Five Steps to Find Your Inner Guidance

In a recent moment of frustration and confusion I threw my hands up, had a mini temper tantrum and yelled to the heavens “Somebody just tell me what to do!”

I used to constantly ask my friends to solve my problems. I would ask them what I should do, and then ask other friends for a second opinion. It became an endless search find what seemed right.

The process left me crippled. I couldn’t make a decision unless I got a friend on the phone to talk through it. I recently found a way to answer my own questions, and I have now taught it to my clients who have all been impressed with how easy it is to find their own answers.

Here is my easy five step system that you can start practicing right away.

1.  Sit in Silence.

Practicing stillness is very different from meditating. Stillness creates clarity and power. It will also help you discern between the internal loud, pushy voice and the still, quiet voice that comes later if you really listen.  

Turn off anything that makes noise. Sit, be quiet, and still for 10 minutes. That’s all. You can space out completely. There’s no need to think, or count your breath. If your brain won’t stop running, let it run. You just have to be still and quiet. If you fall asleep, that’s ok too.

Results aren’t important, it’s just meant to be a practice in stillness and listening.

2. Practice a Body Scan

One of the most useful tools I have learned is how to speak my body’s unique language. The more you pay attention the more it will talk to you, and practicing a body scan will help you learn this language. A body scan done on a regular basis will teach you how your body responds in various situations. I recommend that you practice this twice a day for a week. Keep a notebook to track what you notice. Look for changes from one day to the next, and sometimes noticing an absence is just as important and noticing something unusual.

If you do the exercise and you don’t feel anything, start by squeezing your thumb. Describe what that feels like. Move through your body, squeeze different parts. This gets you in tune with your sensations.

To do a body scan, give yourself 3-5 minutes in a quiet place. Close your eyes, and take three deep breaths. Focus on your feet and notice anything you feel. Are you clenching, is there tightness or tingling, or do you feel nothing at all? Move up your leg pausing at major areas, like calves, knees, and thighs. Next pause at your hips, glutes, stomach and lower back. Note anything you sense. Work your way up your back, into your shoulders and into your chest. Mentally scan down your arms to your hands. Then sense your neck. Finally, notice any tension in your face, particularly your jaw, the area around your eyes, and your forehead.

This will start to track how your body handles different situations. In the future, you will notice your body’s signals and will have a clearer indicator about how to act and respond.

3. Test for your Intuitive Yes and No

Did you know that your body will give you a physical answer for Yes and No? It is different for everyone, but there are a few ways to calibrate so you understand how to read the signals.

The easiest way to understand is to think back to your past. Think of someone that was really wrong for you- maybe a school bully or an ex-lover. Scan your body for the response. This is your “No.” Then think of someone that you have an obvious and uncomplicated positive response towards. Scan your body, and note what you feel because this is your “Yes.”

Test this in your real life. Do you want a smoothie or scrambled eggs for breakfast? How does your body react when you say each option out loud?

4. Make Mistakes

Making mistakes is one of the fastest ways to prioritize what really matters to you.

Test my theory by flipping a coin. Find a problem you have with two answers. Assign an answer to each side of the coin. Flip the coin, but no matter which side actually wins your reaction to the result will tell you what you really want.

I encourage you to make mistakes. Blunders will show you what you truly value. Observe your reactions, what can you learn from that, and how can you realign your life to live those values?

5. Balance Rest and Play

This falls under the title of “if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” When I am working, I feel like I am playing. I am completely in the flow of life and it is completely joyful. And when I have a task that doesn’t feel like play, I can turn it into a game or I learn to delegate and ask for help (like paying for someone to do my taxes).

When I’m not playing, I give myself time to rest, more than just sleep. I give myself a time to recharge, to do nothing. Like winter, it may look like I am not getting anything accomplished but this time is necessary to be ready to play and produce my best. Rest is anything from a nap, a good workout, or dancing. It is whatever I need to let go of expectations of producing and to instead just recover.

I encourage you to test this for yourself and tell me your results. When I started practicing, I felt clearer and lighter. I also felt more confident that I was making the right choices for what I really wanted in my life.

Recently, a client admitted that she came to me expecting to be handed all the answers. That I would be able to tell her what job to take to make lots of money and make her dreams come true. She wasn’t sure if she should apply for a job in marketing because it would give her more money. After teaching her these steps she firmly decided that job was a bad fit for her. She is using these tools on a daily basis to feel more confident in all areas of her life including personal relationships and her side hustle with a rapidly growing theater company.

