Tips to get your own guru and access your inner wisdom
Major life transitions are rarely linear or straightforward. They require a solitary exploration into unfamiliar terrain during which it is common to feel lost, alone or despondent. As we move out of our comfort zones, our fears strike with full force. We might doubt ourselves and our ability to move forwards. Missing the familiarity and safety of our previous lives, our ‘known world’, we may even try to reverse the changes we’ve worked so hard to implement, and regress to where we started.
At times like these, a touch of guidance can help us stay on track. Luckily, this support is available and can be accessed both internally and externally.
Getting in touch with our inner guides
Our strongest inner guide is our intuition: also called our inner compass or our gut instinct. It might be experienced as a strong, recurring desire; or a slight, niggling feeling that just won't go away.
Our gut instinct may seem irrational, illogical and in conflict with what we think we should feel. While we are conditioned societally to favour logic over intuition, it's often that inner compass that provides us with the most reliable sense of direction when we feel most stuck. When we ignore its voice, we may experience regret or resentment afterwards: a sign of a crossed personal boundary.
A few years ago, I felt unable to connect to my intuition: I was so overpowered by the needs of others and societal ‘should do’s’, that I couldn’t isolate what it was that I wanted, independent of those subconscious influences. It’s still a work in progress for me, but there are a few strategies that helped.
How to heed our inner voice
Our inner guides appear when we start looking for them. They're always present: they're part of our psyche. The challenge is that sometimes, they're hard to identify or hear. I learned that to access our internal wisdom, we need periods of stillness and silence so that we can listen deeply to ourselves. The more we develop our relationship with ourselves, and grow our self-awareness, the better our relationship with our inner guides will be.
To access our inner voice, it can be helpful to practice meditation and free-writing (journalling without an objective). Our gut instincts may also express themselves through our dreams, which are a window into the workings of our subconscious mind (Click here to read my thoughts on the importance of daydreaming for self-discovery). During transitions, our dreams may become particularly vivid. It can be helpful to jot them down in a dream diary, and review it for common themes or patterns.
Some questions to help identify the voice of our intuition, especially when contemplating a decision, include:
Is this more of a YES or a NO for me?
How do I feel in my body: are my muscles tense or relaxed?
What feels more constraining or liberating?
What feels more nourishing or depleting?
What feels more pressured and rushed, or relaxed and natural?
What feels most aligned or authentic to my values?
We can also create an 'inner advisory council' comprised of select aspects of our personalities. This allows us to review important decisions from the perspective of aspects of self that we wish to be more prominent. These might be strengths with which we are already familiar: for example, resilience, humour, or compassion. Or they might be latent parts of ourselves that are yearning to be seen and take a greater role in our lives, like playfulness, adventure, or connection.
When feeling stuck, we could ask: 'what would the part of myself that craves more adventure, want right now?' Or, 'how could I look at this situation from a place of humour?' It might even help to write a letter of guidance from one of these aspects of self: what would its advice to us be? By taking our direction from this handpicked ‘inner advisory council’, we can also help limit the influence of parts of ourselves that we wish to leave behind, as we embark on our self-transformation process.
Seeking outer guidance
Major life transitions can be completed following our own internal wisdom, but we may also benefit from the support of external guides. They might be family, friends, coaches, religious leaders… or as some ‘spiritual’ people are quick to inform me, celestial messengers… Personally, I’m still limited to the human ones :)
I love the term guru: a Sanskrit word which means a 'dispeller of darkness.' To me, the term implies that a guru is not going to tell us what to do or how to do it. Rather, they will shine a light when and where it's needed. Gurus appear when we need them, and step back when we don't. They know that if we can see ourselves and our surroundings more clearly, we will find our own way forwards.
