Do you really know what intuition is?

As we move along this year with the Dance of the Selves Series participants are beginning to understanding that they are indeed very intuitive people.

On our journey of discovery with the archetypal energies in the series, we have explored the child, the victim, the prostitute and the saboteur/ inner critic, archetypal energies so far.

We are learning how to listen to the language of our soul through their participation in our lives.

As this skill of interpreting the souls symbolic communication through these archetypal characters develops so are the participants intuitive capacities expanding.

There is a lot of misunderstandings about what intuition is out there, many people think being intuitive is the same as being told what to do by some internal fairy godmother, who waves her magic wand and all is well. A voice that tells you when to do things and how to avoid making any decision that will upset the apple cart of life. I have found that intuitive knowing is different to this fantasy.

Participants are discovering that their intuition confirms what they have been afraid or unable to admit to themselves. Afraid to admit due to either fear of the consequences of following it or due to conflicting internal agendas that have been blocking them and or causing them confusion. Some have been procrastinating with important decision due to their own lack of confidence in themselves when their intuition has been pointing them continually in the direction of breakthrough and success on major issues that have been hindering them.

Intuition is constantly talking to us, and often it is guiding us into unknown territory, places in which if we trust and follow its guidance will lead us to the greatest soul growth and deepest fulfilment in the long term, maybe not in the short term though and that’s the rub.

To continue this go to my blog, it also has a checklist of intuitive blocking behaviours that you may be interested in.

Intuition speaks to us of longevity and wholeness, actions that will guarantee our soul has the experiences it needs to grow and make the most of the opportunities life gives us. It does not tell us how to avoid facing the hard situations in life that we need in order to grow, it does not tell us what numbers to buy to win the lottery or how to duck the lessons of having good relationships or being a productive human being who serves others well.

And this can be why intuition can be frightening in its power to guide our lives to new experiences and greater self-awareness because often when we have developed our capacities to be accountable to our true self, our intuition asks us to respond to the most difficult thing we can imagine. It asks us to go to the hard places willingly and accept what we find there, not for punishment or to suffer rather for breakthrough, creative understanding and deeper capacity to experience joy and passion.

Caroline Myss often points out to people that facing the difficult challenges of life and making the hardest decisions, such as deciding to care for a sick partner, or staying on at that tough job until you can successfully create a good exit for yourself, will turn out to be the intuitive decisions that bring the most benefit, to all concerned in the long term. It is in facing our demons, our untested areas, or our fears, that we find more of ours souls true character and the gifts that wait to be revealed within the challenge itself.

Check list of common intuitive hits that maybe shouting to you but you are refusing to acknowledge.

1. Do you fear accepting something that your intuition is shouting to you about because accepting it would create massive changes in you life?
2. Are you in a bad relationship and staying there because you don’t want to face the changes necessary to get out of it?
3. Are you overweight and not ready to take responsibility for accepting you need to make significant changes to your lifestyle to be healthy again?
4. Do you continue to put up with a less than satisfactory financial situation because you will not acknowledge that you need to study and find a new career pathway for yourself?
5. Do you have a chronic health condition that needs your attention and you refuse to be responsible for it because you believe it may be bad news if you investigate it further?
6. Do you continue to participate in addictive behaviours that do not support you to live a health happy life?
7. Do you put up with things that annoy you but don’t assert yourself to take charge of the situation?

Everybody has their own intuitive capacities, it’s a birth right for all of us to have our own internal guidance system. I firmly believe all we have the aptitude to have access to our own inner guidance for our lives and my work with Empowerment Coaching is all about connection you back to that internal system.

Your own guidance and inner authority for your life, so you can lead from the heart rather than follow like sheep.

I hope you have enjoyed this newsletter, next time we will talk about the difference between being psychic and being intuitive.

All good wishes to you,

Julie-Anne

The Coach for Your Spirit

Coaching Sensitive Souls

Topic: Coaching The Highly Sensitive Personality

The purpose of this essay is to introduce the topic of highly sensitive, intuitive, introverted personality types and will briefly discuss the characteristics of these types, identify their values, their individual needs and the careers and vocations these people usually occupy. Then go on to examine the particular characteristics of highly sensitive people in light of the coaching experience.

