Balancing Eden about enduring through any obstacles, setbacks, or hardships that might be put in one’s path. It’s about the relationship you have with yourself and your ability to maintain balance. This is something we all have in common, but how are you managing life’s turns and tumbles? How am I managing?
I’ve been saying “going within” for a while to describe the process in which I have gained awareness of self.
Going within sounds so simple, but believe it or not, not everyone is tapping into their inner guidance system. And, that’s okay. Everyone has their own journey. Some might ask, “Am I going within” or “what does going within look like”?
In order to go within, one must have an experience that awakens them to their inner self. Though, some people are born more aware of their inner guidance system, but may achieve a higher level of awareness through life experiences. Instead of inner guidance system, some might call this intuition, inner knowing, or communicating with higher self and so on. However, other individuals with minimal self-awareness must have an experience where they happen to stumble upon the inner guidance system.
Often times, these experiences are marked by major life changes, tragedies, and dark nights of the souls. It is like a mid-life crisis on steroids. It is a time in a person’s life when their persona, belief system, and identity is shattered to a point of realization that they cannot move forward without changing something. As they awaken, they come to the awareness of their faulty beliefs about their true selves and the world around them.
This is where the “inner work” starts. Once a person begin to go within themselves to seek answers and to tap into divine knowing, they become aware of aspects of themselves they need to change. It’s mostly about the thought processes; what one chose to believe about themselves.
For instance, one of the first things I recognized by going within is the expectations I had put on myself and how it was negatively affecting my life. I noticed how I made decisions that did not serve me based on the existing negative belief system about myself. Most of this comes from conditioning and learned behavior that become deeply embedded in my core beliefs.
One negative belief I had to work on that caused me so much suffering is “good things happen to good people” and “bad things happen to bad people”. I grew up in a Christian family home with strict Christian values. Christian beliefs differ from household to household. I am aware of that. However, my parents taught us that if something goes wrong for you, it’s either because you didn’t pray enough or you have sinned. And, I bought into this belief most of my life.
When bad things started to happening to me, I thought God was punishing me. I thought God hated me. Every bad thing that happened to me, I thought it was God saying “this happened because you are a bad person”. This caused low self-confidence, shame, and guilt which affected decisions that I made about relationships and other areas of my life. This was one experience that brought me closer to my awakening.
Fast forward a few years after I had awakened to my divine self, I realized I have to let go of the belief that bad things happen to bad people and vice versa. I had then transformed my belief to “bad things happen period” and now I am transitioning to “things just happen”. I am trying less to categorize things dualistically and with more polarity.
With the awareness I gained from the awakening, I recognized the suffering I endured just by believing something that did not serve me in anyway. It was counterproductive to my alignment with self and God. When events happen in our lives that bring about uncomfortable feelings, our minds go into the overload trying to figure out why it happened. I believe it is our instinctive need to safeguard ourselves as well as our fears of not being in control.
Inner work is a continuous process of transformation. The more you go within to navigate through life, the more you experience growth. Letting go and surrendering to life can be one of the most beautiful experiences. This is when an individual accepts whatever happens, happens. I will continue to live my life to the fullest.
We are here. Things will happen. We may not always know why. But what we can do is go within because this is where the answers are. And sometimes an answer is not yes or a no. Sometimes it’s just another experience where the answer might reveal itself to you at the right time. As always, going within.
Have you ever had an experience that transformed and awakened you to your true self?