Turn up the inner voice

Turn up the inner voice

Yesterday I was late for a class that I was teaching for elite athletes through the CSCA. I drove into the Canada Games Center, grabbed my mat and took off running. As I was hastily making my way to the front doors, I pulled out my cell phone to turn it off and stuck to it was a maxi pad, which then flew off in the wind and circled overhead.

With on-lookers watching, once upon a time I might have been mortified, but I just laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation and made my way up to the yoga room.

I share this story because it reminds me of an Ayurvedic practice of turning up the inner voice so that it becomes the predominant voice we hear. Trouble arises when we follow the lure of the media and make the outside voices more important than our own. When this happens, we are quickly embarrassed by the slightest things such as a flying maxi pad, and we grow obsessed with approval from others. I imagine you’d agree that the difference between the two is the difference between hell and happiness.

In the big picture, we can exhaust a great deal of our creative energy attempting to prove to the world that we are worthy of love and respect when we could be devoting our precious energy toward enhancing someone’s life or creating something magnificent that currently doesn’t exist.

When I was writing my school programs, I recall a high school student sharing that many of her friends spend their breaks in the bathroom, making sure they look just right, instead of spending quality time with friends as any teen should do.

Many of us don’t even know how to find that voice inside, let alone know how to turn it up. One of the most effective tools is meditation, where we move into stillness and become hollow like a bamboo tree; free of beliefs, thoughts, judgments and fears. As we empty ourselves of external noise, we’ll gradually begin to hear the song of our own voice.

Once we access this place of inner knowing it becomes our inner compass, or what I also call our inner guidance system, directing us toward joy and fulfillment and away from fear.
 
The next time you notice yourself becoming preoccupied with other people’s perceptions, throw your maxi pad to the wind, turn up the inner voice and celebrate the freedom to be exactly who you are.

Warmly,

Jenny

Photo by: Martin Jardine