The Swiss psychiatrist C a r l G u s t a v J u n g born J u l y 2 6 , 1 8 7 5 w a s t h e f o u n d e r o f deep psychology, he was the first influential thinker in the last century to introduce the concept of introverted and extroverted personality types. He describes the attitude of the introverted personality as an abstracting one; the introverted personality he maintained withdraws their attention from the outside world in order to avoid the world taking control of them. The extraverted personality type in contrast has a positive relationship to the outer world, seeing it as important and a valuable reference point, which gives them important feedback, which they use to become more aware of themselves.

Introverts are shy, reserved and somewhat inscrutable people who form the strongest contrast to the open, sociable, happy, friendly and approachable extraverted personality types. Although each individual does possess both characteristics, introverted and extraverted, it is human nature for one personality type to denigrate the characteristics of the other, regarding the opposite characteristic as far less favourable than their own. In our western culture the extraverted personality type is the most prevalent and the most culturally dominate type.

Elaine N. Aron PH.D. in her book The Highly Sensitive Person published by Element 1999, describes this introverted personality type in greater detail and attributes this characteristic to between 15-20 % of the population. Her studies have shown this type, which she titles, the Highly Sensitive Person, suffers from over arousal of their nervous systems. This arousal manifests in various individuals in a variety of ways, including sensitivity to noise, light, chemicals and certain foods, environments and activities, too much information can overwhelm them, and other people’s stress affects them adversely. Vision, hearing and all the other senses function differently, and information is processed in a more detailed and more profound manner than in more extraverted types, this can be an extreme and very painful experience for the sensitive person.

She points out that having this trait is not regarded as ideal by our culture and as a consequence many highly sensitive people can suffer from low self-esteem and regard their innate characteristics as flaws within their personality structure. This happens when they mistakenly compare their characteristics to those of the majority of extraverted people in the population. As coaches it is important to be aware of this demographic and the characteristic consequences for sensitive people. Coaches need to re-educate clients when this is the case as it common that until they become better educated about their particular personality make up they will continue to suffer from low self worth.

Psychologist have noted that extraverts are more easily able to establish successful attachment experiences with their primary care givers when young, as they naturally seek out the object of their survival and satisfaction. While sensitive introverted children can struggle to make satisfactory attachment due to their innate sensory experiencing of powerful impressions. An overwhelm of sensory fall out from too many disturbing experiences can significantly hinder the introverted child’s maturation.

Jung too pointed to this and noted that introverted and intuitive types often have extreme difficulties as children because of their sensitivities. The highly sensitive young child can not be protected from or protect themselves against or even cognitively understand why they are overwhelmed, avoidant and reserved when in the company of others or their care givers. They recoil internally when their senses are overloaded rather than reach out for comfort from their parent or care giver. Extraverted children who understand that their care gives are the natural source of their comfort and survival can so easily do this.

The highly sensitive person from a traumatic, troubled and sometimes abandoned childhood has a hard road to travel into adult years and many suffer from various types of abuse because of this lack of ability to protection themselves in childhood.
As adults this can develop into internalised unconscious assumptions about themselves, along with a tendency to hide their real personalities. As they can experience themselves as flawed, odd or even abnormal, hiding their unique characteristics is a strategy used to not stand out from others and or be noticed. This incorrect strategy is an effort to find acceptance from the wider world around them by blending in rather than taking a stand for their difference.

The career choices of sensitive people usually include vocations in which they can use their skills and values to advantage, these can include social activism, social justice and environmental concerns. They are readily able to apply themselves to areas that are dedicated to improve human and environmental conditions. If they are artistically inclined and many are, they have a keen desire to create and manifest their particular vision of the world through their capacities and artistic expressions.

The more reserved intellectual type will be found doing research and are capable of long hours of study and focus when in the right environment to do so. Doctors, healers, and alternate therapy practitioners often have this sensibility, as do people who work in the areas of care and care giving, to the elderly, children, the dying and the disabled and mentally ill. They find caring comes naturally and they have a unique ability to serve those with special needs selflessly. They can also communicate more easily with someone who needs understanding as they are naturally receptive and empathetic.

Sensitive people are usually the pioneers on many fields in life. They dare to do new things (many inventors and explorers are sensitive) and they have a deeper connection with the arts and cultural endeavours, for example they are touched easily by a piece of music, a movie or a theatrical play and will reflect on the meaning or resonance of a piece of artistic experience long after it is over. They are naturally open to what is new and cutting edge and they are keen to take on new ideas, they are not afraid of innovating or to experiment when they can do it in a safe learning environment or privately.

