Love thyself

A very frequently quoted phrase from the Bible is “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” It often seems to be what motivates people to be more loving toward others. But what if we really took this phrase to heart and loved others the way we love ourselves. Wouldn’t we be giving them guilt, shame, judgment, self-loathing and very conditional love?

It’s often far easier for us to love others than it is for us to truly love ourselves because the one person that any of us truly knows everything about is ourselves. We know all of our past actions and we also know all of the judgments that we’ve held against ourselves because of it. We are taught from a very young age to judge ourselves and to accept being judged by other authority figures in our lives in an attempt to be a better person. Imagine for a moment if you actually loved everyone else the way you loved yourself. My guess is that for most of us, we’d run out of friends pretty quickly because they wouldn’t like the way we were “loving” them.

SELF-PLEASURING

Masturbation is one of the ways that we can truly love ourselves. That action however is typically fraught with guilt and shame due largely to the religious teachings which have been imposed upon us since childhood and held in place by our culture. Our most intimate time with ourselves should be a joyous expression of pleasure and inwardly directed love yet all too often that is not the case.

The Deer Tribe introduced me to a new term that they use instead of masturbation which is “self-pleasuring”. When I first heard someone use that term in the Shamanic Dearmoring process I thought they were using it describe something specific to the process and they didn’t want to confuse it with masturbation. Recently I learned that they use the term because they believe that “masturbation” is a mechanical process whereas “self-pleasuring” is the purpose of the activity. I’ve become quite fond of the term now that I see it framed that way.

As an erotic therapist working with men on various aspects of their sexuality, self-pleasuring is often a topic of much discussion in my initial consultation with new clients. When I ask them to tell me about their masturbatory habits or patterns, most men will tell me stories which typically fall into three main themes. One theme is “it is a rushed experience with ejaculation as the only objective”. They use it to relieve stress, clear their head or tranquilize them into sleep. The second theme is using it “only as a last resort” because they were unable to have sex with someone else. They live in a constant state of avoidance because they want to have sex so badly that they feel they have to be as ready as possible in a moment’s notice. Unfortunately they also aren’t having sex for various reasons and so they just stay in a constant state of anticipatory arousal with no relief in sight. These men are so aroused that when sex does happen it is usually over in a matter of minutes because their bodies are in such a state of desperate need.

The third theme is those who enjoy the experience without guilt or shame. These men always seem to be more connected to their bodies and their sexuality. They have a better understanding of what they enjoy and need in the form of touch to become aroused. They are typically more at peace with themselves and more relaxed because of the pleasure that they bring so joyously to their bodies. Generally speaking they are better lovers too because they understand the healing power of pleasure, even if only at an unconscious level. They are able to make love to themselves and are therefore more loving towards others. They are the ones who want to learn how to extend, increase and expand upon their techniques for bringing even more pleasure to their bodies.

DISCLAIMOR

Since I am a male working only with males, the body of my professional experience and focus of my education is on male sexuality. As such, I’ll say that all that I’m about to share will be based upon the male perspective but assume that much of what holds true for men will also hold true for women. Each gender and each person of course brings their own set of baggage to the experience. So rather than me trying to constantly defend my statements as being “the male perspective”, I’ll just say here that everything will be from that perspective and women should read this with that in mind and not become offended by my statements if they aren’t true for women. I’m the first to admit that women are a mystery to me in general but particularly when it comes to their sexuality.

A RUSH JOB

For most of us, we discover masturbation at a very early age and around the time that we are told that it is taboo and not discussed openly by the adults in our lives. Masturbation then becomes something that we feel we have to do in private and as quietly as possible to avoid detection. The fear of getting caught therefore leads us to being as quick about it as possible. So from a very early age we add shame, fear and guilt to the process along with speed and then as adults wonder why we have sexual performance issues. Is it any wonder that performance enhancement drugs like Viagra are the most popular drugs on the market today for men?

When I ask the men I work with to tell me about how long they spend self-pleasuring, the majority say that they spend 5 minutes or less per experience. Often guys will say that they might masturbate 1 to 3 times a week. Given that, the typical male then spends about 15 minutes or less per week pleasuring themselves. Add the emotional baggage they hold around the experience and it’s easy to see why we have so much conflict in our male dominated world and we struggle to love ourselves or others.