The type of guide we're looking for takes responsibility for our spiritual growth. They have a (sometimes annoyingly!) acute ability to see past our excuses, fears and self-deception and straight to our innermost desires. They point out the ways in which we are holding ourselves back from freedom: they remind us that the cage, in which we feel trapped, does not exist. Our guides hold us gently, carefully, with unwavering care and belief in our ability to make the changes we seek. They listen to our insights, celebrate our successes, and reaffirm our growth. If we feel we made a mistake or took a wrong turn, they remind us that this is all part of our experience of change, and encourage us to keep going.
Because of the vulnerability of transitions, it's important to feel safe and stable in our relationship with our gurus. Some 'green flags' to look out for and embrace are that they treat us as equals. They speak so that we can understand them. They share information at our pace. They are both wise and kind: they deliver hard truths with love and compassion. And they commit to being available to us for the entirety of our self-transformation journey, however long it takes.
How do we find our outer guides?
According to an old adage, “When the student is ready, the master appears." Gurus have an uncanny ability to appear when they're needed. Or perhaps, they were there all along - but the timing wasn’t right, or we didn't notice them. We can ignore our guides by rejecting external help, keeping our metaphorical door shut. Or we might not be listening carefully enough, and miss out if they’re contacting us quietly. But don’t worry, they’ll reappear.
But suppose we feel we’re ready, but nobody is showing up. What do we do next?
To actively locate external guides, it's important to make space for them in our lives. Notice who you already turn to for advice or guidance. Are any of them unhelpful, distracting or negative influences? If so, reduce the time and energy you spend with them, or change your relationship with them. Pay attention to the people around you who are positive influences, and exude the type of energy you're seeking. Identify and frequent the communities or places where you can find more people like that.
Perhaps there's one person who stands out. Or maybe there are a few people who are helpful in different ways, and you choose to assemble a "Council of Advisors" that you can turn to for support. Once you find a potential guide, it helps to clarify expectations. How often will you communicate? How long will the relationship last? How will you check in with one another or provide feedback?
Ultimately, do what feels right so that you feel most secure in your relationship with your chosen guide. And if the relationship is not working for whatever reason, that's fine: move on and accept that it is just another part of the process.
In my case, there is one person whom I consider my ‘guru’. I’d met him once in person and subsequently we had little contact for a decade. Three years ago, we reconnected by phone. He asked me a profound question that cut through me like an x-ray: it acted as the catalyst for me to take action on my personal transformation. I asked him if he’d be open to continuing to support me as I took various leaps of faith – and he agreed (yay!). I feel very grateful to still be able to rely on my guru’s support and friendship today.
Guidance on guidance
There are no shortcuts for personal metamorphoses. But there are catalysts - and a good guide is one of them.
Ultimately, whether they're external or internal, guides serve our decision-making because they have our best interests at heart. They bestow on us the wisdom that we didn’t know we needed, at exactly the time when we need it. If we're not paying close enough attention, we might miss the voice of our intuition or the presence of external guides in our lives; but they'll always reappear. We’re never as lost as we might feel.
I’m going to close with a quote by one of my inspirations, the author Andre Gide (whose last name is one letter short of ‘guide’…) In his book The Counterfeiters, a young man, Bernard, is seeking advice from his friend’s uncle, Edouard:
Bernard: "And if I live badly, whilst I'm waiting to decide how to live?" Edouard: "That in itself will teach you. It's a good thing to follow one's inclination, provided it leads uphill."
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What are Major Life Transitions? How are they different than Changes?
Transitions are not Changes. Transitions are psychological. Change is contextual.
Major Life Transitions involve a period of being in-between identities, a dark void without clarity, a state of stillness within motion. They bring us into the liminal space: the boundary between what was, and what is to come.
We know we're in a Transition when we undergo a deep, raw, often excoriating process of losing our sense of self. We question our identities. Transitions include multiple changes - to our health, career, relationships, finances, geographies, etc - but they're not synonymous with Change.
Although caterpillars can grow up to 100 times their size, move locations, and even change colours, those are still changes. But when caterpillars enter into the pupa and turn into butterflies, they’re in a Transition: a complete metamorphoses of identity.
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