As coaching is a self-learning, self-paced and experiential activity it can easily be adapted to the needs of sensitive people. A coach who is aware of the highly sensitive persons sensibilities can help sensitive people to understand their unique characteristics and guide them to a greater awareness of who are they, thus helping them to release many of the false assumptions they have accumulated about their self worth when comparing themselves against dominate cultural norms.

As in all coaching relationships the regard the coach has for their client and the attitudes held by the coach will oversee and shape the whole coaching process. Particular things need to be kept in mind when coaching highly sensitive people – as with all coaching clients. It is important to keep in mind all the standard criteria such as, the client being naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, rather than viewing a sensitive client as a person with problems who needs an expert to help them to resolve issues.

Some of the benefits a coach can impart are in the area of helping the sensitive client to change their habitual way of thinking, turning it from defensive, guarded or aggressive into a fuller self awareness, acceptance and positive recognition and appreciation for their own traits. Then further coaching into the area of the creative enjoyment and open sharing with others of these unique gifts and world perspectives.

Coaching the client to understand the need for, the importance of and coaching them in implementing, great self-care strategies will be a major part of supportive coaching for the sensitive client. As over stimulation for the highly sensitive means over arousal and often exhaustion, helping them to understand how to look after their unique nervous system is essential. How to monitor and self regulate the amount of stimulation they receive on a daily basis and how to create effective boundaries in their lives is paramount.

Accepting that there is a greater need for relaxation in their lives than others around them need, and that means relaxation periods, taking time alone, staying in low light, being quiet, staying away from stressful stimuli, doing such things as winding down in the evening hours, doing a regular physical activity like yoga or quiet martial arts or swimming, all these will benefit the highly sensitive person greatly, helping them to handle the highly stimulating daily demands of our outgoing society.

Coaching them to create simple organic ways of organising their lives, trusting their own innate intuitive systems rather than doubting and denying the power of these self created structures will enable the sensitive client to thrive and feel more comfortable in their self claimed environments. Their self devised and self claimed systems are usually much better anyway, the task for them is to believe in them, implement them and own them, after years of trying to make other peoples systems fit their lives, this can be a challenge.

To realize and accept that sometimes a sensitive person can finish a job in a few minutes using a different procedure than what they have been instructed to use, and the rest of the time they can feel guilty that others are still working. These are some of the peculiarities of this group.

Coaching them to discover their hidden and often obvious (to others) talents and how to use them for themselves and for the benefit of those around them, also for making the world a better place (something that the sensitives love to do) will be on the agenda for a coach working with this client group.

Coaches need to be aware that shyness, reticence and reluctance to stand out or to take credit are common traits of sensitives. It may take a sensitive client time to learn how to acknowledge themselves for things done well, as this is a normal way of being for these capable diligent people. They may also react adversely to acknowledgment initially and coaches need to take the time to explain why acknowledgment is given in coaching thus enabling the client to become familiar with this tool and apply the benefits to their own life.

Sensory acuity is a characteristic of this personality type and coaches will find clients who are very a-tuned to the thoughts, attitudes, actions, and nuances of those around them. Due to this fine-tuning and the natural propensity to process this information more deeply they are going to dwell longer on the meaning of criticism, rejection, betrayals, losses and deaths than extraverts do. This can be an area in which coaches can instil a greater sense of balance in regard to their sometimes-negative self-evaluation.

Prophetic vision can be another unnerving characteristic of sensitives for coaches who are not familiar with these traits. Coaching them to develop their special gifts, such as superb intuition, telepathy, empathic communication, deep understanding, healing abilities, love for teaching, sharing and guiding, also spreading ideas, communicating to others important social ideas, generating community activism when they are inspired, will be an important part of the coaching process. Gifts that other people sometimes need to spend much time and application to gain or learn are innate within this group.

Sensitive people need different ways to assimilate ideas, as ideas can easily overwhelm them. Coaches need to adjust their coaching style to meet the sensitive client’s sensibilities. Firstly they may need to go away and think about new ideas rather than be place under the strain of being asked to accept them instantly. Create a safe coaching space in which they can ponder and practise first, rather than expect them to immediately and enthusiastically take up a new idea. To support this uptake of new ideas, direct learning tasks need to be given as homework, so the shy client can practice a new skill at their own pace or test a new idea, slowly and deliberately.