“I’M SAVING IT”

The other theme I hear is that guys will avoid masturbation out of a desire to have sex instead or as a way to be ready in case their partner wants to have sex with them. For too many men it seems to be an either/or situation that they are setting up for themselves. The result is “either I masturbate or I have sex” and unfortunately for most of us that means we receive no stimulation at all. This seems to be especially true for the straight men that I work with. We modulate our sexual energy so that we will be able to “get it up” and “perform on command” for our partners.

As young men, when we reach sexual maturity, we are bombarded by the biological imperative to mate in an effort to ensure the preservation of our species. The hormones that our bodies generate cause an unending stream of desire for sex. As we grow older, that intensity of desire begins to wane and we learn to regulate our sexual activity to accommodate that shift. Unfortunately we connect desire with ability. As our constant desire for sex diminishes, we believe our ability to be sexual decreases along with it. This can be a debilitating misconception for men because we falsely associate our virility with ability to maintain an erection.

OUR BELIEFS SHAPE OUR EXPERIENCE

The truth is that our bodies are capable of far more than we give them credit for but the key to accessing that capability is our belief system. Whatever belief we hold in our minds about our sexuality or sexual ability, our bodies will adopt and behave accordingly. This became very clear to me during the Shamanic Dearmoring process. As a 47 year old man, I had convinced myself that one ejaculatory orgasm a day was about all that I could handle. In my sessions I would find creative ways to avoid too much stimulation so that I wouldn’t ejaculate because I feared that I wouldn’t have enough desire to be aroused enough to work the rest of the day. As I witnessed my experience and thoughts during the ceremony I realized that I was almost constantly holding my energy back out of the fear of not having enough. I was moving my erotic energy based upon a false mental construct that said “one orgasm a day is all I am capable of”. Once I recognized that it was a mental limitation and not a physical one, I was able to let go of the construct and just allow my body to do whatever it wanted without me trying to mentally control it. It was very freeing and liberating to trust my body’s innate wisdom without trying to short circuit the experience.

“Deep pleasure brings deep healing” is one of the principles from the style of Tantra that I study and the belief upon which my entire erotic practice is based. For many people, when they hear that they think that it’s just a platitude tossed out by Tantra practitioners to justify their erotic actions. As I’ve learned over the past 6 years in my professional practice, it’s not an excuse; it’s a very powerful truth. I’ve witnessed men break down into tears when they experience pleasure in ways they never have before and they realize how they have limited themselves erotically from past wounds.

WE ALL DESERVE LOVE

Self-pleasuring is self love. Learning to love and respect our bodies and being willing to bring pleasure to them can be very challenging for us. In a body conscious society, we see ourselves in a mirror and dislike what we see because it doesn’t look like the images we are presented with as the “ideal body”. Rather than try to heal the belief, we sink into that wound, deny our body some pleasure and eat more to try to numb the pain. The junk food that we eat to try to feel better causes us to put on more weight and so the stored fat holds our wounded belief firmly in place in our physical bodies.

THE MECHANICS OF FEELING GOOD

The healing power of an orgasm cannot be denied. When we experience orgasm our brains release many hormones including oxytocin and prolactin. These hormones relax our bodies, soothe our systems and clear our minds. Those things alone are very healing for the body but the emotional component of bringing pleasure to our bodies and allowing ourselves to feel good cannot be denied. Consider for a moment how you feel when you are sexually satisfied versus how you feel when you are under stress. In which state do you believe you would be most loving, compassionate, relaxed and caring?

The release of these hormones can help soothe our bodies but to really achieve the deepest levels of healing, we have to examine our emotional state during masturbation or even during sex. I could compulsively masturbate because I enjoy the rush of hormones and the physical relaxation but if I do it from a place of guilt or shame then I am not reaching the deeper levels of healing that the experience has to offer me. This is only possible when we consciously observe our emotional state which draws us to self-pleasure and the thoughts which emerge as we engage the process. As we become consciously aware of the beliefs that we hold about masturbation then we can begin to take action on healing any emotional wounds which surface. Without that deeper awareness of what is motivating our actions, we will continue to deny ourselves pleasure or behave in an unconscious mechanical manner as an avoidance mechanism rather than engaging a pleasurable process for loving and healing ourselves.

PRACTICE

William Reich, psychotherapist and sexologist, observed “The patient who cannot masturbate with satisfaction has not completed his analytic therapy.” In other words, Reich was saying that the ability to give oneself pleasure is a key indicator of self-acceptance.

