I have been writing and publishing online since 2001; in tandem with opening a practice in Asheville NC, I created a website called “Healing Alchemy” to describe my process of working with my inner guidance.  This was after years of being an educator and bringing my students to learning that they HAD such a thing as an inner voice, and that it was valuable, wise, worth listening to.   I have now been a professional advocate for, champion of and way-shower to the relationship with the inner voice for 25 years, and have led many people (now, mostly women) to that door, helping them open it to the wonders of our connections to greater knowing.  It is a tremendous joy as well as responsibility to cultivate this relationship, because it means that we must be very truthful with ourselves; otherwise, the idea that we are actually communicating with greater consciousness is folly.

I’ve shared many experiences with my readers in which my relationship with my inner guidance has changed the course of my life, even saved my life.  Whether it was to slow down and narrowly avoid an accident, or to act on the guidance to leave our home in Asheville and spend 7 years acting on inner guidance with my husband and children in an extended decision to embody and ground the Aquarian dynamic in our family, inner guidance has served me well and helped me hone the relationship with my true Self, the bigger me, the infinite nature of my divinity.  But part of the deal in devoting your life to the inner voice is acknowledging that we all have filters as human beings…that “inner guidance” can be the voice of our fears, our beliefs, our emotional attachments rather than the voice of clarity, light, and truth.  It requires rigorous inner work to achieve clear ground to receive accurate information.  The first lesson in any of my classes or mentor-ships is how to recognize and transform those things that prevent us from accurately perceiving the truth.  The truth is not always easy to hear; it can be downright scary.  But unless we have the truth, we don’t have anything.

At Christmas time I was sitting at my bedside where I open up to spirit, pray and ask for suggestions for intentions, things to bring my attention to, etc.  This is a nightly ritual that I find very helpful. This night, my inner guidance told me I had a skin issue that needed attention.  I watched as the fear in my human self came forward…fear of being sick, fear of having cancer, fear of dying.  I dealt with my fears as I train others to do, and came to the field of calm that I know as my infinite Self.  I asked a few probing questions, such as where and whether it was cancerous. I was told where it was (exactly…and in a place I couldn’t see…the back of my right thigh) and that yes, it was cancerous.

Aha.  I watched the fears come up again, and again dealt with them so that I could know how to move forward in grace and integrity.  I take my guidance seriously as it has proven accurate many, many times.  From a place of calm, I called to make an appointment the next morning, and went in to have it looked at a couple of weeks later.  The doc remarked on the scarring on my skin from my childhood sunburns, and didn’t like the way the growth looked, so cut it out for biopsy…results are yes, it was a basil cell carcinoma.  She had me come in a couple of days later and the remainder of it removed.  The facts about basil cell carcinoma are that it is the most superficial skin cancer and it is a 99% cure rate, so I am not concerned at all.  I feel very good about it, actually.

The reason I share this with you is that I wouldn’t have known this was happening; it is in a place I literally couldn’t see…and I also don’t have the expertise to judge whether something is cancerous or not.  There is no logical, 5-sensory way I could have known.  But I have been working with my inner guidance for many years, and the relationship is solid, so I had access to this information that was needed to address a health issue.

I am an advocate for everyone to access their inner guidance, for two major reasons.  One, to know (remember, really) the wonder of so much more than what we can sense with our 5 senses.  And two, to receive helpful direction and perspective in our choices in life.  This is something that is accessible to everyone if we do the inner work to clear our internal ground so that we can receive accurate information.

I believe this is our birthright as women, especially.  I don’t exclude men from this conversation (I am married to a man for almost 27 years and have raised 2 beautiful sons who listen to their inner guidance as well).  But as a woman, I have learned that over thousands of years, women’s natural visionary ability has been covered up by oppressors who were afraid of women’s intuitive abilities.  Remembering that this is an innate function of the right brain, and that women tend to be naturally hard wired to be more right brained, we can see that this is a crime against nature.  (See my related article and post, “2013: Year of the Visionary Woman”.)

My advocacy is that we all reclaim this ability so that we can be empowered to make our own choices and feel the joy of our direct connection to the greater knowing.  It feels like a process of recovery to me, of digging something up that has been buried deep in the ground.

My doctor remarked that the location of the cancer was hard to see, and asked how I knew.  I took the moment as an invitation to share with her that my inner voice had told me very specifically where it was and that it was cancerous.  The young woman nurse got very wide eyes, but the doctor nodded her head and shared that she had an uncle who could “see and hear” things he couldn’t know, so she seemed to have a place to put this in her awareness that was not challenging to her.  Later, when the doctor left the room, the nurse nervously asked me if I wasn’t worried about receiving this kind of information.  She is apparently a religious woman, and expressed her fear that the voice I was hearing was “not God’s voice”.  I kindly said to her that I felt it was God’s voice that wanted to save my life, and that having an open conversation with God had been a profoundly positive and loving influence for me.

Perhaps it is my lot in life to have to constantly explain that we need not be afraid of the infinite voice of Love (by whatever name you choose to call it).  I have found in my almost 48 years that folks are afraid  A LOT.  I have even been judged, ridiculed, called some nasty names or told I was going to hell because I spoke of my experience of my inner guidance…but only by people who don’t know me and/or are seeing me through their fears instead of through their heart.  If they knew me, they would know my kindness, my fierce and passionate devotion to spirit, and the loyalty I have to fulfilling my purpose as a voice of that pure presence.  It is there consistently, like the pulse of our heart, under the surface, reminding us of the truth that we are cared for, loved, precious, and worth saving.

See my related article about making the space to hear our inner voice, “VISION QUEST: Mapping the Story of Your Life”

See my related article and post about how women are uniquely designed to bring forth Vision for the People, “2013: Year of the Visionary Woman”.