These people commonly falter when in a performance situation not because they are unable to do a task but rather due to the extreme self-consciousness they feel when they are being watched, evaluated or assessed. When facing and managing change smaller steps are preferable and time needs to be given away from any high anxiety situations in which the sensitive client can practice the new skill safely.

In summary all coaching requires the coach and the client to together design a unique working relationship tailored to the client’s specific needs. Highly sensitive clients have particular needs that require the coach to adapt and respond with sensitivity themselves to the circumstances of the client and a stand often needs to be taken by the coach, that asks the client to look with different eyes at their own unique sensibilities, coaches will need to dig deep into their own value system to do this.

The information a coach can impart to a person who does not know they are highly sensitive can be life changing and can completely rearrange the clients internal landscape for the better. Coaching them to respect and nurture themselves by reminding them through skillful coaching that they are sensitive and not weak, as they previously thought, will be liberating for them and fulfilling for the aware coach.

References

The Portable Jung
Edited by Joseph Campbell
Published by Penguin Books

The Highly Sensitive Person
Elaine N. Aron
Published by Element Books

Boundaries and Relationships
Charles L. Whitfield, MD.
Published by Health Communications, Inc.

Mastering the Art of Self Renewal
Frederic M. Hudson
Published by John Wiley and Sons.

Spaciousness

Sacred Fire Ezine #11

Spaciousness

This months ezine is about moving from group think to individual think, that lovely sense of unique self expression that does not have to make excuses for it existence, feel self conscious or unacceptable when it appears. I call it spaciousness.

Now I know a few people in my circle of friends who live from this place of unselfconscious spaciousness on a daily basis. They are a delight to be around and they always leave a situation energetically clean and enlivened by their presence.

I’ll describe their characteristics and see if you can identify those wonderful people in your life who share the same qualities.

These spacious people take time to talk to those they interact with, be it the supermarket check out chick, the man who repairs their shoes or the person standing next to them at the bus stop. The are genuinely interested in others, respectful and playful in their interactions with seeming strangers. And surprise, surprise those people who started out as strangers are touched and changed by these brief but authentic exchanges.

Now I watch my friend who do this closely and I have never observed them doing it manipulatively or as a means of receiving something for nothing. They seem to be genuinely interested in making real contact with those they interact with and in return they receive smiles, brief snippets of personal conversation and sometimes initial confusion from the recipient until that person energetically gets that they are not after anything more than human connection.

From a coaching point of view this fascinates me and I know how all of us really what to have a sense of choice in any situation we are in, we know that when we have choice we are creating and creating is a very spacious activity. The opposite of this is having no choice but to fall into an automatic role and play out a scenario that ultimately robs us of a moment of truth with another person in our lives.

My Sacred Fire coaching challenge to you this month is to observe how you interact with others, are you spacious and creative and in the moment when you interact or do you find yourself slipping into an unconscious role that leaves you feeling slightly deadened by the experience? If that’s the case, can you play with being spacious and creative with others and see what happens.

With love and great warmth,

Julie-Anne

The Coach for Your Spirit.

The Cluttered Schedule and the Contemplative Life

Ezine # 10

Hi All,

This month’s topic is The Cluttered Schedule, this topic was inspired by a talk I attended last week by the wonderful Buddhist nun, Tenzin Palmo.

Her talk triggered the following observations for me, on time, the value of contemplation and the importance of continuing to work on developing our self awareness.

Those of you who have coached and counselled with me know how committed I am to coaching you in developing your self awareness, you all tell me how this aspect of our work together supports you in growing beyond your limited self concept and consequently your thinking expands, your world expands and what is possible for you expands too.

The Cluttered Schedule

It seems it is becoming even more difficult to maintain a healthy balance of work and rest in our hurried lives, it is especially challenging to find time for contemplation and inner work.

The problem with this cluttered schedule is that we convince ourselves that we can’t afford to do “nothing” for any length of time. We have been so conditioned to believe that just being is a waste of our precious time and we feel guilty when we allow ourselves to spend our time concentrating on these important activities. Can you see how even our common language describes the bias we have around so called, doing nothing.

If we allow this mindset to permeate our actions then even when we allow ourselves to have the time we need to contemplate and do our inner work, we are bound to experience anxiety and pressure one some level. This will continue until we get very clear on the value of these activities.