The following practice can help you to heal sexual guilt and fear. Usually such fears arise in the moment when you are starting to pleasure yourself. That is when the admonishing voice within says, “Watch out!” At that point you have a choice either to go with your past conditioning and feel guilty or to take a deep breath and find the courage to explore the new dimension of self-pleasuring, healing the fear and guilt through a positive experience of consciously directed pleasure.

Plan for some time that you can be alone and uninterrupted. Be willing to turn your phone off (a ringing phone is very mentally distracting even if you don’t answer it), avoid email and shut the world out for about 30 minutes of alone time. The world will survive without you for a little while and will benefit by the healing work that you do on yourself. This doesn’t have to be an elaborate process but rather a dedication of time from you for you and about you. Choose a time when you won’t feel rushed but also when you aren’t too tired.

The things you will need for this are: something to write on, something to write with and some lube or lotion and a space to comfortably lie down. Using your bed for this is ideal because that is also the space where much of our wounding has shown up though sexual engagement with another or ourselves. Encourage yourself to see this experience as a healing ceremony. When we engage ceremony, we heighten our awareness because we are bringing our consciousness to the process rather than simply recreating unhealthy unconscious behavioral patterns. You may want to put on some soft music or light a candle or two to help set the mood. Do what works for you to help you feel sensual and warm. Warmth is important here as it is challenging to feel sexy and sensual when you are cold and uncomfortable.

ENGAGE THE EXPERIENCE

Begin this process by removing your clothes, lying down and allowing yourself to relax. Spend a minute or two taking some deep full breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling out the open mouth. If you find the mind buzzing with thoughts, take a moment to write down what you are thinking about. Make it a quick note to yourself about whatever it is so that you know you have it and so that you can let it go for now. Also make some brief notes about any thoughts or emotions which surface related to the self-pleasuring process you’re about to engage. At this point, try to limit yourself to just naming or identifying them rather than trying to explain, justify or process them. Also make a note regarding your mood going into the process.

In the following process, if you find yourself moving into a judgmental space with any part of your body, know that this is just old pain tapes playing and counter them by caressing that body part and repeating “I approve of myself” until the judgment gets drowned out. Try not to single out that part by naming it, but rather repeat the phrase so that you are approving of your entire being and not one part over another. This can be a powerful exercise all by itself.

 

Once you have these notes complete then spend some time touching your entire body. Touch all of it head to toe. Caress it lovingly. Begin at the top of your head and work your way down to your toes. Gently stroke the back of your head and play with your hair. Notice any thoughts which arise as you caress your face including your ears, eyes, nose and mouth. Try not to engage the thoughts beyond simply noticing them, almost as if you were taking inventory. Continue that process as you move your touching down both arms to your fingers, over your chest and nipples and down to your abdomen. Notice any judgments which arise as well but don’t become attached to them. Try your best to stay with the loving space of self-touch.

As you move your hands down to make contact with your genitals notice any changes in moods, thoughts or emotions. Let this touch be about exploration more than masturbation at this point. Give your genitals the same amount of attention as you did any other body part. Don’t let them become the focus at this point. Continue the light stroking of your body down to and over your genitals and between your legs. Allow yourself to make contact your asshole. Be especially aware of thoughts which arise here as this is a place where most of us hold our deepest shame. Move your hands back out and over your hips to your glutes and caress them as well. Continue on down through the thighs (inside, outside, front and back) to the feet and toes on each leg. Try your best to lovingly touch every body part during this experience.

After you have touched every single reachable part of your body, take a couple deep breaths to complete that phase of the process. Take a few moments to make any notes on any particular or powerful thoughts, emotions or sensations which surfaced during the experience. Let these be brief bullet points or thoughts rather than detailed notes or analysis. Don’t let the note making become a distraction for your love making because you really are doing this to make love to yourself. Allow the note taking to be a way to simply release anything that begins distracting your mind rather than a journaling or analytical process.

BEGIN SELF-PLEASURING

Now allow your hands to return to your genitals and begin stimulating them in a loving manner. See if you can find a slightly different way to engage this experience than you usually do. This might be as simple as using the other hand or just playing and finding some new way of bringing pleasure to yourself. Perhaps adding lube, vibrators or toys will bring a new dimension to your exploration. Give yourself permission to play and explore rather than feeling like a taskmaster trying to complete a project.

