Where is wisdom to be found when you need and want it the most?
Here’s the quick answer: within you.
Here’s the more in-depth answer: within you.
Here’s the known-by-all-women-throughout-time answer: within you.
You’ve already got it, woman! All that you need. All that’s required. All the perspective. All the insight. All the knowing. All of it is yours.
If even the slightest shadow of a doubt enters your mind, I get it. It’s highly possible that your deep, before-the-dawn-of-time knowing has not been honored. It’s highly possible that it’s been questioned, critiqued, even shamed. It’s highly possible that what you thought you understood was said to be wrong, silly, uninformed, and impossible. And it’s highly possible that over time, you began to believe this. The voice got quieter and quieter within as the voices got louder and louder without.
But here’s the good news: Silent, does not mean lost. Forgotten, does not mean absent. Hidden, does not mean gone.*
Here’s just one way to call it forth:
- Picture/ponder the circumstance or situation in which you want insight, answers, direction.
- Without editing, censoring, or giving one whit of attention to what anyone else thinks (at least for this moment-in-time), say out loud, fast, and clear, exactly how you feel about what’s happening (or not happening). “This makes me feel ______________.” ‘Super-critical that you do this quickly – spur-of-the-moment – with complete freedom and permission to say whatever you want.
- Now that you’ve named the feeling(s), articulate what you want to be true – right here, right now. Again, without overthinking or critiquing, fill in the blank: “What I want to have happen is _______________.”
- Next, respond to this: “If my want or desire in this circumstance/situation were a reality, I would feel ____________.” (Is it safe to say that you deserve to feel this way? Mmm hmm.)
- Far more dicult, but oh-so-important is this: trust that what you long for is good, worthy, and valid; trust that you deserve this to be so; trust that you are right!
- Realize, allow, accept, and affirm that what you just said, what you see, what you envision, what you know, no matter what, is true; that it is wise; that you are.
- And finally, lather – rinse – repeat.
Honestly, your wisdom is that clear, that accessible, that present. It can be trusted. You can be trusted; for you are so, so wise!
It’s true: I can rattle off these 7 steps as though they are the most obvious and simple things to do, but I have struggled (and sometimes still do), to make these practices my own; to actually believe that my answers could possibly have merit, let-alone the capacity to be real, to be wise, to be lived.
It was (and sometimes still is) scary for me to admit what I actually felt and wanted, because it prompted an acute and impossible-to-ignore awareness of the gap between my current reality and what I longed for. It was far easier for me to settle, to downgrade my desires, to work harder to keep things on an even keel with the status quo intact, and no one the wiser. But in making that choice, I lost sight of one critical truth: I AM the wiser!
So here’s what my wiser, wizened self offers you:
Wisdom is your birthright. It dwells. It flourishes. It exists because you do. It’s all within you. Already. All the time. Amazing.
May it be so.