260 Maple Court, Suite 228, Ventura, CA [email protected] 805-791-9700

Accessing Deeper Parts of You

Accessing Deeper Parts of You

It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day bustle of life’s demands. Perhaps today you needed to take your children to school, head to the bank, and then to work. Perhaps most of your days are filled with responsibility and duties. In fact, it’s quite possible that your life is filled with one task after another – it’s the way of life for most of us.

But have you ever stopped to think about what’s underneath all that?  I mean the purpose behind it all, the meaning and significance of life? What’s really important for you?  Is it the relationships with your children and spouse? Is it the way you give back to your community? Is it the purpose behind your work?  OR is purpose and meaning missing in your life?

One way to find significance in your life (that is, if you feel it’s missing) is to go inward. Doing that might seem foreign at first. What does that mean exactly? Going inward is simply shifting your attention from the outside world (which is where it is most of the time) to the inside world.  This could mean getting in touch with feelings, processing thoughts, or exploring a dream. It might mean getting creative and expressing your inner impulses as they arise. This might also mean being curious about the thoughts and feelings that are arising, versus getting carried away by them.

Historically, it has been the poets, writers, and painters that have gone inward – to create. But then in the process of doing so, they uncover great insights about themselves and the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example, was a writer as well as a philosopher. In the first few lines of his essay, Self Reliance, he says that he read some verses written by a painter which struck him as being original and authentic. Emerson goes on to say that there is originality in each of us. In fact, he says it would be a mistake to follow conventional, mainstream thought because by doing so we may miss the truth that lives within us. “Trust thyself,” he wrote, “Every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

If you want to access deeper parts of yourself, begin by exploring your inner life. If you want to uncover a more authentic, deeper, richer life, you can find it by going within.