If you find your mind wandering, just notice it and gently call your attention back to the touch and/or your breath. Notice if there are times when you are holding your breath and consciously choose to let the breath flow. If you are normally quiet during your masturbation, try to consciously add a moan/groan quality to the exhales. Breath in through the nose and out through an open mouth with a nice deeply resonating “Oooooo” sound. Try and feel the vibration from that sound all the way down your spine and out the top of your head. Allow that vibration to move the pleasure all through your body.

Let this experience be about being loving with your body and ultimately loving yourself. While an orgasm is a beautiful part of this experience don’t let that become the objective but rather let it be an equally enjoyable part of the experience. For men especially try to refrain from ejaculating until at least 30 minutes has been spent on indulging yourself in loving self-pleasuring. Remember you are worth every minute that you are able to invest in yourself. Respecting yourself enough to fill your body with pleasure will transform old negative belief patterns and heal sexual wounds. If your body desires it, allow yourself to end the process with an orgasm/ejaculation and really go for it with gusto. Moan, groan and roar it out with power.

IN THE AFTERGLOW

At the end of your self-pleasuring experience, allow yourself to lie quietly and as still as possible and enjoy the buzz you will feel in your body as your brain releases the endorphins and other pleasure hormones. By allowing the body to be still, your energy is not directed at movement but rather at relaxation and awareness. Allocate at least 5 minutes or more to this post-orgasmic space of bliss. Notice how you feel during this time. Notice what you feel and where you feel it. Try not to analyze it or yourself but rather just soak in the pool of self-love that you have created and enjoy it. Allow yourself to enter this space as you would meditation. Just observe what is without trying to change it.

After 5 minutes, take some time to make notes on what you experience, review any notes that you made prior and take whatever action is necessary. If it was important enough for you to write down, it is worthy of your attention, action and love. Often times you’ll find deep inner realizations surface during this process. Honor those and take action because that information came from the depths of your being. Self-pleasuring raises your vibration and gets the catalyst sexual energy moving. Powerful insights can emerge from that if you are conscious and aware.

The important part of this experience is about being conscious of your thoughts, moods and sensations. When we loving move our sexual energy this way, we can clear lots of blocked energy and heal some deep mental, emotional and sexual wounds. Engage the experience from a loving place and remember that you know your body best and are therefore capable of stimulating it in exactly the way you enjoy the most. If that statement sounds challenging to you, then use this self-pleasuring experience to help you begin to see the truth in it.

Can you truly call your masturbation time “self-pleasuring”? If not, what stands between you and the ability to do that?

Approval exercise

The following brief exercise is an excerpt from Louise L. Hay’s book “You can heal your life”. I present it to you here in preparation for the entry that I’ll be posting next. This is an exercise that I have offered to many of my clients through the years and one I use myself. The exercise is simple to do but challenging at times to execute especially when we are caught up in our own judgmental behavior.

This exercise is also useful to do when you find yourself judging or criticizing others. The need to judge says far more about the person doing the judging than it does about the one being judged. The need to judge others to attempt to feel better about ourselves comes from a deeply wounded space within our being. Remember that we will never seem taller by cutting the heads off of those around us. Notice those times when you move into a judgmental attitude and use this simple exercise to pull your awareness back to loving and approving of yourself.

Here then is the excerpt…

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Exercise: I approve of myself

I have given this exercise to hundreds of people, and the results are phenomenal.  For the next month, say over and over to yourself, “I APPROVE OF MYSELF”.  Do this three or four hundred times a day, at least.  No, it’s not too many times.  When you are worrying, you go over your problem at least that many times.  Let “I approve of myself” become a walking mantra, something you just say over and over and over to yourself, almost nonstop.

When negative thoughts come up, such as “How can I approve of myself when I am fat?” or “It’s silly to think this can do any good”, or whatever your negative babble will be, this is the time to take mental control.  Give these thoughts no importance.  Just see them for what they are – another way to keep you stuck in the past.  Gently say to these thoughts, “I let you go; I approve of myself.”

Even considering doing this exercise can bring up a lot of stuff, like “It feels silly,” “It doesn’t feel true,” “It a lie,” “It sounds stuck up,” or “how can I approve of myself when I do that?” Let all these thoughts just pass through.  These are only resistance thoughts.  They have no power over you unless you choose to believe them.

“I approve of myself, I approve of myself, I approve of myself.”  No matter what happens, no matter who says what to you, no matter who does what to you, just keep going.  In fact, when you can say that to yourself when someone is doing something you don’t approve of, you will know you are growing and changing.

