I sat through a Church service yesterday morning, my first one since I was a child: it wasn’t anything like any of the C of E services I remember from school; people were fainting, screaming, speaking in tongues (I won’t be going back to that Church; truth be told, it was all more than a little overwhelming for this hypersensitive).
Anyway, in an attempt to shield my sensitive soul from all that energy flying around the hall, I started to meditate in the middle of the praying. When I came out of the meditation, the pastor was speaking about miracles and how we shouldn’t just ask for/expect one miracle but, rather, we should live in the knowledge that life should be full of miracles.
I’ve still not quite processed that train of thought but, when I got back to the house, I had a message in my Inbox from Paul Jarvis, freelancer extraordinaire, who wrote something in his weekly newsletter that really touched home with me. It touched home because it’s something I’ve been thinking about myself a great deal over the past few weeks.
He posed the question of whether all the advice we find around us is actually useful. Whether it does us any good to be bombarded by self-help books and advice columns and millions upon millions of blog posts, headlines screaming, ‘5 ways to land that perfect job’ or ’10 ways to be more self-confident’.
His conclusion was inconclusive but, essentially, argued that this external advice often becomes some sort of a crutch that people come to hold on to very tightly because they’re scared of breaking out on their own, scared of trusting their own thoughts and instincts.
And that, ultimately, we must always remember that we can only ever trust ourselves and that, as it is our own life we’re making decisions about, however much advice we seek, only we can make the final decisions about where to steer ourselves.
It’s something that’s been dear to my heart because I’ve received, and acted upon, really bad advice the last few years: from lawyers, social workers, psychologists, police….you name the profession, I guarantee I’ve listened to, and acted upon, advice from within it, advice which, at the time I knew didn’t feel right but which I felt powerless to rebel against. My life, our lives, have been shaped by this hastily- and lightly-given advice and our lives are, I have to say, much the worse for it.
So, all of this hearing about living shrouded in miracles and seeking, or not seeking, advice from people foreign to you and your situation…it led me to thinking that perhaps the miracles only come when we follow our own instincts, follow where our heart tells us we should go, using the gifts we’ve been gifted.
In my experience, when I’ve rebelled against what my own instincts are telling me, that’s when the problems start. When I act in accordance with what my heart, my little intuitive voice tells me, life runs smoother, is trouble-free, it becomes akin to a series of small miracles happening, giving me life force, making life worth living to its fullest.
I’m not sure I have any profound conclusions to offer, more a series of observations…and a question for you all….what miracles have you/do you experience and what were the conditions surrounding those miracles? Were you still, had you surrendered to a force greater than yourself, were you relying on, and trusting, your instincts implicitly?
I’d be really interested to know your thoughts….I’m living a period of my life where pretty much only a series of fairly big miracles will get us out of the mess we’re in….and reading a few miracle stories might be just the tonic I need to clear the air for the Universe to set to and do it’s business….!