The Inner Voice

There is a commercial running on TV in which Morgan Freeman states that it is a good thing to trust your inner voice. “Everybody has one, few listen to it”…

It is a beer commercial, and while I am not in the market to buy beer anytime soon, the advertisement still has a powerful message. To listen to our very own inner voice.
To ‘be still and listen’.

To do so, we may need to realign ourselves with a different perspective on what we truly need in life. Moving a little bit away from the continuous search for the next new and exciting thing to do, to an understanding that taking 15 or 20 minutes a day to be still is a good thing! Not just to start hearing ~ and eventually listening to ~ our inner voice, but just taking that time to be still with ourselves has benefits for our health as it has a tendency to reduce stress levels. It can give us the opportunity to clear our minds, to come to a realization as to where we are putting our time and energy. In doing so, it gives us a choice to continue on the path we are on, or to change course and go after those things that are truly important to us.

When we give ourselves time to ‘be still and listen’ ~ even when we are not immediately listening, or even hearing our inner voice, we tend to become more aware of our surroundings. Literally becoming more aware of our environment; whether we are walking downtown, sitting on a bench in the park, or waiting in line at the supermarket cash register ~ we are bound to become more aware of what is going on around us.

And that particular effect of taking time to ‘be still and listen’ on a daily basis may turn out to be very useful to us, as we are living in a world in which changes come and go in rapid succession; and unexpected, even dangerous events seem to be lurking in the most peaceful of spaces.
When we have trained ourselves to ‘be still and listen’; to listen to that inner voice ~ even though we may not know what it has to tell us day-to-day ~ chances are it will shout out at us when something is about to happen that we do not wish to be a part of.
Whether it is extremely heavy traffic on the route we usually take home from work, or severe weather, or even violence in any way shape or form; our inner voice will direct us to take a different path that day.

So whichever way we look at it, it is a good thing to trust to our inner voice as it can lead us around the storm!