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Thoughts have no power over us unless we give in to them.  Thoughts are only words strung together.  They have NO MEANING WHATSOEVER.  Only we give meaning to them.  Let us choose to think thoughts that nourish and support us.

Part of self-acceptance is releasing other people’s opinions.  If I were with you and kept telling you, “You are a purple pig, you are a purple pig”, you would either laugh at me, or get annoyed with me and think I was crazy.  It would be most unlikely that you would think it was true.  Yet many of the things we have chosen to believe about ourselves are just as far out and untrue.  To believe that your self-worth is dependent on the shape of your body is your version of believing that “You are a purple pig.”

Often what we think of as the things “wrong” with us are only our expressions of our own individuality.  This is our uniqueness and what is special about us.  Nature never repeats itself.  Since time began on this planet there have never been two snowflakes alike or two raindrops the same.  And every daisy is different from every other daisy.  Our fingerprints are different and we are different.  We are meant to be different.  When we can accept this, then there is no competition and no comparison.  To try to be like another is to shrivel our soul.  We have come to this planet to express who we are.

The voices in our heads

What are the voices inside your head telling you? 

That’s probably not a question that you are asked very often nor even one that most of us ask ourselves. Admitting that there are voices inside our heads makes it sound like we’re admitting to being crazy…yet the voices are there for all of us.

In reality, the voices that we hear are nothing more than our own thoughts “speaking” to us. They may take on the qualities of voices that we’ve heard before from other people, television or movies but when you get to the core of it, they all originate from within and so in essence they are us. These voices can support and guide us or they can distract us or lead us into trouble. It is all in the choice we make as to which voice to listen to.

CRAZY OR DIVINE?

We’ve all had those moments when we were talking to ourselves, at first in our heads and then suddenly we realized that we were speaking out loud in response. It seems that those verbal responses are where we feel that we’re crossing the “crazy line”. As long as they stay inside, we feel as if we are maintaining control of our sanity. But have you ever stopped to really analyze all of this internal chatter and consider the impact that it’s having on you?

These voices can take on a great many forms and tasks. They can be as simple as a reminder like “don’t forget to stop at the store” or a narrator that is chronicling our activities so that we can share our experiences with others. They can be the supportive and encouraging voices that tell us that we can take action in a moment of crisis or fear. Unfortunately they can also be the voices that tell us that we are not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, tall enough, thin enough, strong enough…and on and on.

Different cultures or schools of thought give these voices different names. Religion refers to them as the voice of God and the voice of the Devil. In Yogic philosophy they are referred to as Ego and Essence. The Deer Tribe refers to them as ‘the pretender voice’ and the ‘authentic self’. No matter what label we choose to put on them, ultimately it comes down to the fact that they are all a part of our own individual consciousness because they originate from within.

SO MANY CHOICES OF VOICES

The tricky part about the voices is that it’s hard to tell which ones we should listen to and which ones we should ignore. If we take the stand that “they are all me so I should listen to them all” then we aren’t really gaining much ground because often these voices are in conflict. “You should do that” and “this is a bad plan” are two conflicting themes which arise frequently for most of us and cause an extra layer of confusion. One the other hand, ignoring all of them means that we miss some valuable guidance from within that can help us navigate life more effectively.

There is a story about an old Cherokee man and his grandson that illustrates this. The old man tells his grandson “There is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other one is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth.” The grandson thinks on this and asks “Which wolf wins?” The grandfather replies “The one you feed.”

The one we feed is indeed the one that hangs around and grows. Each time we listen to that part of ourselves that draws us towards negative behaviors or the belief that we are not good enough, that is feeding that voice. We feed it with our attention. As I’ve said many times in this blog, whatever we put our awareness on, it will grow because energy follows awareness. It’s like watering plants. The ones that get water and sun (energy) grow and the ones that do not get them will wither and die. The same holds true for the inner voices.

WHERE ARE THEY FROM AND WHY ARE THEY THERE?

Unfortunately the voices often arise from well meaning sources. As children we are taught to judge ourselves in an attempt to encourage us to be better people. We are shown role-models in the form of spiritual teachers, family elders, “saviors” and world leaders then instructed to measure ourselves against them as a way to be more like them. The bar for our behavior gets set so high that we can never reach it because we are young and don’t possess the skill set that the role-models do. We measure, fall short and begin berating ourselves for the failure. It’s how we are taught to better ourselves through comparison, competition and consequences for failing.

