walking the sacred spiral
walking the sacred spiral
What do you do when you don’t know what to do? This is a question that I have been asked by students of metaphysics many times. My advice has been pretty consistent over the years: Just start affirming that you know.
Seem like odd advice? Before I entered ministerial school, I was feeling that there was something I was meant to do, but I couldn’t seem to figure out what that was. The confusion finally caused me to mention this to my first teacher in metaphysics, Rev. Dr. Jim Munson. He was the one who first gave me the advice I have passed on so many times.
What do you mean? I asked him. Use the affirmation, “I know and I know that I know,” he replied.
That proved to be a brilliant piece of advice to a woman who was masterful at talking herself out of her own knowing. It closed the loophole. If I know that I know, I don’t have the option of second-guessing myself.
I followed his advice, never guessing that it would lead me to the school of ministry. I was more stunned than anyone else at that development.
Since that time whenever I have used this method it has led me in the right direction. I believe that the wisdom we need is already inside us. Sometimes we need to trust ourselves more, and other times we need to quiet down so that we can “hear” the truth that we know.
If God is omnipresent and omniscient, then that presence is where we are, fully knowing the answers we seek. That doesn’t mean that the answers are always exactly what we want them to be. That’s the trouble with limited information and an inability to see into the future. Our preferences arise out of what has happened before, what we think we want now, and how we hope it will look when it shows up.
What we know is so small compared with the unknown. So trusting that the vast pool of “yet to be revealed” holds many wonderful developments, we can affirm we know and let the divine Mind within us reveal what we need to know now.
One of my colleagues, Rev. Dr. Kathianne Lewis said once that everything we need to know is available to us all, but it is on a need-to-know basis. In other words, until the time comes when it is useful for us to have more information, the universe usually doesn’t reveal it. When the time comes, the universe will rearrange whatever is necessary so that we get the information we need.
Sometimes we are in our own way and don’t know it. When that happens, we can be in active resistance to doing the very thing that will help us the most. Even when the option arises again and again. It may be that until we release our resistance and take that next step we’ve been avoiding, the very experience we want is also blocked from getting to us.
Have you ever heard someone say, “Why did I wait so long to ____________?” The blank in that sentence is usually filled with something that person actively resisted. They didn’t just put it off. But when they finally did the thing they were avoiding, more good came to them than they could have imagined.
A friend of mine resisted bankruptcy with all his might. When he finally gave in to the inevitability of it a world of good he had never expected surrounded the process and all the people it affected. He couldn’t have seen that coming! In his mind there were unlimited disasters in store following that decision. He had replayed the negative possibilities and suffered over them as if they were already happening. When he surrendered to their possibility they evaporated, and so did his suffering.
Is there anything, my friend, that you are resisting this holiday season? May I gently suggest that you try my affirmation, “I know and I know that I know,” for the guidance to show you whether it’s time to lay down the resistance? You never know; you may find that blessing you’re longing for. That’s what light that shines in the darkness is all about.
Happy Hanukkah and Happy Winter Solstice!
How Do You Know When You Don’t Know?
Tuesday, December 16, 2014