Do you know how to stay with your own truth?

Sometimes I “download” something. A clear message. Sometimes it is more powerful and clear than others. Often I ask for it, rarely does it make its own way to my mind. 

I could be a message from the subconscious, from my Inner Being, from The Universe or The Source, or from God. To me it is Jesus, to you, it might be someone else. I am sure, we all find our own Truth in our own time. The point is: it is quite a clear message. Not very long and elaborated and complicated, and I am not about to share with you some universal fits all truth. Just sharing my perspective. 

As you might know from my posts about the first two months of the year, and about shitty days, times have been more complicated lately than we prefer. In Portimao the first 3 weeks of march, were particularly ugly. Beautiful as well, but ugly too. My inner work took me to places, I don’t really want to go, and I tripped more often than I liked, falling into the pits and holes of my inner darkness, you might even say I stepped on some landmines in there. It was no fun. 

Not that anything has been wrong for real. As always everything happens in the mind - or most. Mostly it is not about how “it” is but how you handle “it”. And I was in a negative spiral for a while. I had my reasons, but honestly: that is not really an excuse. It is all in the mind, and life is such a precious gift, we all need to truly appreciate it. 

Anyway. I am trying to get to another point here. So, I had the “hard” times, confronted with fears and doubts and demons, and in the end, I met a low point. I had an annoying night of hardly any sleep (noise and sharing the bed with too many people and the dog + of course all of the thoughts that invade when I am too tired to keep things straight). And I woke up with the idea: “This is enough now. Now I just want to do, what I know works to re-establish the balance”. 

I know a lot of good tricks. Meditation in the morning. Yoga. Clear our space, organize, and clean. Make nutritious and lovely food for everyone. Write my journal. Reach out to friends, and listen to their stories. Drink enough water. Go for nature walks. Make sure the coffee is good. 

So I did all of this. And more. And on my way to somewhere I forgot now, I popped into the local church. I have been passing every day for 3 weeks, but never entered. I can see the tower from my rooftop terrace. I do not particularly *have to* enter a church to enter a spiritual place with my mind, but of course, it helps. All the years of people coming there to worship are simply in the walls, in the stone, in the paintings, in the artwork. And the silence. 

This time I left my praying moment with a clear message. It was simple and confronting: “Do what you know to be right”. 

Wau. 

(Please comment on the post if you read this far. I am so insecure about writing on these subjects, I feel a lot of doubt whether anyone ever reads through spiritual stuff. I am sharing my inner life here, risking being vulnerable, and I would love to know if anyone appreciates it. I am trying to share a special kind of life to establish some courage in other people. This is my goal. )

As I said. Wau. 

I had to leave the church right away, could not sit still. And for the past week, everything has improved. Even the weather! 

I have for the most part been doing what I - in every decision, every moment - “know” to be right. AND I have been thinking a lot about what it actually means to know something to be right. 

So, what does it mean?

This time it meant to get out of my mind. Leave cognition and come back to intuition. Or Jesus. (Might be the same). Not to say anything bad about cognition, analysis, reason, thinking - it just needs to be the servant of intuition (or Jesus), not the other way around. And as we had been talking and thinking and planning so much this year - the balance had tipped, and I had lost the most powerful energy within myself. 

Do what you know to be right. 

What does that even mean? It feels a bit like the little wise words at the end of the string in the yogi tea teabags. A spiritual truth no one can disagree with, but that at the same time does not really mean anything or help anyone. Too general, too diffuse, too vague. 

But it did mean something. To mee. Something vague. Something unprecise. Yet powerful. I will try to explain. 

We make a thousand decisions every day, big and small, conscious ones and routine ones. Lots of them are choices between several distinct options, some have unpredictable outcomes. In many cases all the things we do not even consider whisper from the shadows. 

When I have to make a decision, I think first. Obviously. But sometimes I think too much and even worse: sometimes I think even after things are done, getting close to the awful REGRET that will RUIN your life if you let it in. 

Lately, we have been thinking a lot. We are making huge life changes with a new (lower) budget, new work life, new agenda, and new travel style. So much is going on on the cognitive level, it simply took over, and all of the doubt (very close to regretting) came and ate me alive. 

