Living in the north east of England is very different from being part of the metropolis that is London. We don’t have huge parks or museums of vast quantity and going to the theatre isn’t a regular occurance here. But we do have a few feathers in our flat caps. Billy Elliot was filmed here, Newcastle Brown Ale is drunk here in vast amounts. The dynamic duo better known as Ant and Dec were made here as was Cheryl Cole. But our dearest export was a man born with the name Gordon Sumner. You might know him better as Sting. Sting was the blond, gravel-voiced singer with the 80′s Rock Band The Police. They sang the soundtrack to mine and many other teenagers lives. When Sting went solo he proved himself to be a modern day Rumi. Lyrics to songs like Fields of Gold and desert rose are haunting. My personal favourite is Let your soul be your pilot. Eight years ago when I became very ill with a neurological/autoimmune illness I was told there was no cure and no guarantee that I would recover. After more than four years of living with severe symptoms and no sign of improvement I found a Doctor who showed me that if I let my soul take over and take the journey back to my true self I would get well. So I let my soul be my pilot.
Psychologists tell us that we have two minds; our conscious mind and our sub-conscious mind. Our conscious mind will be known as head-mind for the purpose of this blog. Buddhists refer to it as the chattering monkey. If we listen to it and allow it to run our lives we will always be who we ‘think’ we should be and make decisions that don’t serve who we truly are.
If we tune in to our essential self (the body-mind) we will live from a place of authenticity and truth. We’ll make choices that reflect our true needs. Our personality and soul become aligned and we show up as the person we really are. We take off our masks and put down all pretence. This allows us to be free. Our body loves it when we get real and rewards us with good health and well-being.
We no longer stay in relationships, situations or any other place that doesn’t ‘feel’ right. We no longer care about what ‘they’ may think about us. We no longer sell our soul and words and phrases like ‘should’ ‘what will they think’ and ‘I don’t want to but……’ go out of the window.
Children know exactly how to listen to their soul but as Adults we often loose that ability and the soul shrapnel that we accumulate over the years alters our judgement and vision and we live our lives from the wrong mind. We live with head-mind (our social self) in the driving seat.
We need to allow ourselves permission to ‘feel’ our way back to who we truly are. For so many of us we have moved 180 degrees away from who we are. But the good news is that we were alway waiting for ourselves to return.
When MichelAngelo created statues like David and Moses he was asked ‘How did you create such perfection?’ He replied that God had already created the statue and all he had to do was chip away at what wasn’t needed. Thats the same with us. We need to take away the soul shrapnel; drop the shoulds, musts and have-to’s and become who we authentically are; it’s a journey worth the effort. We are waiting for ourselves to show up.
