that the path is about acceptance. But what actually is acceptance?

If we are in a difficult situation, does it mean we are supposed to accept it, shut up, and carry on?

No! That would be a misunderstanding.

If our feet have grown two sizes too big for our shoes, it would be silly to stay in too small shoes just because acceptance is more ‘spiritual’. We would get new shoes (if possible).

I am in a situation in which I feel exploited. And this  has become more and more unbearable over the last years. For a long time, I tried to adjust a parameter here and there, talked to people, and improved some processes. Isn’t it all about acceptance? Am I not supposed to be the good person and make things work?

But it still sucks.

Finally, during this summer,  my inner pressure reached well above fever pitch. In a showdown with the other involved party, I declared that I will exit this situation and hand the stuff over to someone else.

Boy was that freeing!

The wise inner voice commented,
“This decision has been looong overdue.”

Phases of the journey

The spiritual journey consists of several phases.

Phase 1) Searching happiness ‘out there’.
Peace, joy, and fulfillment seem to be out there in the future, if we could just get that new job/car/partner/house/child. But the happiness found in the achievement of a new goal is fleeting at best.

Welcome to the human condition.

Phase 2) Searching and finding happiness ‘in here’.
This is an inward movement. Downsizing outer distractions like TV or social activities and withdrawing into the metaphorical cave for meditating.

This phase involves a painful stripping away of the attachment to the former personality (see my post about the Dark Night of the Soul).

Eventually, we find the unconditional Source of peace and joy inside of us. Job/car/partner/house/child may still be there, but they are no longer a requirement for happiness.

Phase 3) Returning to the marketplace
During this phase, the inner peace is tested while being active in the marketplace of life.

Walking through the rings of fear
For me, this phase is about sharing the insights of the spiritual journey. Getting out there and becoming visible, open, and vulnerable. It requires me to leave my comfort zone.

As of summer 2012, the usual chain of events in my experience goes like this:

At first, there is a call by the universe that I need to share in a particular format (anonymous in a forum, for starters, but with full name in a blog later). That call is delivered via the inner voice and is usually enforced by outer signs.

If I resist because of fear (which I usually do), I experience a strong sense of guilt and then there is a talk by my spirit guide. At first a gentle coaxing which turns into a stern lecture later.

If I still resist (which I usually do), there are dreams which tell me that I am procrastinating and which soon turn into warnings (“Share, or else…”).

And if I still resist (which I sometimes do), there are consequences like clogged drains mirroring my resistance, or even health problems.

Relief from the guilt and fear is found, once I yield and do what Source wants me to do.

Recently, I was told by my spirit guide to speak and share in a video format. After the usual battle of resistance (including health issues in the throat chakra region), I finally gave in and recorded this short video about the phases of the spiritual journey (1:30)
https://youtu.be/9z3O8flnm9s