Author, life coach and energy healer Pamela Hale continues her
three-part series on "Soaring to Self-Love." She believes true Self-Love
allows us to break free of old wounds and spread our wings. In her first post she wrote about Returning to Your Being. Her second post is about "Letting Your Soul Decide."
A client I’ll call Karen arrived on my doorstep because she was sick of her job and was hoping I could guide her into a new situation, since she didn’t know what to do. Not being a career counselor, I knew Karen’s dilemma must be a portal—an opportunity to find and live out more of her best Self.
The trouble is, that Self or soul wasn’t too concerned about money or vacation time. And besides, Karen couldn’t even hear the voice of her soul, which had been muffled over a lifetime for a thousand reasons. When I asked her what made her heart sing, she didn’t know; she hadn’t learned to listen to its language.
Can you relate? I mean, when you were in school did you study the grammar and vocabulary of your inner voice? And did your culture teach you how to make deep decisions?
Since most of us were taught to be outer-directed, many of us made an unfortunate decision about the soul/Self/essence department. Better to pilot our way to a good outer life and leave the inner for…another day. The inner was suspect. Not practical. Not welcome outside religious or therapeutic settings.
Well, when I learned to pilot an actual airplane, it became clear to me that the pilot I needed was the wisest, most experienced, skilled one in the universe. It was all to clear to me that I didn’t fit that bill.
I made an unfortunate decision about myself as I witnessed my parade of errors in the left seat. “I don’t have it in me to be a pilot,” I wailed to my flight instructor, Clio. Inside, I was thinking that I didn’t have it in me to be a pilot of life either.
Clio didn’t see it that way at all. To her, it was logical that I would learn by making mistake after mistake. It made sense that even though I’d accomplished a thing or two, I wasn’t familiar with sitting in the seat of a pilot. She felt sure I could become one anyway.
And so I had to develop the beginner’s mind, learn aviation vocabulary, technique, and make an unfathomable number of hideous errors under the supervision of an expert. Even though I was in my late 50’s, I did it.
Isn’t that how life has been training you? Giving you opportunities to push the envelope, to learn new feelings, facts, vocabulary and the chance to make some…questionable decisions?
Good! Then you’re practicing “taking the pilot’s seat—“ Lesson #3 in my book, Flying Lessons: How to Be the Pilot of Your Own Life.
And as you’re practicing, are you strengthening your confidence in your Self? Are you noticing that quiet inner voice who is amazingly wise? Are you listening to it more? Do you see that through all those mistakes, that Self is partnering with you, navigating this strange planet where she is inhabiting a body?
If you feel you can’t hear that inner voice, try sitting in “the left seat,” the pilot’s seat, and pretending Clio is next to you. What does your inner flight instructor say?
Here’s the advice Clio gave to me:
1. Leave your mistakes behind you like the landscape.
2. Just keep flying the plane.
3. You have it in you to be a pilot.
Or are you waiting? Waiting for…a sign? For a huge advance on your book? For the Prince? While you wait, remember that no decision is a decision.
What if we gave up waiting, gave up saying we’re not good enough, and just practiced following the navigation of that inner voice? We might as well follow the deepest, wisest, most skilled pilot available.
P.S. Karen has just started her own business. I know it’s the beginning of a whole new chapter—not only in terms of money and vacation time, but a chapter where she’ll have real esteem for herself and a new confidence in letting her soul decide.
Pamela Hale, http://www.ThroughADifferentLens.com
Click here to read more of Pam's posts.
Pamela Hale is author of the IPPY award-winning book, Flying
Lessons: How to Be the Pilot of Your Own Life (a 2012 pick on the
Spirited Woman) and the Sand Spirits Insight Cards. Pam partners with
spiritually-oriented women who want to make a difference. A graduate of
Stanford and Columbia Universities, Four Winds Light Body School and
Tacheria School for Spiritual Direction, Pam lives in Tucson, AZ.
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