Inner work, contemplative practices are not distractions from daily activities, in fact when these activities are integrated into our lives they feed and nourish us in ways no material substances can. This is soul work we are doing here and vitally important to our wellbeing.

We need to consider: Are our contemplative practices mere diversions? Or are they touching something deeper in us? Have we lost the ability to be at peace in our moments of rest? Cluttered schedules not only constrict the time we have, but also manipulate our understanding of our intrinsic value and worth. It is crucial to remember the simple value and beauty of life as it is, not as it is used.

Coaching Challenge

My coaching challenge to you over the next little while is to make some space for doing nothing, contemplate, muse and daydream, just be for a bit and see how it is for you to surrender into the moment.

Tenzin Palmo calls this activity mindfulness and it’s a deliberate Buddhist technology for enlightenment. She says it’s the yeast you put in the bread to make it rise, you only need a little but it’s very powerful.

With warmest wishes and great love,

Julie-Anne

The Coach For Your Spirit.

Teleclasses are on their way

The Still Small Voice series of Inner Work teleclasses are on the way, I know infinite patience is required while you wait for the date to be announced, however they will be worth it!

Fun Things to Share

This last week as I mentioned above I was privileged to be part of the audience in which Tenzin Palmo spoke if your would like to know more about her use this link.

http://tenzinpalmo.com/tenzin_palmo/biography.htm

The Power of Your Vision

The Power of Your Vision

This week the gorgeous Jamaican coach Lydia Mattison from Empowering Spaces interviewed me on her blog radio show.

To listen use this link and scroll down to Oct 12- The Power of Vision.
www.empoweringspace.com

The subject we spoke on was the Power of Your Vision. Our conversation ranged over such things as what is a vision, how to activate a vision and how to birth a vision.

Canadian Coach Louis Tetu who specialised in life and prosperity coaching joined us on the call.

It was an enlightening conversation with the three of us coming up with the following observations:

A Vision is not something you necessarily see, it is rather an energetic presence that leads you into relationship with your souls path for this lifetime.

Your Vision is symbolic and within the symbol of your vision are ideals, values and guiding principles.

Your Vision also evolves through time, growing and changing as you move through and accomplish the various tasks that happen as a result of it.

Working consciously with your Vision is an evolutionary task, one that can take you to the heart of what your life is about.

Your Vision is a living guiding force within your life and what provokes your Vision into actualisation is the tension between where you are currently and where you want to be in relationship to it.

As coaches one of our areas of expertise is in supporting people as they move through this tension.

It was a very rewarding conversation and I would love to respond to those of you who have any questions or would like to comment on what I have written here, or said on the radio show, please email me at Julieanne@sacredfire.com.au

Instigating the Power of Your Vision

Nothing reveals our resistance and underlying beliefs like an assignment to write down what we want!

Writing the answers down creates clarity and speeds change.

To connect to your own power of creation, start with a wish list.

Simply list 100 things you want to have, be or do in your life.

Sounds easy, well let me know how it goes, and I’m here to coach you in getting clear on what you do want.

With all good wishes and great love,

Julie-Anne

Some interesting things to share with you

Are You Interested in Becoming an Astronomer?

Then check out GalaxyZoo, the project which harnesses the power of the internet – and your brain – to classify a million galaxies. By taking part, you’ll not only be contributing to scientific research, but you’ll view parts of the Universe that literally no-one has ever seen before and get a sense of the glorious diversity of galaxies that pepper the sky.

Go ahead and sign up to start classifying galaxies right away. http://galaxyzoo.org/

Kiva Loans that change lives

Kiva lets you connect with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can “sponsor a business” and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates from the business you’ve sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back.
http://www.kiva.org/app.php

Implementing What You Know

Implementing What You Know

2008 is your opportunity to shine. It’s a new chance to create what you desire and to implement the tremendous wealth of inner knowledge and awareness that you already have.

Everyone who has touched the Sacred Fire knows the answers are within and are already powerful creators, I know this because I know you and your capacities personally.

The key to your life flowering and bringing forth the fruit of your internal awareness it to implement what you know. Sometimes people hang out in a place that is suspended between what they know and what they do. This place is frustrating and debilitating for many reasons. In this place many good things die through lack of attention.

