Category Archives: soul

Never mind my inner voice, it’s my gut that tells me what to do

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I’ve been tussling with a particularly painful problem, torn between taking a leap of faith (and all the fear that entails) or staying put (with all the ensuing resentment).

I know that all the answers reside within, but that doesn’t stop me turning to friends for their perspective. My inner voice has gone rather quiet, and no forcing will entice it out of hiding. Which is why I’m relieved that my intuition, my inner guidance, mainly tends to come from my gut. I’ve had a knot in my stomach for weeks, as though a fist were clenching my solar plexus.

CSo, to test out the two options in the decision I have to make, I rolled them around in my thoughts, one at a time, to see how my body reacted. Outcome one (staying put and trying to remedy a situation that I feel is beyond repair) kept the fist clenched. Outcome two (jumping out and hoping to make my wings on the way) amazingly unclenched the fist in my stomach. It was as though a scatter of coloured plastic bricks were tumbling into my belly. Free. Creative. Alive.

I guess option two is the one to take. All I need to do is assemble those tumbling bricks into a shape that best suits this new free me.

How many signs does the Ego need to surrender to the Soul’s wisdom?

Posted on by inktuition
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OK. So you’re on the verge. Of surrendering all the coping mechanisms you’ve ever relied on. [Full stop after ‘verge’ is significant.] All the stuff and guff of your environment – your behaviour and all the interpersonal relationships that you believe define you – are clinging on for dear life. And about to lose their stranglehold grip.

Except they don’t. At least not just yet. They’ve just been there to defend you. They think they’re saving you. But really they’re strangling you.

Having a life crisis, where you feel the entire planet is conspiring against you, is really an opportunity for you to realise this. The crisis creats porous entry points in your psyche for your real stuff to sneak in. Often before you’re ready for it. To catch you out. It has to create the opportunities it can, because you’ve been denying and dancing around the truth for decades. Tough, huh?

However, it can take some time to tune into what those signs are. They may have to really poke you in the nose before you spot them. Some people spend a lifetime oblivious to them. But there’s something about being able to spot the signs nudging you soul.

Here are three of mine from today: Continue reading →

When I need strength, where do I look…?

Posted on by inktuition
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This has been a big issue for me this week. I’ve been going through an issue that requires some practical, emotional and psychological strength, and I’ve been wondering how on earth I can get through it.

I’ve been looking outside of myself for quotes, for expertise, for some kind of reassurance that I’ll be OK. That I’ll get through this test and everything else will be OK.

Except anyone on a spiritual journey knows that, once one task has been brought to consciousness and integrated, another more testing one awaits. That’s the nature of personal growth. The universe may not give us anything we’re not able to deal with, but by heck, once you’re able to deal with one area of consciousness, the universe will of course chuck you a new challenge.

Which brings me back to how I’m going to deal with my issue. I’ve done everything I can to influence the outcome I want, but ultimately the outcome is in the hands of another mortal being (complete with biases, prejudices etc).

And so I am aiming to reach some kind of peace. Tomorrow will bring its own resolution. I am seeking balance, not retribution. I may get some kind of equilibrium, but I so hope the fight will stop and I will be able to continue to be a balanced, hopeful person rather than a defended, anxious one.

In the meantime, I am finding inner strength I never knew I had. For all of the quotes I found, this is the one that always sustains me, and it’s my yoga teacher’s version of the Emerson quote: “The power within you is always greater than the task ahead.”

That is where I get my strength from.

My soul’s lesson for today: what you do, you get more of (whether you want it or not)

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On the train to work this morning, I wondered why the person who sat down opposite me needed to finish off eating his tube of mango ice cream (yes, at 8.30 in the morning!) with his fingers (yes, on a crowded train!) The sucking and slurping turned my stomach, and distracted me from a paper I was reading for my project.

Fast forward a couple of hours and I am sitting in a fairly quiet sandwich shop with my laptop, trying to work on said project, and a big bloke sits down beside me, chomps his tuna and cucumber wrap loudly, and licks his fingers with aplomb every time he takes a bite. I only wanted a quiet corner to work on some writing, not to be interrupted by other people’s noisy eating habits!

