When Your Essential Self Speaks… Don’t Freak Out

Last post we discussed rabbits.  This week it’s lizards.  Soon we’ll have a zoo.
There was a great question asked in my last post:  How do you know if it is your intuition or your lizard speaking to you? 

Here’s a quick synopsis of the response:

• The reptilian part of our brain, or our lizard, has one job… to keep us on high alert so we don’t fall prey to a predator or starvation.  Our lizard talks through fear to keep us fed and safe.
• An intuitive hunch is a gut reaction, a whisper from God, or a knowing that something is innately right or wrong without reasoning or judgment. Listening to your essential self speak and following your intuition is liberating to the soul.
• I believe our lizard reacts to our intuitive instincts. If your intuition is leading you outside of your comfort zone, lizard fears are almost inevitable.

So… Picking up where we left off with the rabbits:   What if you have followed your intuition, have a wonderful life… and then realize ten days or ten years later that something isn’t right?  What if you hear a calling to do something different than the life you worked so hard to create?

The first step:  Don’t freak out.  Your lizard might think it’s necessary.  It isn’t.

Listen to what your essential self has to say and process the message.  (No… Ben & Jerry won’t help you process… put down the spoon.)  Advise your lizard that no action is necessary at this point and thank her for her concern. 

The Journal
This is where that journal I found from last year comes in.  I really had no socially valid reason to be dissatisfied.  However, a little over a year ago, I woke up to the suffocating image that I was trapped in a snow globe. 

April 2008 – Early morning:  Now I have to go to work.  I love my corner office with windows.  In the winter when it snows, it feels like I’m in a snow globe.   Right now (if I were sitting at my desk), there’s a dogwood blooming outside the window to my right.  If the windows opened, I could touch the blooms.  Outside of the window in front of me, a pair of gray and red birds is building a nest.  I can’t see the nest because it’s under a branch.  But I can see them flying in and out, bringing twigs and other stuff.  If I could open that window, I could lean out and see the nest about 5 feet away. 

Come to think of it… 
A snow globe is a great metaphor. 
I can’t open those windows. 
I can look out into the beauty of the world… but not touch it.  I suddenly feel trapped, restless and in an environment that is unnatural and unsafe.

I want out of the snow globe. 

I want the snow to land on my head and I want to sit under the tree and watch the birds.  Today, after a few less than joy-filled meetings…  I will start devising my exit plan. 

Mid morning: 
On the way to work, the emotion of writing about the snow globe effect overwhelmed me and I started to cry.  My first reaction was to reach for the Xanex.  I stopped, though, realizing that this is an ingrained reaction to dealing with raw emotion and fear.  I stuff it down or snuff it out.  I don’t want to feel the emotions.  This emotion is spawned from the joy of listening to my true self and allowing it to speak.  It’s annoyance over having to go to a meeting and pretend like I care.  My life is not bad… but I might choose to replace it with something better.  I let myself cry and feel the feelings.  I did not touch the Xanex bottle. 

Early afternoon: 
I am now in the meeting.  I do care… but I care with a plan to leave this a better place than when I got here 9 ½ years ago.  This will have been a better place for me being here.  I will leave here at peace with the job I did and with a graceful exit.

What fascinates me the most is how VERY clear the message was at the beginning and end of the day.  Slap in the middle, my lizard came out to play.  I can hear her now:

 “Are you crazy?  The snow globe is safe.  Take a Xanex and you’ll be calm, rational and able to go work.  You’ve worked all your life in this industry.  This is who you are and what you do. ”

Thank goodness I didn’t listen to her!

Instead, after sitting through the day of revelation, slight claustrophobic panic, lizard fears, annoyance and sadness, came what appears to have been peace.  Peace and a vision to create options.  By not freaking out, I was able to hear my way out of the snow globe and count the blessings of my past. 

If I had chosen to ignore my intuition, medicate my lizard and shut my essential self up by feeding her, I wouldn’t have been able to think so clearly.  The nagging sense of “not right” might have manifested into stress and anxiety over who knows what.  It makes me wonder:

How often have I tried to make things right in my social world when my essential self was really in need of attention? 

How often is no action the best way to hear what your whole self wants?

Doing nothing is an art upon itself. 

The Next Step (and next post):  When Your Essential Self Speaks… Do Nothing.

