Let me start this blog post by saying we all have an inbuilt inner wisdom that can guide us through our life. If we can access this gift that is given to all of us at birth, we will always have access to the answers we need. So what happens to us as we grow up? How is it that we lose touch with this inner wisdom?
For the last 12 months I have become fascinated with human behaviour. My husband has said to me for years that.. “technique is the minimum requirement.”
I finally feel like I have a deep understanding of what he means.
When I first started health coaching, I realised very quickly that education was not enough. I could easily teach the science. The facts. What to eat and what not to eat for health. But did that translate to behaviour change? For some it did, but for many it didn’t.
I didn’t get it at first. What was more important than health? If you wanted to lose weight and get healthier, obviously eating the chocolate, chips and crap foods are not going to get you there. So why was it so hard to just stop eating these foods?
So I delved in to more science. The science of food addiction and understanding the brain pathways. I learnt how some foods create addiction in the brain, and how our habitual behaviour creates pathways that are very difficult – but not impossible – to deviate from.
But teaching even this information still wasn’t enough for some women. There was something way deeper I was missing in being able to empower woman to tap into their very own inner wisdom for guidance. We naturally look to others for guidance. Those who are ‘smarter’ or more ‘educated.’ And of course listening and learning from others is a hugely important part of life.
But I think we all deep down know the answers to all we are searching for. And it is those who are able to access this wisdom that get to live the life they desire.
What get’s in the way is knowledge, other peoples opinions, and mostly our own thoughts. When our mind is all busy with thoughts – like a snow globe – our inner wisdom just can’t be heard. But when we can naturally let our mind quieten like when the snow globe naturally settles, we can hear our inner wisdom speaking to us.
Most of the time it’s not more knowledge or information that we need to solve a problem. It’s less. This sounds so counter intuitive to what we learn our whole lives. But with so many people struggling with depression, anxiety, obesity, addictions…. it makes sense that knowledge is only a part of the picture. After all, we carry the “Encyclopedia Britannica” around on our phones, so is more knowledge really the answer?
We do have all the answers when we can clear our mind and listen. Like the sun, it is always there. It just gets covered by the clouds (our thoughts) sometimes. But just like the weather, there is nothing we need to do to clear the clouds away. It will eventually all just happen on its own. Even for someone who has been diagnosed with anxiety, there will be times when the clouds have cleared. We just may not be present enough to notice it when it happens.
To finish I want to share this poem with you.
… a Sioux friend told me:
The Creator gathered all of creation and said,
“I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it.
It is the realization that they create their own reality.”
The eagle said, “Give it to me, I will take it to the moon.”
The Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”
The salmon said, “I will hide it on the bottom of the ocean.”
“No. They will go there, too.”
The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the great plains.”
The Creator said, “They will cut the skin of the earth and find it even there.”…
Then Grandmother Mole.. who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said,
“Put it inside them” [for that is the last place they will look.]
The Creator said, “It is done.”
– Gary Zukav
from the book, Somebody Should Have Told Us! Simple Truths for Living Well by Jack Pransky.