Consulting yourself

When you feel stuck or when you’re faced with a difficult decision (or any decision at all), what do you do? If you’re anything like me, you research and consult: Amazon reviews, books by experts—the more credientialled the better—and people who have experienced something similar. You want to uncover the cold, hard data; the proven consensus; the empirically driven answers; a future telling mapped by those who have chosen before.

While I was preparing to birth my first child, I read probably 45 first-hand unmedicated birth stories, scouring those experiences for some kind of evidence that I Rachel would be able to emotionally survive this looming event.

I have typed into google relationship questions that would only make sense if I was still Ask(ing) Jeeves and if that Jeeves was not a 90s internet butler but instead a fully actualized version of my future self.

Because simply asking my present self these questions seemed . . . well, actually I didn’t get that far—honestly, the thought didn’t even occur to me.

Even so, the path from searching all things external to realizing that I am actually the ultimate source of wisdom on my life’s most pressing questions was shockingly short.

All it took was a single round of questions to myself. It turns out that there were a whole lot of answers waiting for me as soon as I opened to the possibility that I was worth consulting.

I’ve come to make sense of this revelation by recognizing that what I was searching for in the reviews and experts and path forgers was not actually information but rather this:

A choice that could lead me down a path without any negative emotion.

When I asked myself questions and immediately found ready, wise answers on subjects I had been “confused” about for years, I realized that my prior research was rooted in the unconscious belief in the existence of right and wrong choices, where right would guarantee no difficult feelings and wrong would doom me to feeling them all the time.

Of course, choices don’t have the power to change the emotional reality of being a human and negative feelings are not dangerous and so don’t need to be avoided. But that’s not my main point here.

What I want you to take from this post is this:

You too, friend, have wisdom just waiting for the asking.

Perhaps the reasons you haven’t consulted yourself yet (or don’t do it often) are different then mine. That’s fine. It doesn’t even really matter what they are. What matters is that you start to ask yourself questions.

A certain amount of faith is required here. You’re probably used to what feels like asking yourself questions and getting in response the answer “I don’t know.” This is normal.

For the purposes of this exercise, you will need to practice believing that you do know. And then listen to what comes up after that.

It’s exceedingly helpful to consult yourself in writing. It will expose your circular, “confused” thoughts and help you get beyond them. Write down a question, pause and allow yourself to feel your way to a response (it can be helpful to refocus your energy from your head to your heart or your gut), then force yourself to answer it. If you don’t feel fully satisfied, ask yourself a follow-up! Continue interviewing yourself for as long as you want.

When you’re done, enjoy reading a record of what you have already long known, a record of the things you’ve vainly been looking for others to tell you because you didn’t trust your own truth.

You’ll find there is nothing that feels as steadying and peaceful as being guided by your unfolded self.