Life’s Operating Instructions
Looking for directions in all the wrong places
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Which way do I go?
Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Where are those darn operating instructions?
Come on…give me a break, oh Swami…I plead as if looking up at an old carnival machine with a crystal ball spewing out fortunes and fate. If only. Have you ever felt that you could’ve avoided certain life experiences if only you had been given the manual? Sigh.
I don’t know about you, but I ran around much of my life endlessly searching for something that 1.) I didn’t know I was looking for and 2.) couldn’t be found outside of me. And therein lies the perpetual spin cycle I was caught up in — repeating old patterns and behaviors — and expecting a different result. Maybe you can relate? It’s pretty exhausting, right?
When my myriad life chapters took their dips, twists, turns and inevitable plummets…I resorted to my default setting: blame with an occasional dollop of victimization. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this…warn me about that…show me this? As if it could all have been avoided…but could it have? Now the caveat is that to some degree there is truth to the question “why didn’t anyone ever tell me this” — however, would I have even listened? I’d like to think so, but you know yourself…we learn when we are ready (or worn out from banging our head on the same wall).
What I really needed instead was someone to have imparted me with the knowledge that I needed to turn inward for answers instead of endlessly searching for them outside of myself. Full stop.
That was it…the Holy Grail…go inward, listen, feel, connect to your God-given instinct, heart and intuition. Internal GPS? The notion was foreign to me (thus the stumbling through life that ensued).
They certainly don’t teach that one at school and it wasn’t the topic of dinner conversation in my house growing up. And I get that this may seem like an over-simplification and a lot of ‘feel good’ mumbo jumbo, but it’s honestly that simple.
We don’t need to be saved, we need to be activated and introduced to our higher knowing selves — and learn to save (and trust) ourselves. We need to feel into our decisions. But instead, the world tells us to get in line, people please, don’t rock the boat, this is the way we do things, just keep moving, etc. So, we carry on business as usual.
The problem is that when we practice disconnecting from our feelings, well…we get really good at not feeling and we lose pieces of ourselves along the way. As they say, practice makes perfect. Ask yourself what you are practicing.
Have you ever traveled through the valley of denial, ignoring the red flags slapping you in the face? I spent most of my life pretending I didn’t see the warning signs, didn’t hear the alarm bells flaring or feel my insides turning. But that didn’t stop anything I was denying from happening, it only made it harder to find my way back. The falls hurt more and took longer to recover from. The further we get away from ourselves, the longer it takes to find our way back again. The more I hid, the further I got buried.
Our intuition is working overtime to get our attention — and we do a pretty good job of working overtime to ignore it.
How many times have you shoved yourself into a job, relationship, some role you took on, some expectation of another — stayed somewhere you didn’t fit or that dulled your light? Hey, this being human stuff isn’t for the faint of heart. The truth is that I was looking for operating instructions, but more than likely wouldn’t have followed them if I had been given them.
Hindsight is a finger-pointer. It’s easy to blame the past and all the events and people in it, to see ourselves as victims, but we can choose another path at any point. And we don’t have to overcomplicate it or run off on a retreat in India. We just have to be willing to tell the truth to ourselves and to listen to what comes up.
People often pose the question, What would you tell your younger self? There’s only one thing I’d say. Learn to trust yourself. Learn to feel and to listen to your intuitive nature — and do it as soon as possible to save yourself a lot of grief, anxiety, heartache, suffering, limited-thinking and second-guessing. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. What you have accomplished or not. Where you live or what you drive or how much you have in the bank. It doesn’t matter if you have made mistakes, fallen, betrayed yourself, denied your feelings, pretended you didn’t hear the warnings or were too afraid to make a move.
What matters is this moment in the here and now — from this point forward.
It starts with a different choice (even if it feels a bit unnatural to make at first). Get quiet, be still, sit motionless and assess how you feel, what you see around you and more importantly, what you like and don’t like — what’s working, what’s not?
Simple enough, right? But when is the last time you allowed yourself to do that — to make a simple decision without taking a poll or being advised? You are the CEO of your life and yet, we get buried along the way.
The only operating instructions I needed was to be told that I could bring my feeling, intuitive, sensitive self to the party — that I didn’t need to hide these aspects of myself. That manual wouldn’t have been too thick, in fact, it would have simply been a Post-It note that read: Your gut is your true authority (and you don’t need a guru, a psychic or anyone else to tell you that).
Many of us have been living in a world of distraction for far too long, that pulls us in so many directions at one time that we have forgotten our most basic gifts.
Perhaps it’s time for an archeological dig to uncover previously discarded parts of ourselves that have been buried away, ignored and lying dormant. As they say, there’s no place like home — and you don’t need operating instructions to get there. Just get still, tap in and ask yourself which way to go…and be willing to listen. You’ve got this and I can’t wait to see where it leads you.
Have you ever felt like you were looking for life’s operating instructions, but not heeding the intuitive hits and warning signs? Please share your experience in the comments below where the conversation continues…