It’s so annoying to keep magnetising experiences in my life I’d rather do without. (pic: istockphoto.com/michelangelus)

Why have I attracted two annoying people with questionable manners to sit down near me and interrupt me? I can’t think of any reason why I magnetised the noisy eaters into my energy field, other than the fact that I have been delaying putting the finishing touches to my project. And these aural and visual assaults are a consequence of not having committed to my day. Distraction breeds more distraction.

I pressed the snooze button on my alarm one too many times this morning, and so I was late getting the train. I needed to read and take notes but couldn’t do that easily because I had to stand up all the way. Lateness breeds more lateness.

I had my mid-morning snack later than usual today, so I wasn’t hungry when I ordered my lunch. Today they gave me a huge portion that I couldn’t finish because I was still full from earlier. Fullness breeds more fullness.

I think the lesson my soul wants me to remember today is Continue reading →

Am I the only writer for whom an MA achievement is an anticlimax?

Posted on by inktuition
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I’ve been trying to put a name to the feeling that’s mine right now – and all of London’s. Not to big myself up, or minimise the impact of London 2012 and the phenomenal achievements of the Olympians and Paralympians. But there’s something in the air that I’ve been trying to feel, own, and put into words. Without sounding ungrateful. Or like a next-project-obsessed workaholic.

Even the best parties have to come to an end.

OK, so I may be both of those things. At times. But this feeling is like the puckered balloons the day after a mega party. The dust-covered peanuts you find down your sofa weeks after a dinner party. And the sense of having loved (all the guests) and then lost (when they all leave) when you’ve worked so hard and wanted to make every detail a winning, talked-about one. Which parties generally are, and they certainly were for the million people I had to say ‘excuse me’ to, on a way to a meeting through central London at lunchtime yesterday. A million people lined the streets to salute the London 2012 stars.

But my individual deflated feeling, in the midst of all this post-Olympic partying, started with the certificate arriving for my MA. Continue reading →

Why do we only truly appreciate the BIG moments in life…?

Posted on by inktuition
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I attended the Paralympic Games this week. It was hard enough to get tickets to the Olympic Stadium, given the success of London 2012, and I was full of awe at just being there.

The Paralympics in London have been awesome on so many levels.

My eight-year-old daughter was beside herself with excitement: she’d been looking forward to it for weeks. She throws herself into whatever event, party or park she’s at, wholeheartedly and whole-bodily present. In comparison, I often find my mind wandering, and my body shifting to get comfortable. I envy her ability to truly live her moment.

Except at the Paralympic athletics this week, I lived mine. From the moment I entered the stadium – watching strong men in wheelchairs power across the finish line, one-legged men effortlessly clearing high jumps, and the whole crowd cheering for every other country’s anthems – I felt humbled to be human. Especially given the superhuman feats taking place in the stadium in front of me.

It was a hot evening, but a friendly and uplifting one. I breathed in each moment I was there, knowing there wouldn’t be any others like this. I didn’t want the lights to come on, because I knew that would signal home time.

I truly lived my BIG moment because I knew my chance to watch Paralympic athletics at the London 2012 Olympic stadium would never come again. So why don’t I appreciate all moments in the same way – big, small or otherwise – even though I know they won’t be repeated either…?

When you’re ready to follow your Soul, synchronicities will show you the way

Posted on by inktuition
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As a journalist, I know when I’m onto a good story when I hear it from three different sources. That’s why I know my Soul’s telling me something when the synchronicities line up in threes (often in one day!)

My Soul talks to me in ‘meaningful coincidences’ that often come in threes. (pic: istockphoto.com/kellyreekolibry)

Synchronicity, in the words of the wonderful Carl Gustav Jung, are “meaningful coincidences”. They’re stuff that happen to you that can’t possibly be a coincidence, but they have a pattern and some meaning to you personally. They’re external happenings that have symbolic significance for what’s going on internally for you.

