Episode 27: Trusting your Inner Voice and allowing doubts & questions

Thank you so much for joining me today. Welcome to episode 27. Today I explore the question is there a connection between trusting your inner voice and allowing doubts and asking questions?And I also explore why this is important.

What is your inner voice?As I have been on this journey of faith expand mention, I’ve heard multiple ways of expressing essentially the same thing.Perhaps you have two having a hunch, an inkling, your conscience or intuition.Your core being your inner self or your inner wisdom.The essence of your being, the Holy Spirit, the light of Christ, your personal autonomy or sovereignty, and the third eye chakra.

Each is a different way of describing that connection to your inner voice. Capital I, capital V, or your inner self, capital I, capital S, or your highest self, your divine self. All of these are capitalized. I love how one of my mentors, a coach by the name of Lauren CSCO, describes the mind, body, soul connection. She calls it the embodiment technique.

In her work, it incorporates your mind, which is  your conscious and subconscious, your body, where your emotions are, and your soul consciousness, which is that non physical part of you, the other worldly part of you, or the divine within you, so that they can work together in alignment and you have the power to create anything you desire.

Now, if you are not in alignment, then you could be resisting your emotions in your body, or perhaps the thoughts in your mind. Or if you’re not in alignment, perhaps you are struggling to connect with your inner self and trust your inner wisdom or your intuition. And if that is true, then you’re going to struggle to lean into your questions and doubts when they come up. That could look like avoiding them or denying them.Ignoring pushing them down negating that they even exist. Or resisting them, which ironically will make them bigger.

When I was a kid, my mom had this pressure cooker that I was deathly afraid of.It was the kind with the little cap on top that would dance around as it allowed the steam to slowly escape through this hole in the lid. I knew that without that hole in the top of the pressure cooker in the top of the pressure cooker lid allowing steam to release, the entire thing would explode. And so I always avoided the kitchen whenever mom was using that pressure cooker. I hated it. However, that’s why a pressure cooker works. As the heat is increased, the steam builds up inside the lid will contain it for a time. However, if there’s no purposeful release of the buildup of energy, eventually it will force its way out or explode.

So I’m comparing obviously the steam buildup with our doubts and our questions.It is so important and needful to acknowledge our questions and doubts when they come up and to allow them out. If you’ve listened to my previous episode number twelve. I define the origin of the word doubt. Recall that I point out doubt can be a noun or a verb. Doubt as a verb means to be uncertain, and as a noun, it is purposeful suspension of judgment.

I invite you to evaluate where you are at in trusting yourself to lean into that inner voice that we all have, and to listen to what that inner voice or your inner self is telling you or asking you or question. And if you are not, then my invitation to you is to ask why? What is keeping you? Or what is in the way of trusting your inner voice and leaning into the questions, concerns and doubts.

To lean into them is just another way of saying to acknowledge that you have them, that you have questions, doubts and concerns, things that feel incongruent or perhaps that don’t match up or don’t make sense to you. Are you giving yourself permission to acknowledge that they’re there, that they exist? And are you willing to ask, what does that mean for you and your spiritual journey? Why is this important? I’m going to answer that question with a quote from Thomas McConkie’s book called Navigating Mormon Faith Crisis, and it’s found on page 30.

Now, even though this was in his book Navigating Mormon Faith Crisis, I believe it is applicable to anyone of any conservative faith background.He says Perhaps now the call is to be more permeable, to integrate emergent perspectives and beliefs rather than distance ourselves from them or attempt to banish them. Of course, we can’t, nor should we attempt to integrate everything.We must be discerning and seek continual guidance. Not all perspectives are equally valid and edifying, but in the spirit of ongoing progression and development, we might start to more closely examine the cultural certainty that is characteristic of an adolescent faith.

Paradoxically, faith needs doubt in order to grow. Doubt helps to reshape and refine our beliefs. End quote. I’ve personally experienced reshaping and refining of my beliefs as I have leaned into allowing doubts and asking questions in my spiritual journey. I know this is a major contributor to my faith expansion or moving out of my adolescent faith. End quote. As Thomas So eloquently put it, if you were raised in LDS faith, then you know very well the primary song, I am a child of God. This is an essential foundation to know and understand. The nature of this earthly experience creates opportunities to progress. We can grow physically from childhood to adulthood. I believe God wants us to progress spiritually in our understanding of being a child of God, to growing into an adult of God. Starting out with childlike faith is where it begins. I believe God wants, hopes, and even expects it to grow into a deeper, stronger, expansive, adult like faith.

If you are on this path and want support, that’s where I come in. I offer a program that is one to one you coach with me personally, and I help you with everything you are struggling with, whether that is your faith journey, family relationships, your journey as an LGBTQ plus parent, or maybe you identify as an LGBTQ plus teen or young adult. You know specifically what you’re going through, and I give you tools to work through those challenges. Just DM me SOS on Instagram or Facebook or shoot me an email at hello@meganskidmorecoaching.com.Make sure you spell Megan meagan, and I’ll leave that in the show notes.You can also sign up for my one to one coaching Waitlist at my website, Meganskidmorecoaching.com. Just click the Work with Me button at the top.

I leave you with the wise words of Father Richard Rohr your true self is a tiny little flame of this universal reality that is life itself, consciousness itself, being itself, love itself, light and fire itself.God’s very self thinking creates the separate self, the ego self, the insecure self.The God given contemplative mind, on the other hand, recognizes the God self, the Christ self, the true self of abundance and deep inner security.

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Thanks so much for being here. Until next time.