Until then:  If you stumble upon the realization that you’re stuck, don’t let your lizard misguide you.   Feel the emotion and write about it.  Walk with a friend and talk about it. Leave a comment and let’s compare notes.

When Your Essential Self Speaks…

Have you ever started to do something and then get distracted?  An hour (or three) passes and you can’t remember what you were planning to do in the first place?  That just happened.  I’ve learned to trust my essential self when she wants to chase rabbits, so I’m getting used to it.  

After sitting down to write, I stumbled across some documents off of my old work computer. Instead of writing, I started cleaning them out.  Of course, that means I now have no idea what I was going to write about an hour ago, but I found something SO much better!  To my surprise, one of the documents is a short journal from last spring.  This is surprising for three reasons:  

1. I didn’t journal back then. 
2. I had completely forgotten about it. 
3. I have been trying to come up with the best way to illustrate how following your intuition can change your life.  Hello?!  I’ve just lived through an epic tale of what happens when you blindly follow embrace intuitive hunches and walk in faith.  This journal is from the beginning of that journey. 

So, I chased a rabbit… and here is born a new blog series on intuition, synchronicities and life lessons… with some weight loss tips thrown in for good measure.   Pieces of the journal will be used to illustrate how a state of stuck can be dislodged by listening to your essential self speak.

When Your Essential Self Speaks…

Intuition is one of the methods your essential self uses to speak.  Your brain might not have yet wrapped a logical reason around why you feel icky around a certain person or excited when you walk into a certain place, but your essential self knows.  Your intuition can clue you into the things and people that serve you well or that drain you before you get a chance to rationally understand why.  It is also your overall guide to the path you were born to follow. 

When Your Essential Self Speaks… Chase the Rabbit.

Come to think of it… Chase it with no regret. 

Chasing rabbits is a term I’ve used for years in reference to following intuitive hunches.  Following your intuition (a real rabbit) is much different than procrastinating or moving toward socially acceptable goals for the sake of fulfilling desires of the ego (a fake rabbit). 

The trick is to know which rabbits are real and which ones are just pulling your leg.   I will admit that I’ve been in the company of greyhounds chasing fake rabbits on many occasions, but the more I listen to my intuition, the clearer the difference between the real and the stuffed shirt rabbit becomes. 

What if you realize the rabbit is a sham mid-chase? 

Stop.  Pause to soak in the lessons learned and then move on. 

Corey Ciocchetti is a professor of business law and ethics at the University of Denver and author of the book Real Rabbits: Chasing An Authentic Life.  He wrote a great blog post about Cash, the greyhound, who realized one day that the rabbit he was chasing was fake and, without remorse, stopped racing.  He poses a great fundamental question:  “Do you chase real rabbits?  If not, what do you chase and why?” 

If, upon pondering, you realize one of your rabbits is full of fluff, he makes this great point:  “The great thing about life… is that the road to lasting, authentic success contains many on-ramps. Although we have chased fake rabbits in the past, we can move towards authentic success in a split second.”

Notice that neither Corey nor I said to throw a pity party in regret for time and energy wasted and emotionally eat yourself into a stuffed state of numbness.  What I believe he is saying (and what  I am suggesting) is that you put down the cookie and simply stop the sham.  Feel your emotions, count your blessings, and then find a new passion, hobby or career that feels real.   Tune in to your intuition and find the next exit. 

What if you catch the rabbit, keep it as a pet (job, partner, college major) for a while, then realize ten days or ten years later that it no longer makes you happy? 

Like Kenny Rogers says:  “You gotta know when to hold ‘em; know when to fold ‘em; know when to walk away; know when to run.” 

Your essential self knows the minute when that “used-to-be-perfect” situation no longer serves you well.  It knows how, what, why and when… the trick is to trust your gut and listen to the whisper of your intuition.  The sooner you look at your desire to change in the eye… the more quickly you can make peace with it, devise an exit strategy and part ways.

Admittedly, this scenario might carry a bit more emotional and literal baggage than realizing the rabbit was fake before you snared it.  Therefore, this is where we’ll pick up in the next post… and where the journal comes in:

When Your Essential Self Speaks… Don’t Freak Out

Until then, listen to your intuition.  You never know what you’re going to find:  A new opportunity, a lost sweater button or a journal that reminds you of how stuck you were and how far you’ve come.  One thing is for sure, you will be closer to your essential self than when you started.

What rabbits have you chased lately?