I take synchronicity as a sign that my Soul is talking to me. It wants to tell me that I’m on the right road, that all doors I push against will open without force, and that I’m evolving beyond just the skin I’m in.

Anyone on a spiritual path will know that at some point the Ego will surrender to the Soul. That surrender can take a while, and it can involve months and years of battle. One’s defences can take some dismantling. They cling on with their fingernails, refusing to give up. But when it’s time for the Ego to wave the white flag and admit time’s up, that’s when the Soul steps in. Ever graceful, ever elusive, the Soul has symbolic messages that the Ego has to be in a mood and state to receive and interpret.

I’m often in awe of how Soul can communicate. Here’s how it reached me three times in one hour:  Continue reading →

The steps I take (literally) to avoid my novel

Posted on by inktuition
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I had to laugh the other day when I was reminded of the phrase I heard in my teens about whether a guy is interested in you or not: ‘Don’t listen to the mouth. Watch the feet.’ I was never quite sure what it meant, but I thought it boiled down to ‘actions speak louder than words’.

What made me laugh, however, was how the body acts out what the mind (conscious or unconscious is feeling/wanting/wishing). Body language gives everything away, if you know how to read it. In my case, my body was literally ‘acting out’ what my mind was thinking.

There are a bunch of temporary ‘Wenlock’ and ‘Mandeville’ statues around London as part of the Olympic Games London 2012 celebrations, which encourage little kids and grown kids alike to follow the ‘trails’ around London, being photographed at each one. Every Wenlock is detailed according to his environment, and so you have City Wenlock with bowler hat and striped suit, and a PhoneBox with suitably red phonebox attire.

How can I keep avoiding such an entertaining reminder of my novel?

Except that the Wenlock closest to where I work – as I discovered weeks after he was first placed there – is called Novel Wenlock. And I have been AVOIDING him every day, either walking past without noticing or taking a different route across a square rather than the direct route past him.

I laughed when I realised. Because I have totally been avoiding my novel (the one that passed the MA examiners, but which needs so much work on it still). Perhaps I’ll be more conscious and mindful of it now I know that I can’t pass by Novel Wenlock every day without saying hello.

Listening to negative people can make you dumb

Posted on by inktuition
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OK, so it may not come as a surprise that hanging out with people who whinge and complain all the time isn’t good for your spiritual or mental wellbeing. But it turns out that all that negativity has a physical effect on the brain’s ‘muscle’ – and can make you dumb!

This article in Inc, Listening to complainers is bad for your brain, quotes a book by Trevor Blake, entrepreneur and author of Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life, which looks at how neuroscientists have measured the impact of complaining on the brain. It can apparently make you negative too  – even if you listen to it on TV or radio.

Blake says: “Typically, people who are complaining don’t want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing.”

Time to tell them to sort themselves out, remove yourself from the situation – or, as he suggests, imagine you’re surrounding yourself in a protective ‘bubble’ or escaping to a secluded beach. Keep practising that technique, and it’ll keep you calm and free from negative infiltration.

soul symbolism: my ‘being late for a flight’ dream

Posted on by inktuition
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I hate this dream. It encapsulates everything that’s wrong with my life. I’m obsessive about time, fearful of being late, and I have to arrive an an airport well before check-in opens or I literally shake with anxiety.

So having this dream about having to pack my case quickly and run to the airport because the flight is going to leave truly feels like a punishing way to spend my sleep time.

My recurring dream about being late for a flight indicates there’s something pressing I’m not dealing with. (pic: istockphoto.com/ViktorCap)

The big issue is that I keep having this dream. And that means it’s trying to tell me something. I think this goes beyond being obsessed with time, which is something I’m conscious of. I know that time obsession is a thinly veiled death anxiety, as any existentialist will tell you.

No, I’m wondering what this stress dream is really trying to tell me. Carl Jung said: “The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.” My job is to interpret what that dream means by trying to find the key to unlock the door to whatever secret my soul is trying to communicate with me.

In the one last night, Continue reading →