Winning approval does Not make you a Winner

Last Thursday was part 1 of following your intuition, today is part 2. Just because someone agrees with my opinions and thoughts does not mean that I am anymore connected to them, to humanity, or to the Source.  Just because someone lets me know that they think I’m ‘right’ does not mean that they have shared love with me, or I with them.  It also doesn’t mean that I’m right, by the way.

And the opposite is true.  Just because someone disagrees with me does not mean that they hate me or that we are anymore disconnected then we were a moment before.  It also doesn’t mean that I’m wrong in my opinion or thought process.  Just because someone thinks I’m wrong doesn’t mean that we cannot love each other and be connected on a deep level.

Abraham Maslow said “be independent of the good opinion of others.”  Dr. Wayne Dyer drives this point home by saying that “you can’t get anywhere by simply doing what other people say or listening blindly to what your tribe tells you to do.”

I’ll go a step further and say that you have to own who you are, what you believe, and what you want for yourself.

Trying to please everybody means pleasing no one, especially yourself. In fact if you were trying to please everybody around you one thing I will guarantee is that you will never ever, ever, ever be happy (3 evers, that’s making a point).

I'll also guarantee you that you'll never truly know who you are what your purpose is.  If you are always trying to please others you will never know where you belong.  Because if you spend all of your time trying to make other people like you, trying to make other people happy or trying not to disappoint anyone, you will have spent no time figuring out what you like, what you want to do, and who you want to be.   It's not sustainable.

In an effort to please everyone you will add no value to this world. But if you take the time and you do the work to figure out who you are, what you want and what your purpose is, then you can add extreme value to this world.

You don’t have to please people to truly love them.  You don’t have to make people happy in order to act out of love towards them.  You don’t have to have people like you in order to add value to their lives.  But if love is the aim then you will have done your part to connect them and you to humanity.  Now that is adding value.

How can you love those who disagree with you?  Maybe its by engaging them, or maybe its by completely ignoring the way they so negatively announce that they disagree with you.  How can you love those with whom you can seemingly do no wrong?  How can actively love the people around you and free yourself from the chains of approval or disapproval?

You Know What to Do

What do you think I should do?  What would you do?  Please tell me what to do.  How many times have asked these things to someone we trust?  How often have we gone to a friend or to a family member, told them our story and then asked them for direction?  The answer is probably countless.  And there is nothing wrong with doing this.  Getting advice is always a wise decision along the path to discernment.  The funny thing is, we often times seek advice and ask people to tell us what to do with our lives, all the while deep down we already know the answer. I believe one of the reasons why we surrender our decision making process to other people is because we usually know that the path our intuition points us towards is almost always a difficult one.  It’s either difficult because we know there is something that we will have to sacrifice or there is a price to be paid.

But I don’t want to get lost in the sacrifice or price today.  The point today is that most of the time our heart knows what to do in difficult situations.  Let me break this down a bit.

MOST - Now I say most, because there are occasional times and conditions where we truly are in the dark with no idea where to turn.  During these rare instances where we are completely in the dark and don’t what to do, it is extremely beneficial to turn to others for their guidance and direction.  But I’ve discovered that we usually ask for input not because we are at a loss, but because we want to be reassured of the action that we already know needs to be taken.  We just don’t trust ourselves.

HEART – When I use the term ‘heart’, I’m speaking of that centered place within us that is the core of who we are.  It’s that place that is moved by the melodic beauty of a wonderful craftsmanship of lyrics and vibrations.  It’s that place in us that we can’t hold or see and scientists can’t point to and say… “there!  That is the conscience self”.  But when overwhelmed with stimuli and decisions, the heart shouting and pointing the direction.  Often we are so busy hiding from our true selves that we barely hear it as a whisper on the luckiest of days.

I think 99% of the time we know the best way forward.  I just think we’ve become so disconnected from ourselves that we either can’t hear it or we don’t trust what we hear.  So we ask 3-10 people what they think we should do.

The remarkable thing to me is that we DO have an inclination as to how we should move forward.  We can trust ourselves.  What other person would know better for you?  But when we move forward, following our own advice, we are then ultimately responsible for the outcome.  If we fail while taking the advice of someone else, we can, with a sideways glance, put some of the blame on them.  But life is not a blame game.  No one lived a full life by making decisions with the caveat that they needed an out.

Listen to your heart.  Then, take bold steps forward.  You might fail.  You might succeed.  But either way, you will have made a decision by being in tune with who you are and affirming that connection with yourself.  Trust me, you’re worth it.