Compliance, Rebellion or ‘the way that serves my soul’; which would you choose?

A few months ago, we had our first ‘Coffee Break Connections’ session where we changed the format from our usual 10 minute 1:1 breakout rooms. Instead we all met in the main zoom room and introduced ourselves and our business to the group – not a 60 second pitch (because we all know they’re the devil!) – from a place of passion and purpose.

We each shared a little nibble of our story and the ‘Why’ behind the work we do. It was jaw droppingly beautiful. You were vulnerable and open, you shared stories of abuse and trauma and allowed yourselves to be held in this brave space with others who felt your pain …and stayed.

There was a noticing; a common thread that flowed through each of our stories, our offerings and our visions. It was that in a multitude of ways, each and every one of us promotes through the work we do, developing a deep relationship with self, an acceptance of all that we are and above everything else ‘Self Trust’.

Whether a Belief Coding Therapist, a Photographer, Copywriter or a VA – at the very root of the work we each do is the desire to restore a sense of self trust, a reconnection with our inner knowing. In Affinity, it seems, at the heart of all we do there is a drive to reclaim our true selves, beyond the conditioning of a society, systems and cultures that aren’t designed to encourage us to thrive. 

I had a great conversation with Matthew Bellringer a few weeks back, as a prelim to our podcast recording happening in June, and he said – Society doesn’t want us to look inwards for guidance, intuition is a dangerous thing in a capitalist society because those who stop looking outside of themselves for the answer and instead trust their own knowing are not as easy to control. Ooooof!

I’m a huge advocate for trusting ‘self’ first. Yes we can absolutely gather information from external sources, this is how we grow. But as Clarissa Pinkola Estés says in her book ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’, we should examine all ideas before we decide to align ourselves with them. 

She highlights this idea that before we are deeply reconnected with our true, instinctual nature, we believe we only have one choice and cannot even see it as a choice. It is just one path that we have been set upon and we mindlessly follow it. But when the reclaiming of the ‘self’ happens, when we reconnect with our inner knowing, we are able to see that we have at least three choices;

Compliance: To mindlessly go along on the path we have been assigned based on our traumas, life experiences and the constructed narrative that has been unconsciously created for us and by us. To continue to live in the cages we have built for ourselves (and convinced ourselves that someone else put us in). Just feel into that for a second.

Rebellion: Once we’ve reconnected inwards and woken up to the self constructed cages and the new concept that we have a choice to do and be something entirely different, we usually go through a period of rebelling against that which we believe caged us. But this approach still doesn’t serve us, we are still a slave to the outside forces that had us compliant all those years. This is not the path we would choose for ourselves were were fully at peace.

The way that serves my soul: This is so much more than the middle ground between the two. It’s its own entity, where we become our own entity. We begin to see ourselves no longer as an extension of our parents or our partners or our friends but as our very own being, connected to a oneness yes but not directed by it. This way allows us to make decisions based on our values and what is aligned because we deeply feel that intuitive nudge, that inner knowing. It allows us to get our needs met because we actually know what they are compared to what we have always thought we needed based on other peoples perceptions of us. We are able to let go of expectations and judgement (internal and external). This letting go of, this ‘shedding’ of what no longer serves us, creates space for us to expand into and to design a life that’s deeply fulfilling because we know who we are and we do what makes us happy – because we finally know what makes US happy.

So I’d love to ask you, for all the effort you put into nurturing relationships with others, have you begun the journey back home to you? Are you actively working on living your life in a way that serves your soul? Have you reconnected with your true, instinctual nature? Are you making decisions that set your soul alight, because being stuck in indecision is not only a paralysing, exhausting place to hang out but it may also be a good indicator that you’ve abandonded your self and are putting too much stock in the opinions of others.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments, is self trust a thing you consciously cultivate and nurture? And share with us how, what practices do you use? And I’d really love to know, do you have you any idea of what suddenly becomes possible when you begin to really, deeply trust yourself?