When you realise you are holding up your inner wisdom, in the form of an idea that wants to get born through you. That you are delaying for reasons that are based on years of conditioned thinking and frankly are not real. In this moment it’s important to understand that the creation process needs your commitment.

The most powerful way to commit to your inner purpose and creative needs is to implement your idea as soon as possible.

Make 2008 the year in which you learn how to trust what you know and act on it straight away.

Preliminary Steps to Implementing

1. Get clear within your inner world, ask the questions of your heart, what do I want? listen to the answers and take note.
2. Journal your answers, feel the emotion of these things and learn to trust what feels good, then create a simple list of possibilities for yourself.
3. Then the fun begins, out of your possibilities which ones are most in alignment with your Vision, the big picture you have for yourself. Choose those then Implement.

Being With

Being With

Hi All,

First let’s hop into this months topic “Being With”. I’ve written about this because it’s so close to my heart — the notion of “being with” encompasses a whole philosophical stance on which Sacred Fire stands.

To lead into this idea, I’ll begin by posing this question to you,

How do you support others when they are in strife?

My sense is you sit down at the kitchen table with your friend, you make a cup of tea, you bring out the bickie jar or get that left over piece of cake from the refrigerator, you place it on the table between you and your friend –then you sit and you listen, while they talk.

While they tell you their story.

You witness, you listen and you are with them as they pour their heart out to you.

Simple thing to do, yet, profoundly nurturing, supportive and healing for your friend.

I also imagine that while you do this, you quiet your own mind, you let go of your identification with your own needs for the time being, while you choose to be totally present to your friend and their concerns.

My questions to you today is how often do you settle, nurture, deeply listen to yourself?

How often do you give the same consideration that you give to your friend, to yourself?

How often do you give yourself 20 minutes to sit outside in the garden or on the veranda or at the windowsill, being in your own company?

Thinking, feeling, musing, dreaming, reflecting on where you are in your own life, allowing time for the revelation and inspiration to arise from within you.

My coaching invitation to you is to play the scenario I painted above over in your head again. Only this time invite yourself to the table, sit, listen and with an open heart consider what your friend (yourself) is wanting to say to you.

What’s important right now for you, listen and hear, as this is expressed and received in friendship.

Just as the magic of healing occurs between you and your real friend after they have experienced truly being heard by you, so that same healing can be ongoing in your own daily life between you and your inner self.

This is not some split personality I’m talking about here, this is the mindful and deliberate development of awareness to the presence of your own inner self.

It requires

∑ The willingness to put your ego’s concerns aside for a while and tend to the greater need of your soul.
∑ A commitment to being present for the truth of things
∑ An attitude of loving kindness

These simple actions only take an instant of mindfulness, they then bring forth a wonderful bounty of healing and awareness.

Here’s to your greater expansion in spirit,

All love,

Julie-Anne

The Coach for Your Spirit

Simpleology

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

• The best blogging techniques.
• How to get traffic to your blog.
• How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

The Power of Vision

This morning the gorgeous Jamaican coach Lydia Mattison from Empowering Spaces interviewed me. On her blogradio show empowering spaces. Click to download here.

The subject we spoke on was the Power of Your Vision. Our conversation ranged over such things as what is a vision, how to activate a vision and how to birth a vision.

Canadian Coach Louis Tetu who specialised in life and prosperity coaching joined us.

It was an enlightening conversation with the three of us coming up with the following observations:

A Vision is not something you necessarily see, it is rather an energetic presence that leads you into relationship with your souls path for this lifetime.

Your Vision is symbolic and within the symbol of your vision are ideals, values and guiding principles.

Your Vision also evolves through time, growing and changing as you move through and accomplish the various tasks that happen as a result of it.

Your Vision is a living guiding force within your life and what provokes your Vision into actualisation is the tension between where you are and where you want to be in relationship to it.

As a coach my special area of expertise is to supporting people as they move through this tension.

Working consciously with your Vision is an evolutionary task, one that take you to the heart of what your life is about.

It was a very rewarding conversation and I would love to talk those of you who any questions or would like to add or comment on what I have written here, or on the radio show, please connect me at Julieanne@sacredfire.com.au

The Inner Life

Great Masters, Indigenous Peoples, Shamans, Artists, Philosophers, Mystics, Wise women and men of all ages have continually spoken and taught the importance of the inner life. They emphasised the need to participate in the inner world of the Self as a means of Self Realisation. They have warned of the illusion of the outer world and given methods, practices and teachings on how to breakthrough and transform these illusions.