When I heard the words “Just do what you know to be right” it took me right back into the state of mind where I trust in life, where I believe there are no wrong decisions, where a focus on the amazing and positive in any situation, where life is shining and I do not let it in, if something is annoying or if someone is complaining. Just saying: It's all in the mind. 

Just doing what you know to be right is not the opposite of thinking. It is flipping the (vegan) burger. As Einstein so wisely (allegedly) said: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant”. 

I forgot that. Or got lost in that. And Einstein continues: “... We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift”. 

It seems like I am writing a full blog post about this. What Einstein (allegedly) already said. We need to think. Obviously. Analysis and knowledge and strategy are great servants. But we should not ever forget the sacred gift of Just Knowing. 

Since I did this. Started to listen, just doing what I know to be right again, and everything changed. Even the weather. 

I started to be happy. I sleep at night. I cook lovely food. I drink enough water. The children talk all the time (so did they before, but now I have the focus to listen and respond in a good way). Birds are singing. I feel grateful. Things just work. Sun is shining. I call my friends. I work a bit. Blog a bit. Enjoy a lot. Play music. 

It showed the pretty face yesterday, like a medal, like a star, as encouragement from a wonderful grandmother, yesterday was like a “go on” whisper from Life Itself. 

Sun was shining on the rooftop terrace when I did a bit of yoga and talked to my children, and had morning coffee. We created a lovely lunch of salads and dahl, my son-in-law, and I. We went for a beautiful walk in nature in beautiful Portugal, alongside a river. On the way, we bought melons, tomatoes, and lemons. The long walk of 8 kilometers took us through an amazing landscape, and we saw beautiful birds and lots of flowers, wonderful cows, and sweet nice dogs. We climbed fences and walked dust roads and water pipes, talking and sharing and singing. At the last kilometer, we met a very nice man in a car - he stopped to talk to us and asked us if we wanted to come to see the great view from his house and whether we liked flowers - they had lots of different orchids in their garden.

Amazing.

He took my husband to our car, so everyone could drive to the top of the hill (we felt no motivation for walking an extra kilometer), and so we did. 

How life just will throw at you amazing people, experiences, beauty, and meaningfulness, if you just do what you know to be right. Lasse and Christina are from Sweeden, the generation of my parents, I believe, which means that on top of everything: The view, the stories, the warmth, the meal shared, the stars - we also shared the Scandinavian languages: Speaking Nordic (a mix of Danish and Swedish) a long lovely evening. 

Coincidence? I think not. 

I think the “luck” we experience in life often follows right after good decisions. And that people who end up in fantastic places seem to have made a lot of these. The problem is, if we get to a point, where we believe, the decisions are to be taken solely with reason. I quoted Einstein, who states “intuition” is the Master, though, when I think about it in private, I just call “it” Jesus. 

So, what is the strategy? What is the take-away from all of this talking about balances and life, and all of this sharing of my private emotions? I believe the important message, I have to share, is this: If we get stuck in our minds, if we build up awful habits of regret and doubt, there is a simple way out. It can be found in meditation, prayer, slow living, walking in nature or somewhere beautiful, in music and art. Or rather: all of these will nurture the grateful, intuitive, strong decision-making plus evaluation and put us where we need to be. 

The way out is to listen to God. Or your inner truth. To establish a connection between something larger and the moments around you. To stay with this. To do what you know to be right. With confidence. 

At least in my case, there is no stopping the mind, the thinking processes, the effort to plan and reason and learn and build strategies - this will happen all by itself, this is how the mind works. But if we pollute it with judgment, doubts, and regrets, we can ruin our emotional life and in the end, even the rational mind will lose its way. 

Now I will get up and play some music. Go for a walk in nature. Improve my language skills. Enjoy the sun. I think. My Truth might show me otherwise, once I begin. I am open to that. 

Let me know if this resonates?

Do you ever get lost in your mind, overthinking and overplanning, or do you rather get lost in something entirely different? 

With love

Cecilie Conrad