Be Your Own Guru

“You are one thing only. You are a Divine Being. An all-powerful Creator. You are a Deity in jeans and a t-shirt, and within you dwells the infinite wisdom of the ages and the sacred creative force of All that is, will be and ever was.” ~Anthon St. Maarten

Dear Universe,

I’m sorry. I know I’ve been questioning lots of things lately.

Instead of turning inward and believing my divine guidance and trusting my path, I have to admit, I’ve been doing the exact opposite.

It seems like I want to know what everyone else thinks—yes, everyone (shout out to my mom, BFF, husband, spiritual reader, colleague… the list goes on and gets really embarrassingly random so I will stop there.)

What do I want to know, you ask? Well, pretty simply, I want to know everything. I want to know when this will happen, how that will happen, and what I should be doing to help things move along as I envision.

I’ve been driving myself and everyone around me crazy with my incessant questions, worries, doubts and all around uncertainty.

Part of me thinks it’s natural. After all, my husband and I are expecting our first child in a couple of months. It’s impossible to know how life will be once the baby is born, but I do know it will be completely, amazingly different.

So I think it’s natural to question how things will be. It’s natural to worry about balancing it all and doing it all, while fully embracing my most amazing, life altering experiencing yet: becoming a mother.

I think we can all get the case of the want-to-knows from time to time. It happens when change is upon us or when we are craving a change. It happens when we are confused, curious or needing clarity. It happens when we are doubting our capabilities to deal with whatever the future has in store.

Sometimes it just happens with no real reason why.

But if we are not careful, all the questions can quickly turn into a downward, darkened spiral that is often difficult to recognize, stop or come out of. And you do want to come out of it.

My realization that I was in such a spiral came to me last week when I decided to do a little ritual in honor of the Super Blue Blood Moon.

Part of the ritual involved writing to release anything I wanted to let go of. Loved it.

Another part of the ritual involved a meditation with my favorite crystal. Loved it.

Then there was the part that had me concentrating to ask a question and then picking the answer from one of three slips of folded paper. The answer revealed would either be “yes,” “no,” or “undecided.” Having had a Magic Eight Ball for most of my life, and being in my current state of wanting answers to a myriad of questions, I thought this was the part I would love the most.

Hated it.

Full disclosure. Here’s what happened. I asked a question and didn’t like the answer I received. So what did I do? What most of us would do.

I asked again. And again. I rephrased it. I asked a different variation of essentially the same question at least a dozen times.

And again and again I didn’t like the answers. Finally, I had enough sense to stop this madness and re-center myself.

I finished the rest of the ritual, blew out my candles, and then very maturely ripped up the slips of paper and carried them to their new home: the trash bin.

Loved, loved it.

After a few moments of reflection, I came to an epiphany.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the answers. It was that the answers simply didn’t ring true to my inner truth.

The tiny slips of paper didn’t hold the answers. They didn’t resonate with what I believe to be true. They didn’t line up with the path I’m on or the future I’m envisioning.

Of course I could be wrong too. Maybe things won’t turn out as I hope or imagine—that’s life, after all.

But the point is, I have a fair share of control on how I approach the near future. I am the only one who can figure out how I will balance it all—not the waitress, the psychic or the slips of paper—but me.

The best person to know how I feel, what I’m thinking and what my intentions are isn’t my best friend, mom or husband—no matter how much I appreciate and love their input.

The best person to know me is me.

And the same goes for you too.

Yes, take advice from loved ones, strangers, oracle cards or slips of paper—if that’s what you want to do.

But don’t get so caught up in their answers, interpretations and predictions that soon you lose sight of what you instinctively already know or what you want.