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Course-Correcting:
Know & Follow Your Guidance System Course-correction is a power—may even be a super-power. You have the power at any given moment to simply course-correct toward what feels better to you than where you find yourself to be or what you thought you were aiming for. Isn’t that kind of amazing? Sound too easy? Here are some typical ways you might hamper your innate ability to simply and swiftly course-correct anytime. You’re too attached to the course you’ve set--so you’re not open to guidance about where to head NOW. Maybe you need to be right or you believe you have to finish what you started or you really really want that thing you were heading toward. But guidance comes in now, for now. You may be guided to Santa Fe and find yourself called to Seattle midway. Santa Fe is just what got your attention and sent you roughly heading the right way! Will you let go now and head Northward as new information comes in? Reminder that the Universe can provide the general thing you’re after in multiple forms. A great way to counter attachment to a specific form is to remember the general thing you were after: a fulfillment, a compatibility, a connection; a sense of place that felt like home; a new, heightened level of expressing your intelligence or artistic vision—perhaps your entire being. Name the general intention and open to how many specific forms could fulfill that. You have too many bad feelings about where you find yourself right now. What if you didn’t judge the status quo? You may have regret or self-recrimination about what got you here. You may feel defeated or discouraged because of how someone else or your own body or life itself seems to have betrayed you. You may categorically hate where you are and be embroiled in the very real complications of your current reality. What if you entirely accepted where you are right now? Invitation back to nonresistance! I just read words from inspired pelvic pain coach Lorraine Faehndrich saying that her healing began when she stopped fighting her body and everything seemingly wrong with it, and from that space of acceptance simply started listening to what it was telling her. (And her body did not withhold! Inner guidance!) Likewise, my sleep class kicks off with an invitation to nonresistance—hence its name, Give It a Rest: Get Your Sleep Back by Letting It Go. Participants begin by accepting sleeplessness and sleep deprivation, and end up resting better and … sleeping! Byron Katie’s first book is called Loving What Is because she invites readers into nonresistance—or as she puts it, out of an argument with reality. “Argue with reality and you lose,” she loves to say, “but only 100 percent of the time.” You’re fine wherever you find yourself at any given moment, and the course-correction asked of you is within your skill set. You think course-correction requires knowing exactly where to go or what to do next. No no no no no! Just think of it as always good enough to head roughly in the right direction. The tweaks (and radical shifts) are made along the way as you keep paying attention! Trust that. You’re having trust malfunctions! You don’t trust life to show you the way. (For life, plug in Source/the stars/Higher Power—you name it for you.) Guidance has always been forthcoming and always will be. You don’t trust yourself—what? To read the signs right? To stay the course? Pause to tune in to what you fault yourself for or expect yourself not to get right. Even if you’re right (and you probably are) about your history or tendencies, whatever you lack or flaw you perceive in yourself will never be fully true. Identity is not fixed, your limitations are ready to become your new strengths, and you get to recreate yourself and your life as much as you care to do. You get to keep course-correcting toward more of what you want and who you most want to be. You’re confusing letting go with giving up. They feel really different. Letting go can feel downright good. If not, it will certainly bring relief and probably some sense of new possibility. At the very least, here comes a question like Now what? or What’s possible now? Some part of you can begin to feel the breeze from the open window now that you’ve shut that troublesome door. Giving up feels awful. It feels like defeat, heavy and contracted, and inspires self-loathing or at best instant regret and second-guessing. It feels like failing yourself (sometimes others—but see the next point for where worrying about that can get you!) Trust what brings relief and lightness: that’s part of your guidance system. You’re listening to someone else’s opinion or advice instead of what’s coming from your inner guidance. Hey, some people will quickly, and for years, default to failing themselves—as long as they never fail others. That’s always misguided. What’s right for you will be right for them, even if they fight you on it initially. Could be their weak or attached or unclear or unhealed self calling you selfish for following your path. You must nonetheless follow your path. By the way, if you go to what someone else wants from you (or deems best for you) because they’ve called you a name or brought forth your worst fear, you’ve just succumbed to manipulation (which obviously isn’t coming from their highest self, and may or may not be conscious on their part). DO NOT CHOOSE YOUR PATH BASED ON MANIPULATIONS FROM OTHERS. (And hey, if you think you’re being manipulated but aren’t sure, I know a good coach. I’ve walked more than one soul out of confusion on that point—funny that being confused is a sign of being manipulated!—and back to clarity about their own knowing.) Risk being selfish—or irresponsible or bad or all over the place or whatever they’re calling you that cuts you to the quick--and just go when everything else but your fear calls you elsewhere. A few more things that could hamper swift course-correction:
Want to explore this more? I’ll be leading a retreat on the topic July 13-15 at the incomparable Light on the Hill. Look to the right for more information right here or follow the link to my webpage on the Course-Correcting Retreat. It’s for women only, though (sorry, guys). I still love what happens when amazing women gather to hold space for one another as they show up for themselves and their own wondrous processes, wherever each happens to be on her unique, valid, worthwhile journey. Love & blessings, Jaya |
Course-correcting can mean an effortless tilt of the wings with hardly a thought and no fuss whatsoever.
I'm so very happy to announce my Course-Correcting Retreat for women at Light on the Hill!
July 13-15, Van Etten, NY Registration is now open. Read all about it and register right here! 
Course-correcting can be fun. Or, hey, you could make it look like fun and who'd be the wiser?
Curious about coaching?
Join me for a free exploration session: You get 30 minutes of my time by phone or Skype or in person. I'll send you away feeling more clear and inspired. We'll both learn whether we envision working together. 
Course-correcting doesn't always happen gracefully, as this wood stork kindly demonstrates. No problem. Really.
For Facebook types, I post most days with an aim to support your growth and healing, inspire you, remind you of what you already know, keep you in touch with the magic, propose that you think big, and cast my vote for you to keep being ever kinder to yourself.
Example posts related to the topics of this mailing: Make little of how others should show up. Make much of showing up with your best to date; make much of who & what you’re drawn to right now. Make little of poring over hard feelings. Make much of soothing them. Make little of a story of self (accrued from past narrative told a certain way & now somehow fixed—what??). Make much of knowing yourself through now, this choice, this letting go, the course-correction toward what calls you in the moment. Make little of finding solutions or figuring it out. Make much of opening to inner guidance, inspired experiments, effortless actions. Make little of complicated realities, the things gone haywire. Make much of the simplicity of the sunbeam, the glass of clean water, the trilling bird that transforms the moment. Make much of constant access to grace. Make much of love. One form of manipulation is when someone uses positive-sounding or spiritual concepts to convince you to do what they want or make you feel bad about your choice. Example #1: “You’re being selfish”—you get confused, not wanting to be selfish, but in fact you were following your knowing & practicing self-care until you fell for their (selfish) tactics. Exs #2 & 3: “It’s important to compromise” (not when they want to negotiate a nonnegotiable!) or its cousin “We must be on the same page” (you don’t if you’re not). Ex #4: “I did this for you/I was there for you when …” They chose that, and it doesn’t entitle them to declare what you do for them, when or how. (Make clear agreement, ask about hidden strings if you sense them, and accept no hidden strings made visible later.) If you see manipulation for what it is, you can’t be manipulated. |