Clarity and your inner guidance
In 2020 I almost died in a river. I got caught in an eddy where the water swirls endlessly underneath a rock. I was wearing a lifejacket and I had to be pulled to safety. I was submerged for almost a whole minute.
Even though this is not my only rendezvous with mortality, this one felt particularly scary. It was on the exact day that my grandmother had passed the year earlier and it felt like something divine happened in the river that day. The divine thing happened because I was lucky, not because I was smart.
I was in a new kayak that I had never taken on the river before. I did zero research about the conditions of the river, the capabilities of the boat, or how to get out of a sticky situation if I found myself in one. I was not empowered or in control.
I remember that day so clearly. It was gorgeous outside. One of those carolina blue sky days that feel fake because their beauty is so magnificent. I waited at the launch site while my husband shuttled our cars and at his behest, i put on my life jacket. I remember thinking to myself “the water looks brown, and I dont see other boaters on the river despite the gorgeous weather”. I did not listen to this thought. I put my positivity in full gear and forged ahead.
When we don’t have all the information, we ignore our inner process, and we forge ahead against our better judgement, we put ourselves at great risk for harm. How many times have I done this in life, in relationships, with myself?
Sometimes when we grow up in a chaotic household, we are taught how to ignore our own feelings. We get the message that our experience of things doesn’t matter so why say anything about it. This mechanism gets internalized until eventually, we don’t trust ourselves.
So, how do we create more clarity for ourselves? How do we stay in contact with ourselves when our survival instincts have been to ignore those inner voices?
Let’s talk about CLARITY. Clarity is inner alignment. It is listening to all the voices inside, giving them all validation and acting in our best interest despite the consequences. That day on the river, I did not listen to myself. I did not gather all the necessary information about the river and my boat. I did not look out for the well being of myself, my husband, or our gear. That neglect mechanism that I internalized kicked into full gear.
Sometimes we avoid doing what we need to do to be clear because we don’t want to know the truth. We don’t want the hassle of having to listen to ourselves especially when the consequences of listening to our inner guidance means we have to blow up our life or hurt someone else. So we override our wise voices. Over and over again.
And then we find ourselves in situation where much harm has been done. We have been out of alignment with ourselves. We have been ignoring signs, staying in denial, and clinging to narratives despite contrary evidence being presented to us.
Clarity is one of the first steps to setting good boundaries. We have to know what we want in order to act on it. Clarity is one of the first steps to self trust. We have to know how to listen to our inner voices in order to develop good relationship with them. Clarity is the first step to moving forward in security. We have to listen to the voices inside cluing us into danger and chaos in order to lean into security.
Each of the attachment styles has ways in which they are unclear with themselves and others.
The anxious style tends to over inflate and manipulate in order to get their needs met, being unclear with themselves about the ways they participate in the dynamic they dont want.
The avoidant style tends to dismiss their own needs and the needs of others, staying murky about how much space they take up.
And the disorganized style is back and forth with so much push and pull that they struggle to stay in contact with themselves long enough to have any real idea of how they show up or what they need.