Comparison to others will never get us what we truly seek which is truthful information about ourselves. A comparison will only tell us how different we are from the person that we are comparing ourselves to. Unfortunately, difference is read as failure because that means that we did not achieve our goal which was “to be like that”. For example, if I compare myself to a famous athlete, I might feel like a sports failure. In the next minute I might compare myself to someone who has never played a sport and then I could feel like a superstar. I haven’t changed in that minute and my skills haven’t improved. One comparison leaves me feeling bad about myself and the other good but in truth neither is accurate because it has everything to do with who I am comparing to and nothing to do with me. The result in both cases is that “I’m different” and that will always be true so the comparison hasn’t really yielded the truth I sought. Unfortunately I’m left with the judgmental voice comparing me to everyone looking for confirmation of the belief that “I’m not good enough” and so the cycle perpetuates itself.

SILENCE THE PRETENDER

That voice that says we aren’t good enough is the pretender voice. It becomes such an integral part of us that we begin to identify with it more than we do with our authentic self. That same voice can also give us a superiority complex by systematically picking apart any and every person that we meet in an effort to make ourselves look better because we don’t have their “flaw”. Any conclusion reached by a comparison to another person can never be the voice of our true self. The pretender voice is the one that keeps the story that we tell ourselves about ourselves going. It keeps us from seeing the truth about ourselves.

So then how do we find the voice that we should listen to? When we’ve spent a lifetime listening to the pretender voice it can be very challenging to stop listening to it because it’s all that we’ve known. We identify so closely with that voice as part of our internal dialogue that we can’t imagine there being “another voice”…but there is. Below are some steps you can take to begin the process of following your authentic voice. Bear in mind that this is a process and not a task list. You will move at whatever pace you can handle but the more you focus the faster you will see results.

STEP 1: BE AWARE

The first step in the process of silencing the pretender is simply becoming aware of the pretender voice. The pretender voice is often like a broken record that constantly keeps us down, holds us back and leads us astray. This voice pretends to be our friend by doing things which keep us held back by our fears because of the mistaken belief that “if something scares me that means I should avoid it”, “I’m not good enough to do it”, “I don’t know how”, “I can never learn that” or any other excuse that keeps us from changing. When you begin to see all of the excuses and limiting beliefs for what they are, then you can begin to change your response to them. We can never change what we are unaware of. Become aware of the stream of thoughts that arise when you are faced with a new experience or a desire to change something. Be aware but don’t get attached to the thoughts, just be aware of them the same way you might be aware of a song that replays in your head. “Oh, there’s that pretender voice again talking trash.”

STEP 2: ENTER THE SILENCE

Next begin to become aware of “the silence” because it is where the authentic voice can be heard most clearly. The silence is the space that is first discovered in meditation. It is that space where the thoughts fade into the background and disappear and where time ceases to have meaning. When you get a taste of what it feels like to have that silence, the distracting noise created by the pretender voice will become very unappealing and almost intolerable. The key here is to learn to quiet the chatter so that the authentic voice can be heard more easily. It’s always there and always has been. We’ve all been led astray by the pretender voice because we’ve become attached to it. It truly cuts us off from our power and keeps us from expressing our true self in the world.

STEP 3: OPEN TO GUIDANCE

Finally we have to open ourselves to the guidance that our authentic voice will provide. This voice will always bring us guidance and answers that are in alignment with our highest good because the authentic voice is the voice of our higher self. My higher self and I are one and the same. That’s true for everyone. There is no separation. It is not an external entity that we’re trying to grow into or gain the favor of through subservience. It is and always has been the part of us that is directly connected to Source. It exists outside of the limits of time and space in the energetic or Spirit realm.

The tricky thing about this voice is that it sounds so familiar because we’ve really heard it all of our lives. Given that, it is easy to miss. It is typically the very first response that we get when we are faced with a choice or decision. It speaks to us through our intuition and our thoughts. It is simple, easy and clear because it doesn’t rely on excuses or explanations like the pretender voice. Truth needs no explanation or justification and the authentic voice is the voice of truth. The challenge is learning to trust it again because the pretender voice has deluded us for so long.