That gift of certainty is something cannot be given from someone on the outside. It can only be created from within.

The Miracle Mindset

Quite simply, if you want your mind blown wide open to what is possible, please read this book.

I’ve read the book and listened to the story in countless interviews and I still cry every time. It is amazing what we can achieve if we simply focus on what we truly want and never give up trying to get that.

Long story short, JJ Virgin’s son Grant was hit by a driver and left for dead in the street. (The driver was never found.) At the hospital, he was given less than 1% chance of survival. Her younger son replied “So you’re saying there’s a chance?” and it was game on for the family. They airlifted him to a hospital that would perform the surgeries that he needed to survive. They did research about how to heal the body and mind, and made sure Grant had everything he needed. No one was able to speak any doom and gloom in the room, only hope.

After a long, long process Grant started making small improvements. After many years of therapy and work, he is about 80% back to normal. This is amazing for someone that had almost no chance of surviving, let alone ever walking or talking or leading a normal life ever again.

The book tells the story of Grant’s recovery and how JJ Virgin dealt with it. The accident happened at the same time she was trying to launch her first book and revolutionize her career. While people were telling her to stop and take a break so she could be with her family she thought to herself that if she stopped she would never be able to take care of her family. She knew that her business was going to be what paid for the absolute best care for her son and she did not want money to be the reason he didn’t get treatment.

There were so many lessons in this book. Here are a few of my favorites.

•   Forgiveness.

I think my favorite chapter was one of the very last chapters in the book, and it was how she dealt with forgiveness. Even years after the accident and all the progress Grant makes throughout the book, Virgin still felt weighed down by the whole process, like she was stuck. 

When Virgin realized she was still carrying around so much toxic energy from being angry with the driver she knew she needed to deal with it. She decided to put the driver on trial. She wanted a judge that would be fair and impartial, so she imagined Aslan from books. She got to be the prosecuting lawyer and imagined arguing every accusation at this woman. She blamed her and said everything she was thinking. When she had it all out, she switched places. Mentally, she stepped into the shoes of the driver. What would this woman have had to be thinking to do what she did? She defended the driver's position.

And this gave Virgin the clarity she needed to forgive.

It worked so beautifully that she repeated this process for everyone including Grant and herself. I loved this idea so much that I tried it too. It is a beautiful process that brings great relief if you are struggling to forgive someone. It is particularly powerful if you are trying to forgive yourself.

Health first.

JJ Virgin is a health expert. She was teaching people how to eliminate harmful foods and keep their bodies in tip top shape. And thank goodness she practiced what she preached. When Grant was in the hospital, Virgin knew her health was more important than ever. If she had so much as a cold, she wouldn’t be allowed in the room with her son.

She packed her meals and she ran the steps up and down the hospital to get intense workouts in. She did research about what nutrition Grant needed to heal his brain and made sure he had plenty of Omega 3s. When he was eating, she brought coolers full of fresh food and made smoothies for him packed with nutrients that he needed.

More than anything this inspired me to keep my health in the forefront of my mind. Just like a car, if you do your regular maintenance it will run for a long, long time. The body needs to be taken care of every day, and those little choices matter much more than when we choose to go on binge diets. Do the small actions consistently, and your body will take care of you.

1 Focus and never, ever, ever give up.

The Virgin family fought so hard for Grant. Every step of the way. No was never an answer. They would accept “not right now” but no was never an option.

Small wins were always celebrated like big wins. Progress was focused on every single day. They had the goal to make sure Grant could walk and talk and live his life. He was encouraged to do what made him feel good. As he recovered he cultivated an interest in art that he did not have prior to the accident and it became a hobby for him that provided solace in tough times.

People who suffer severe brain injuries have a high risk of suicide because life is so difficult during recovery. Virgin shared stories of how Grant attempted to swallow pain pills to escape the pain. She got him help and helped him to redirect his focus. It’s not about the pain today. It’s about where you are going. Believe you can get there, and it does not matter how long it takes. It’s about the daily process, and never give up before you get there.

This book is full of miracles and lessons. And maybe the biggest lesson of all is that miracles are simply just a change in perception. Miracles can be as simple as being able to draw or swimming laps in the pool. It can be big goals, like launching a million dollar business no matter what bumps come in the way. But the only way to achieve those miracles in your own life is to believe that you can and to keep going.