Fifth Pathway - Persistently Looking Inward - Part II

Fifth Pathway – Persistently Looking Inward – Part II

Persistently looking inward demands a major pilgrimage and subsequent annual or biannual trips to a most holy space, “the wilderness of your intuition.”  This existential space requires a person to divest himself or herself of his or her material and intangible riches.  Formal education and multiple degrees lose their significance.  Titles preceding your name and letters following your name are meaningless in this wilderness.  Occasions to wear formal attire and attend events at the top of the social registry evaporate.  Finances decrease and tighten.  Each dollar counts.  Cutting expenses proves insufficient to combat overspending and living above your means.  Fearing your horrific circumstances are contagious like infectious diseases; coworkers and friends call less frequently.  They fear your plague will attack them.  Essentially, in the intuitive wilderness, you find yourself completely naked: mentally, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually.  Your willingness to erase the canvass of your life and stare honestly at a blank plank graces you with divine gifts of discernment and acceptance.  Listening to God is equally important.  The wilderness is a perfect setting in which to hear Him and your inner voice.  The distractions of well-meaning relatives and friends and noises of daily busyness cannot impede your internal journey. In the darkness, mystery, scariness and isolation of the wilderness, a person clearly sees himself or herself.  The main discovery of the intuitive wilderness is your heretofore “Undiscovered Self,” your unquestioned divinely given and gifted uniqueness.  In a moment of epiphany, you realize the singular and special life which your Creator means for you that past conformity to social expectations nullified.  You cease to be someone others want you to be.  You stop pleasing other people and grasp the incalculable worth of your uniqueness.  Simply stated, you unconditionally accept yourself as God does.  Self-acceptance is the pathway to acquiring your true “Self.”  Carl Jung describes this process as “Individuation.”  Open-mindedness, honesty, humility and willingness are the main prerequisites to embarking upon the lifelong process of ever-increasing self-acceptance and self-knowledge.  Without time in the intuitive wilderness where you are separated from urbane comforts of modern utilities, effortlessly efficient creature comforts, lavish artistic choices, myriad shopping conveniences and millions of other self-indulgences, a person cannot know his or her authentic “Self.”

The standard business practice of taking a quarterly inventory suggest practical means of achieving individuation.  It is helpful periodically to determine your assets and liabilities.  Numerous theorists recommend a person’s energy is better spent on strengthening his or her assets instead of compensating for personal weaknesses.  Failure to listen to the inner voice quite possibly explains formation and proliferation of weaknesses.  As a person invests substantially in self-discovery, he or she undoubtedly acquires greater self-awareness.  Constant vigilance about his or her interior life is a means of striving for self-expression and self-acceptance.

Alda insists that you cannot arrive in the intuitive wilderness by bus.  This is not an easy trip.  Mechanisms of modern technology and media of transportation cannot lessen the necessity of struggle and adversity in this inward journey.  “Hard work, risk and not quite knowing what you are doing.”  To discover who you are necessitates total deconstruction of the façade you built prior to your arrival.  Probably, a catastrophe propelled your motivation to travel there.  Fundamentally life-altering experiences such as termination, divorce, bereavement or a major health crisis are usual factors.  Colossal loss and isolation compel you to examine your life.  Jung proffers the concept of “the midlife crisis” wherein a person can no longer distract himself or herself with busyness in work or duty in marriage and family relationships.  The loss of a job creates space for consideration of how you exactly wish to spend time, abilities and energy that you allocate to work.  Beyond yielding an income, is your work rewarding?  In an ideal setting, would you commit seventy hours of time inclusive of commuting, twelve-hour shifts and immeasurable mental energy to the job that you lost?  If not, what should you be doing?   Additionally, you may ask, “Have I contributed anything meaningful to the betterment of humankind?”  Regarding relationships, at midlife, a person cannot deceive himself or herself about whether he or she is or has ever been happy?  If a person cannot answer in the affirmative, then his or her psyche compels clarification and rigorous honesty.  The reality of having fewer days in front of you than behind you forces you to define how you wish to spend the remaining years of grace. 

Your hard work also includes cessation of external validation.  Many people erroneously look to others to give them something that they can only find within themselves.  Titles, degrees, feature articles, social media followings and other indicators of external success are meaningless within the intuitive wilderness.  There, a person must look as deeply within as possible.  Who are you?  Risk, ask and answer the question.  I surmise many people fear they will not respond with anything concrete upon which they can live.  I think of the third servant in The Parable of the Talents whose fear made him bury his talent lest he be a failure.  Ironically, this man preferred to succeed perfectly in accomplishing nothing rather risk; make obligatory and human mistakes; and then succeed following several hard lessons.  With a deconstructed veneer, you erase the canvass of your life.  As your past is perfectly inalterable, your memories are indelible.  It is time to paint a new canvass with exciting colors, hues and brushstrokes of unimaginable joys, mysteries and experiences.  If you linger in past pain, anger, fear and failure, you cannot appreciate the new vistas which a sustained period in the intuitive wilderness reveals.  Begin with gratitude for today and any positive changes that may evolve in your life.  Your solitude affords blessings in discernment.  You remove the herculean burden of adhering to societal norms and people’s expectations.  You ask God to take away the character defect of pleasing other people.  You pray for grace to know and accept yourself.  You seek self-knowledge which eventuates in perfect self-expression. To achieve this invaluable milestone in self-acceptance, you dissolve previous assumptions and misconceptions.

Alda adds the necessity of admitting willingly that you may not know what to do.  Humility and lack of knowledge create a teachable person. It is amazing what we can learn when we honestly admit that we do not know anything.  Whether a new language, musical instrument, math, science, technology or a trade; a clean canvass of an open mind enables you to learn from a master teacher.  As you do not know anything about the subject, you will not judge the information, process or person transmitting it.  Honesty and humility create expectancy and excitement.  It positions a student to build a solid mental, methodological and mechanical foundation in a new subject.  Practically, your willingness to listen earns points with the teacher as he or she passionately shares “tricks of the trade” in addition to generally accepted principles and procedures.  As I write, I recall learning to drive.  My late beloved paternal grandfather assumed the burden of teaching me.  With each attempt to demonstrate a different aspect of driving, my grandfather experienced frustration as I rudely stated, “I know.”  The tenth time became his breaking point.  “Look son, you keep saying ‘I know’ every time I show you something.  But it appears that you do not know as much about driving as you think.  Because people who know as much as you do already have a license.  You don’t have one.  So, you don’t know as much as you think you know.”  His thoroughgoing rebuke humbled me and allowed my grandfather to share his knowledge with me.  If you are unsure what to do as you find yourself in the wilderness of intuition, then you are ready for the ultimate blessing.  Allow Almighty God to instruct you.  Humility is the only requirement.