Deep Knowing
“You will know when the right time is,” I told my daughter once, a few years ago, when she asked me a question about her life goals.
I think about this frequently and have been trying to tell myself that I also will know many answers to questions that I have wanted to externalize or outsource to other people who I assume know more than I do—about my own life and my own needs and wants.
What do I want?
What is the right job for me?
What does work/life balance look like?
What is the next book to write?
When do I want to retire?
These are questions I’ve asked myself in the last couple of decades, sometimes over and over again. And of course, there is nothing wrong with having a discussion with people who know you well and who may see things that you overlook, even obvious things. But also, no one can answer these questions but you.
As I’ve spent more time doing conscious day-dreaming/napping/resting on a daily basis, I’ve begun to find that I trust my inner, deep knowing about myself more. I’ve found myself bringing questions, consciously or unconsciously, to my dream time. And I’ve found myself imagining answers to them. It has been really enlightening and empowering.
I know how to find answers to life’s deepest questions. It is to ask myself. To listen deeply to my own knowing. To actually block out other voices. To trust myself.
I didn’t know that this would happen. If you’d told me this ten years ago, I’d have been discouraged or frustrated with this answer. I’d have thought you were telling me that you didn’t want to bother with helping me with advice.
Which was just a symptom of the problem of me believing that other people knew better than I did, something that was part of growing up in a patriarchal, fundamentalist religion that insisted that it had all the answers to every question, that the answers were all the same for everyone. In some ways, I think this is the worst part of leaving religion, that there is no more certainty. In other ways, it is the best part of leaving religion, that no one gets to tell me anything anymore.