On Being Spiritually Organized...

I have a persistent sense of inadequacy.
And I know I'm not alone in this, that some of you might relate?
There is a voice inside me ready to chide and demean at every turn.  
It says:
Who do you think you are?
It says:
You need to be realistic about this.
It says:
My way or the highway.

A decent part of my spiritual practice has been spent with this voice.  I focus my intention on Not listening.
Not listening is not the same as ignoring.
Not listening means I do not take inside the promptings of this external voice.
I don't believe its stories.
There are deeper promptings to adhere to.
Ones brought into alignment by prayer.
Ones that are joyful to follow.
Ones that present the fruits of my labors and fill me with trust.
These promptings are my own spiritual organization, and it is the most powerful tool I have to Not Listen to the external voices that demean and question.

An example:
I'm pretty sure I've written about spiritual organization before.  The external voice says that I should write something that will make me money.  The inner prompting says that even if I've blogged about it before, someone needs to hear it again.  Even if that someone is only me.

So I listen to the inner prompting.  I am spiritually organized.  I trust myself to be guided.  And when I feel open, I leap, knowing it is never wrong. Becfola and the Snarling Horde by Arthur Rackham. Faith, when beset... I joked earlier in the week that I should put a clause in my client contracts:  All things in good time.

And, it's true.  When I follow my inner promptings (like this past week where I was called to make art instead of completing a project that was due) inevitably things work out in my favor.  

The client calls in sick, or changes their mind, or is inspired in new directions. Or a new commission comes through precisely on the topic I was drawing.  Or ... The results are pretty fantastic, because when I listen to the inner promptings cool stuff happens.  Synergy.  Synchronicity.  Magic.

When I have a stress response and try to hold myself to other's more suitable standards, listen to the external voice that tells me I'm irresponsible or unprofessional if I don't follow through with each commitment as planned, I end up feeling a lot like Becfola above, besieged, beset.  It is almost always for naught, too, because the client still changes their mind, and then I am left with a palm to forehead and a day's lost time.

I know this happens to everyone, but we creatives and spiritually focussed folk are particularly vulnerable.  Ditto anyone in transition--the same litmus for vulnerability is appropriate here.  We are taught to distrust our inner promptings and must begin actively, without delay, to reclaim the territory of our faith.  Faith in ourselves, in the patterns and plans of universal weaving.  In each other. Enough.  Trust Yourself. This is the most complex maxim I know: trust yourself.  But it is ultimately the key to joy, to days full of what you love, to positive affirming relationships and work that is real.

When you are complicated by circumstance, or undone by forgetting, how does it change things to operate in the flow?  To allow for the imperfections of your spiritual organization?

Forgot the folder?  Maybe we aren't meant to work on that project today.  Neglected to email the person?  I'm sure the timing wasn't ripe.  I'm reading a draft manuscript that is wonderful on just this topic, and I'll be sure to mention the book when it is published, because it is chaining the way I think about my own perceptions, my inner and outer voices.  The core premise:  we must attune to our inner knowing, we must take heed.

This is how I work best:  listening to the flow of a will larger than mine, a pattern wider than me.  It takes practice, but it is always there, waiting for us to love and accept ourselves, to believe in the patterns and our part in it enough, to take a risk in authenticity, to dip in.

Here is an offering:  a free thirteen days of supported self-care.  Come, swim.
Love--