“Sit in a comfortable, safe place. Allow your attention to drift inward. Ask yourself, “If I let love lead me in this situation, where would I go and what would I do next?”
In the midst of a challenging situation, it takes great strength to even ask yourself the simple question, “How can I let love lead me now?”
If at first the answers don’t come easily, don’t be discouraged. Just getting to the point where you can ask the question shows that your intention is good and that you’re moving in the right direction. With practice, before long you’ll come to see this as one of your most powerful tools for listening to your deeper wisdom.”
- John-Roger with Paul Kaye
Momentum: Letting Love Lead, pp 23 – 24
This is one of my favorite exercises for centering myself and opening to receive inner guidance. It can be done sitting right there at your desk, or better yet, get up and stretch, go outside or move to a different chair to do it.
If you’re tempted to respond, “I don’t know,” or you don’t particularly want to confront the question, do it anyway. Pretend that you do know the answer. All of us have innate wisdom, but where we vary greatly is in our level of skill and practice listening to it. As Jane Austen said, “We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it.” My job as a coach is to assist people in better attending to that inner guide. You can do this for yourself using simple exercises like the one above.
A quick consultation with my Oxford American Dictionary tells me some interesting information about the meaning and origin of the words “attend to”:
Attend (verb):
- be present at
- go regularly
- to deal with
- give practical help and care to
- give attention to
Origin: Middle English (in the sense [apply one's mind or one's energies to]): from Old French atendre: from Latin attendere, from ad- ‘to‘ + tendere ‘stretch‘.
So when you attend to your inner guidance, you must be present with it, give it regular care and attention, and deal with it practically. But perhaps most importantly, the oldest origin of the word means that you will need to stretch. That might mean taking action steps that are beyond your current comfort zone, or being willing to extend farther that usual.
I’ll leave you with this wonderful quote from the celebrated American inventor, Thomas Edison:
“If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would astound ourselves.”
Too true. And I would add, if we did all the things our inner guides would have us do, we would astound the entire world.