Monday 19 October 2009

It's time to become more self-reliant!

Trust yourself, remain in the present moment and do what’s right for you. I must be referring to the teachings from the latest self-help book. Well, actually no. In fact, these principles were first set out about 150 years before the so-called New Age movement had even been thought of.

In 1841 American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson published Self-Reliance. It’s an essay of less than forty pages. But its message certainly packs one whopper of a punch. And what’s in it sounds spookily relevant today.

In Self-Reliance, Emerson argues that each of us is capable of genius. However, society beats us down into conforming and worrying about what other people think of us and our actions. The result? A life of discontent and mediocrity at best and infirmity and failure at worst.

According to Emerson, we should strive to become self-reliant. For that, we have to trust ourselves. And to trust ourselves, we have to get in touch with our thoughts and stop comparing ourselves with other people and wondering what they might think of us.

Even back in the mid-19th Century, it seemed that we had turned away from the world inside to follow a life of pursuing commercialism and materialism. To Emerson, it seemed people were spending too much time lamenting the past or dreading what the future might bring. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Self-Reliance is not an easy read. The rhetoric and sentence structure will seem odd to the modern reader. More than occasionally the vocabulary consists of words that have either fallen out of fashion or become archaic. But that doesn’t mean that this is an essay that cannot teach us a thing or two precisely at a time when we need to learn.

Emerson calls upon each of us to get into the present moment, listen to ourselves and then get out there and do what we’ve got to do. What great advice! You think that it sounds too pat or too cliché? If you ask me, we could do worse than adhere to such a philosophy to guide our lives.

It all sounds easy, but believe you me it’s deceptively easy. I would argue that Emerson’s advice would challenge and shake and scare many of us to our spiritual core. I encourage you to consider just how well you know yourself. Then, look at what you’ve done in life. Do your actions reveal courage? Or do they indicate that you’re someone who does what others think they should do – someone who responds rather than someone who seizes the reins of life?

To believe in oneself takes guts. It takes a level of self-esteem that no-one is born with. It’s something that those of us who are confident and empowered have earned over time – through successes and over failures. But that’s not it. There’s more.

To be self-reliant – as Emerson sees it – means to be willing to follow through with what you know you should do when others might judge you or might disapprove of you. This is pretty heavy-duty. I can count on one hand the number of people I know who could live up to this very high and exacting standard.

But just because it’s hard is no excuse for not trying. How many of you already know that you need to be doing something different in your life? How many of you feel that you’re trapped because of how things have just worked out or because of the way family, friends or society see you?

Emerson would tell each of you that you not only have the right to something better but the responsibility to stand up and assert your individuality – your true genius.

It’s my experience that when we begin to appreciate that something’s not right in our life we start an invisible but very real clock ticking. And this clock is ticking down the amount of time that we have to make changes in our life. It becomes a race for us to implement change or deal with the consequences.

This week I ask those of you who are aware of that clock to consider how much more time you’ll waste before you take concrete steps toward becoming self-reliant.

Some of us are disciplined to do this kind of work on our own. Others of us need the guiding hand of someone else, who can keep you focused on doing what you yourself know you should be doing.

Every day I work with clients who have chosen to empower themselves to make the changes that they need to live a healthier and more authentic life. Through my Intuitive Life Coaching I provide one-on-one sessions to guide and inspire my clients to do it for themselves, whereas my Medical Intuitive Readings help identify the spiritual issues underlying illness. If you are ready to accept that challenge and behold the awesome potential of your own powerhouse, then let’s get started today!

And don’t forget about my Journey to Power forums. Please join me there and let me hear what you have to say on what I’ve written here. I look forward to your postings!

Finally, this week over at PsychicBridges, I take inspiration from one of the greatest American poets who encouraged us to consider the miracles in our lives. Can you guess the poet? Do you think you know the poem? Find out when you read my article here!

I always welcome your thoughts and feedback on IntuitiveBridges, so let me hear from you by clicking here.

Until next week,

Kindest regards,

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