Nurturing The Song Within
Man does indeed know intuitively more than he rationally understands. The question, however, is how we can gain access
to the potentials of knowledge contained in the depth of us, how we can achieve increased capacities of direct intuition and enlarged awareness.
- Ira Progoff, At A Journal Workshop
My Distress Is My Ally And Guide
The following is from my 2006 interview of Andy Smyth, founder of Wilderness Way, an organization that guided canoe trips into northern Canada. Andy talked about the use of sensations comfort or discomfort to chart our course in life.
For the last ten years, clarity has been the focus of my life and I've found that what we need for that is right within us. When I take the time to tune into my body, I get immediate feedback about whether I am on the right track or on the wrong track.
I took a class about co-counseling, which is the way we learn to be counselors for each other. We learn to listen to and assist each other without the perception that there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. It teaches that we all have difficulties, but with a little bit of training and a lot of compassion and empathy, we can help each other. I wrote a two-page essay during this class called, "My Distress is My Ally and My Guide." I wrote about how, when you take a wrong step, you always feel it. A sense of unease overtakes you, or anger, or sadness. These feelings are sometimes uncomfortable, but if you pay attention to them, they will provide immediate feedback about whether you are on your path.
If you let these feelings direct you — and I mean direct, not impel, because anger can impel you somewhere you don't want to go — if you let these feelings direct you, and you say, "I am feeling unease, therefore I must not be meeting this situation in the most beneficial way," you change your direction.
So read your own emotional body. People look for direction from the outside, but we get this constant direction from right within ourselves. Most of us don't recognize the things we feel upset about, unhappy about, as guidance. We see them as things that are happening to us rather than as direction we are getting from our inner reality— the feedback loop. When you have clarity, your life begins to flow with ease. The ease is the feedback saying, "Ah, yes. This is the path."
. . .
Relax into the flow of your thoughts. Then slow them down. Slow, slow and slower still. What feelings bubble up? Distress? Deep comfort with your path?
Below two pages from the Nurturing The Song Within Art Journal and, below that, the Diary/Planner. The Art Journal is at the printer, and the diary, which will take less time to print, goes Monday. May they make their own way in the world.
You can order both here.
You can access downloadable PDFs of either by clicking on the image.