They left legacies of inspired text, art, music and poetry to support us on our journey of self-discovery. They have imbued physical places with energies that can change internal state of consciousness and have always worked in harmony with nature to unfold the divine plan for mans awakening.

As humans we inherit a long chain of rich and inspired knowing about what this gift of life actually offers us. However, my question is, do modern people immersed in a world of materialism, advertising, ecological and technological change, avail themselves of this legacy of perennial wisdom?

Personally I don’t think we do and due to this ignorance and lack of awareness many people suffer from tremendous confusion and self-doubt about their true nature. They fail to actualise what they are innately capable of. They miss the opportunities that are given to them through the living of their precious lives.

We have forgotten to respect, harmonize with and care take what innately belongs to us, our inner life, in fact many people fail to register that they have an inner life let alone know how to work with it.

As a spiritual coach specialising in spiritual self-care I know the inner life manifests in many different ways with in us. Its wellbeing affects all areas of our lives and the deeper the relationship is between the inner life and the outer life, one informing the other in a cooperative and productive way, the wiser and happier a person is.

This position may appear to be opposite to the current notions of education and acquiring knowledge through sources outside of ourselves. All learning eventually has to be tested through personal experience, directly experienced through the self. Otherwise it becomes an intellectual exercise only.

Spiritual self-care is the daily practise of being with the inner self, for the purpose of harmonising the inner world with the outer. Its not rocket science, it really is a simple care taking process needing nothing more than focused attention on your interior world. The technologies for this have been handed down to us since time immemorial. Meditation, ritual, the study of nature, symbols, prayer, focused awareness, dreams, music, art, dance, fasting, communal sharing of experiences and resources, visualisation and the right use of power.

It is because these technologies are so simple that they are so often overlooked and undervalued. As a society we have been hoodwinked into not valuing what is simple, beautiful and free rather we are influenced to give our power over to what we regard as complex, expensive, rational and intellectual.

Openhearted curiosity is a fine entry point into the inner life. A strong and abiding desire to know more about what the inner life and the inner self are, then a commitment to honouring what the inner life urges us to be, know and do.

How do we enter our own inner lives?

Unfortunately most of us enter our inner world on our knees through the experience of great personal suffering. Someone we love dies or commits suicide, we may fall prey to addiction or mental illness, we happen to loose a source of security such as a job or a house, a relationship we thought would last forever suddenly falls apart leaving us grieving and alone. These experiences cause us to ask important questions for ourselves.

Others wake up one morning and literally find themselves in the wrong life altogether wondering how the hell they got there. Realising in a moment of sober revelation that life has taken them to destination that they do not necessarily want to stay in for the long term.

Others ache to be connected to what has heart and meaning for them as they find life as it is lived today leaves them empty and unfulfilled.

Then there are those people I believe who have a genuine spiritual calling. Their soul’s call out for their attention and they willingly respond.

And it really does not matter how one begins to explore the inner terrain of the Self, the important event is that they have begun.

What does the inner life require of us?

Imagine the inner life to be a river, in the outer world it is winter and the river is still and frozen on the top, yet within the river the deeper currents continue to move. Carrying the river ever onwards to its final destination, the ocean. All of us are in the river of life, in fact it is better to say that each of us are the river, each moving towards our ultimate home, the sea. The sea is merging and ultimate consciousness.

The inner life requires us to develop our capacity for self-awareness; it wants us to become aware of what is inside us. It does this because it holds for us our personal mystery, meaning and purpose. It longs for us to listen as it gives us directions, information and resources that we need to live our lives.

After we have learnt the language of our souls then it is our work to harmonise our lives with our souls directions.

An important part of the process of developing self-awareness is to seek out and remove all personal barrier we have that block our ability to love. These barriers to love are most commonly beliefs and residues of experiences that are incomplete or not fully understood. This is our ‘stuff’, the psychological residue of our human lives that is as yet unintegrated into our awareness.

Then to learn what it is to take inspired action in all that we do.

This inner work as it is called requires rigorous honesty and commitment to the truth of our nature. Then armed with good self- awareness we need to act decisively from that inner awareness, dancing a creative dance with the inner and the outer world as we joyously take responsibility for our lives and the legacy we will leave.