STEP 4: ALIGN WITH THE AUTHENTIC VOICE

Trust builds over time. One way to begin to trust the authentic voice is to try following what you think of as its guidance on a small scale. Think about some mostly inconsequential thing that you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t for whatever reason. Quiet yourself as best you can. Focusing on the breath for a minute while letting the exhale lengthen as the inhale deepens is a simple way to achieve this. Then ask yourself “should I (insert the activity)?” and notice what happens. The asking of the question is a key step because it is a request for guidance and it puts you into a receptive state energetically. We don’t ask questions about what we already know to be true. We ask questions for the purpose of receiving information. Just notice the very first gut reaction (which is this case will probably be “yes” because it’s something you’ve been wanting to do after all) and then notice all the excuses or “reasons” which follow it as to why you should not do it.

Once you’ve been able to notice the pretender voice trying to keep you from taking action then make the conscious choice to take action anyway. Push yourself if you have to but take action so that you are honoring your inner guidance and not getting distracted by the pretender voice. This is obviously a staged scenario to begin the process but that’s okay. Commit to being open to the guidance of your authentic self and commit to taking action on that guidance. It’s about reestablishing trust within yourself after so many times of listening to and following the guidance of your pretender voice. Take action, even if you think (pretender voice) it might be wrong, just take action.

Continue this process with all of your decisions, even simple ones like “what is the best route for me to take to work today?” or “where should I go for lunch?” This isn’t about only relying on this guidance for big life changing decisions. This process is about learning to request, recognize, trust and act upon the guidance from your higher self. The more you do it the more automatic and instinctive it will become but you have to take action. If you get the guidance and take no action or the opposite action, then you aren’t completing the cycle and nothing will change. You’ll continue to get the guidance, continue to ignore it and continue to wonder how others seem to manifest all that they need and have their lives flow so smoothly. This victim mentality will continue to hold you in a place of inactivity.

In many ways, you might think of the authentic voice and the pretender voice as the little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. Your authentic voice is the voice of the Divine expressing itself as you. The pretender voice is NOT you. It is the accumulated baggage that has been passed on to you from external sources (family, friends, organized religion, political leaders, etc.) and is full of their judgments and fears. They won’t always be in conflict but more often than not they will.

STEP 5: ALWAYS SEARCH FOR THE LESSON

The final component to this process is the review. This is about taking the time to process what happens after you take action on the guidance. It will be very easy to say “I asked if I should do X and I did it and this bad thing happened so I’m not going to do that anymore.” Recognize that the most powerful lessons come from our failures. Sometimes the only way to get lessons is through failure because they teach us a better way to do something. Examine the whole process with an open mind. Did you truly listen to the authentic voice or did you second guess it because the answer was “too hard”? Did you encounter the need for more assistance while taking action and you choose to ignore it? What is the lesson in this for you especially if the outcome was a “failure”? Remember the lessons are positive even if the experience is negative. Searching for what the experience has to teach you is far more valuable than focusing on the cost of the mistake.

The lessons may not always appear as obvious and it may not even be perceptible until the experience has played out fully over a longer period of time. Sometimes you may review an experience and extract what you think is the lesson from the experience. A month or so later you may have an experience unfold that was only possible because of what happened to you in the original incident and now you have new data on the experience and so a new or more complete lesson may emerge. Be open to this type of revision and learning and remember to look at not only all of the events of the experience but also those that were related to it that helped to get the experience set up.

For example I may choose to go hear a certain speaker who might share something with me that can literally change my life by helping me see where I am constantly re-engaging a destructive pattern and preventing myself from changing and growing. That might sting and cause me to feel like a failure but I will eventually grow from it. That information will only have been able to reach me because in the past I opened to the guidance which led me to make the decision to see the speaker. If you just looked at the experience you might say “Oh, I learned that I was a failure. I shouldn’t have gone to hear the speaker.” But if you see it as “I opened to my inner guidance, listened to the speaker and discovered an area for growth in myself” then you have taken in the whole experience.

BE GENTLE

The key to relearning this process is gentleness. Accept that as a human operating through past experiences based upon our limited senses, we can never know it all. So be gentle with yourself for NOT knowing. Learning to re-orient around the Divine wisdom that has been flowing to us all along and letting go of our past wounded beliefs can be challenging and scary because it’s not what we’ve been taught to do. You will make mistakes and you will second guess yourself but that’s okay. Be gentle with yourself and forgive yourself for the mistake and find the lesson to grow with. The more you learn to find and trust the authentic voice, the more your life will flow effortlessly and you will be able to manifest all that you require. The process takes time so please be loving with yourself while you learn.

What guidance is your authentic voice giving you right now?