Do Your Own Thing

Following your own guidance

Unless you’re one of the lucky few, whose parents are in sync with our evolution and expansion as human beings, you’ve probably been discouraged from following your own guidance. Not only that, but you’ve been shown that the only way is to listen to others. And the consequences of this today are many: we’ve become people pleasers because that’s what we’ve been taught. We’ve come to procrastinate because we don’t really want to do those things, but we feel we have to. We’ve come to live with anxiety because we’ve not been prepared for a world and a life without a well-planned map, carved out by those before us.

We can see these results today, and we can start improving ourselves and our ways so we don’t live in a state of lack any longer. Even though we never asked to be taught these things, it’s now within our power to improve them about ourselves.

First, we must learn to trust our own guidance. But how do we do that, if we’ve been discouraged from doing it since our birth? Remember when we were little and we had no “filter?” We thought we could do anything we wanted to and we were excited about it. We didn’t know about “for girls” and “for boys.” Well, that was our own guidance – we had a thought, we followed it, and we started dreaming. But then we were discouraged from doing that by those around us who did learn about “for girls” and “for boys.”

So now we start over. We have a thought, and we run with it. We listen, and we allow ourselves to see where it takes us. We contemplate the subject, and we pay attention to our emotional guidance: how do we feel when we think it? Is it a positive thought? Does it make us feel wonderful? Then it’s a good idea to keep thinking it, and naturally, we’ll be inspired to more and more thoughts just like it.

But what if it’s a negative thought? Well, the way things go, then we have two choices. Either that thought is a reflection of a limiting belief we’re holding, so that thought is helping us realize our belief and clear it up; or it’s a thought that informs us to stop doing that thing we did that’s led to it, again.

For example, being surrounded by people who thought computer programming was not “for girls,” I really appreciated my Computer Science teacher in high school encouraging me to pursue my dreams, even if everyone else thought they were “not for girls.”

This belief that some things are gender specific is obviously a limiting belief. I’ve heard it every day while growing up and still hear it sometimes. But you see, we must look for proof before we just believe it. It’s easy to believe something we keep hearing over and over again, but we must check in with the reality. We must check if indeed, there are no girls or women doing any computer programming. And we must also check if indeed, we really can’t do it. Is there any reason to believe gender is the reason one can’t do programming?

Sometimes I get this negative thought that “What if this won’t work out?” and I feel the negative emotions that come with it. So then it becomes about digging deeper and finding out whether I hold a negative, limiting belief about my success or about this particular subject or whether this thought is telling me this subject is really not in my best interest.

In order for us to really be able to trust our gut, we must study it, so to speak. I’m not one for “blind faith,” I prefer to acquire enough proof from my past and current experience, in very general and as objective as possible terms, to build my trust in the future. You see, we can’t just lie to ourselves anymore. We can’t pretend everything is wonderful, if it’s not. So the solution lies in looking for the evidence of when we thought, “What if this doesn’t work” and compare the results in our own past experience. All the while keeping in mind – perhaps it didn’t work out because of a limiting belief we are yet to discover or perhaps it didn’t work because something even better was making its way in our lives.

This may sound like a lot of work, but everything that happens in our lives every day is assisting us in finding these limiting beliefs and turning them into freeing ones. Pay attention to what you’re thinking, how you feel, and what shows up in your life. Remember that this is a well-being based environment (this may also take a bit of practice on your part depending on what you believe about our environment right now) and make the connection between what’s going on and the reality that perhaps something much better, that you’re not yet aware of, is in store for you.

Learn to follow your own guidance because it’s what’s best for you. It’s only natural that we are born with our individual guidance that lets us know where we stand now in relationship with where we want to be, according to our unique set of preferences, desires, interests, and qualities.

Remember that this is a process, just like everything else, and we can’t snap your fingers and just do it. And that in today’s world, it’s best to learn to trust our own guidance because the map we were promised doesn’t work anymore. And we can spend even more time feeling angry about it, or we can start working on the solution now.

Those around you may not be ready to take this step in trusting themselves and even today, our systems haven’t been updated and they still discourage independence and self-reliance. Allow yourself to follow your own bliss and allow them to follow their own, at their individual pace.

And most importantly, remember: there is no failure, it’s just one of those concepts we’ve made up to have some sort of reference point that right now we must update by understanding there’s only learning. We’re not here to please others, but we are here to learn to live our own lives and pursue our own idea of happiness, perfection, and joy. Be an encourager for individuality and independence – for yourself and for those around you.

2015 © Claudia Svartefoss