This place of inner awareness requires us to turn away from the world for a time, not to ignore the world or to deny it, rather to be able to enter freely again into it with a wise knowing heart when we return. By turning to the inner life, experiencing it as the reality that it is, we learn to replenish our strength from its place of origin.

This is opposite to the current idea that has us reliant on the outer world for our sources of nurturing, strength and completion. The discovery of our own inner sources of love, inspiration, revelation, vision and eventually the meaning of life itself is a powerful gift that is waiting for us within the inner life.

How do we contact the inner world?

Quite simply through the act of creation, we build a bridge between our inner and our outer lives. Every time we are in the process of creation we are working at dialoguing between the conscious and the unconscious Selves. Bringing ideas that began in the imaginal realm into manifestation, making music, creating art, playing with a child, working in the garden, writing a report, walking on the beach all these things are acts of creating where whether we are aware of it or not we are dancing between the inner and outer worlds.

We are all very aware of our outer life, with its incessant demands for our time and attention. We give great importance to this aspect of our live and are absorbed in it continually for all of our waking hours. We continually receive impression from the outer world that appear to be real and concrete. These impressions if not filtered through our inner self-awareness can confuse and overwhelm us, leaving us experiencing an anxiety and an emptiness that is hard to define.

However is we look hard enough and earnestly seek the source of this unease we eventually come to a disconnect, a discrepancy between what we know internally to be true and what the outer world appears to be telling us.

By the practice of some very simple, direct and internal know-how we are able to come into relationship with our own rich inner life and to be informed by it. We are able to set straight this disconnect and once again realign with what we know for ourselves to be the truth of things.

The inner life is continually informing us through dreams, intuition, daydreams, ideas, knowing, flashes of insight, nature and revelations of the state of play on the inner level. This inner information gives us access to what is right for us helping us to make clear assessments of situations unclouded by outer impressions.

As we learn to work from our inner awareness as our primary source of discernment, life take on a deeper, more grounded and firmer substance. We get what it is that is really going on for us and our capacity to trust ourselves grows and transforms our actions. We grow beyond re-action to becoming conscious agents of activity in our lives, those around us sense our inner assurance, they feel comfortable in our presence and freer to be themselves.

As our self awareness grows we begin to become interested in the internal impressions we are receiving, this life is a richer and more fulfilling life than the outer life, infinitely more fascinating and meaningful. The stronger we anchor to the inner life the more peace can be experienced in the outer life. When we have touched our internal peace, stillness and knowing, we have come home to true safety. A type of safety that remains firm no matter what is happening in the outer environment.

Inspired Action

As described above inspired action is the natural outcome of committing to the inner life and responding willingly to its direction for us. People who move toward whatever they are inspired to do, know that by doing this they are acting on their intuition. They are in a co-creative relationship with life, in tune with their soul and so aligned with their purpose.

As we learn to act on what we are inspired to do in each moment we discover our flow, the merging of action and awareness, a state of ease and comfort. Sometimes exhilarating, sometimes joyous, always enlivening

Inspired Action is very different to problem solving. It’s a cooperative process between your inner and your outer self. Your life is not a problem to be solved. It is a creation in process. And as psychologist Carl Jung said toward the end of his career: “All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insoluble… They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This “outgrowth” proved on further investigation to require a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient’s horizon, and through this broadening of his or her outlook the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically in its own terms but faded when confronted with a new and stronger life urge.”

And this is why a newer and stronger life urge, as Jung puts it, enables people to create.

They care about what they are creating because they are inspired to create, and problems fade as a new era of self-awareness, exploration and creative choices emerge. New horizons and personal endeavours emerge spontaneously generating creative change and transformation.

There is one single difference between people who will ‘search’ all their life and people who will ‘transform their life’ and that is that the people who transform their lives learn what it means to take inspired action. They dance a creative dance between their inner lives and their outer lives taking inspired actions, sharing their capacity to love and trust with all beings. Taking responsibility for their creations and enjoying the power to create their lives rather than play small and remain in ‘victim’ to outer circumstances and conditions.

Inspired action has juice, energy, joy, peace and is akin to your essence energy. It is essentially of you and a real expression of your magnificence. This is important to understand because this state of authenticity brings with it an experience of safety and trust in yourself and in your life. You just know.

1/7/2007
Croydon
Australia