I said “NO” to the Call. I can remember it quite clearly. It was 2018. I can immediately go back to that moment. I see myself sitting at my desk in my office, an upstairs room in our two story home in San Diego. It was an ordinary day, like any other day.
This day though, was in a time of my life when I was questioning, as so many of us do, “what am I to do now?” I was anxious…carrying some significant strain and stress. And I was “trying to figure out” what was next.
What was I meant to be doing?
The path I was on, that we were on, was coming to an end. Actually I knew it HAD TO come to an end. Have you ever been there? It was so rocky, unstable, uncertain. Nothing much grows on such rocky terrain.
The questioning I was doing was a mixture of Soul Self inquiry with a lot of personality egoic self inquiry, what I call the small “s” self. The self alternating between anxious, worried, fearful inquiry and intellectual “I can do this and that well — maybe I should do that” ideation.
It was a still, quiet afternoon. And I heard the Voice. It said I was to write about heeding the still small voice publicly online, like a journal. I was to share my experiences of heeding the still small voice.
It came from somewhere in the universe. I had one of those experiences of looking around and saying “where did that come from?” in some way. Only immediately I also KNEW.
Two things were kind of funny or interesting about it:
First, I wasn’t or hadn’t been around those words or using those words.
Heed the still small voice.
Of course I’d heard them before in a religious or church context growing up. I was raised in the Catholic Church. Yet I hadn’t been a church goer or religious person in years. I did read and follow modern day spiritual teachers, although not consistently or religiously. “Heed the still small voice” wasn’t part of my everyday language. It wasn’t part of my everyday thinking.
Heed the still small voice. The Voice was clear.
And, secondly, I wasn’t journaling. I mean, to this day, I’m still NOT a journaler, despite so many people’s advice to do so. Just Google journaling. “Why you should keep a journal” and “what should you journal everyday” are top questions answered. I’ve always felt a resistance to the practice.
And so there it was. The Call. I actually started calling it and others like it a Soul Transmission or a download from Source. It was really clear what it was. No doubts.
And I said, no.
And you know, I chuckle about that today.
I said, NO. Of course I flirted with the idea of what it would mean, but essentially I spent very little time thinking about it. And I didn’t really pray about it. I didn’t have a consistent practice of praying. I said NO pretty emphatically and pretty quickly. It felt too vulnerable, very personally exposing and risky.
For context, it wasn’t like I’d never put myself out there publicly or like I had a fear of public speaking.
I’d put myself and my views out publicly before and I didn’t have a problem with public speaking. I hosted a podcast in 2016 called “Defy Injury” on which I interviewed people who had recovered far more than doctors and our “world” tell people is possible. I’d done and said things that many others would not agree with that I could comfortably defend.
Yet this felt different. This was far more than I thought I could do. In fact, I said “surely this is for someone else. This is not for ME. This is for someone else to do where it may be, you know, well-received. They’re already known as a spiritual teacher, for example.”
So I said, NO. And I went back to trying to figure out what was next in my life. I really shelved it. Didn’t give it another thought for a long time.
“How did that work for you?” you might ask. Ha ha. The question still draws a chuckle from me now.
It didn’t. For a long time I just said “it didn’t.”
And then, with receipt of a Soul message just today it dawned on me, it also did.
And today, the sharing of the story changed. Truth revealed itself to me.
So first let me clearly say, “there was not a punishment or dire consequence to my saying no” even though my ego self certainly wanted me to pin every bad thing happening on that decision.
Have you heard of how we get Feather messages — Brick messages and Mack Truck messages in life? I’d say from a personality egoic self perspective I continued to get bricks and even a Mack Truck. The feathers and some bricks had come earlier. Amongst many things, factor in San Diego on the top 10 list of most expensive cities in the United States and we were at the end of a business venture we put almost everything into and that had to end. And this is not factoring in the pandemic which wasn’t really a part of my life in the first half of 2020 as it was for most of the world. While the world was focused on COVID-19 my husband and I were focused on his very serious health condition.
One way I describe the time after acknowledging the Call and saying “no” is it was like there was a tug of war going on between my egoic self and Soul Self.
My egoic self kept trying to get me into situations and relationships that “it knew I could do” from past experience. Each time I started down a “path I recognized” from past experience I more and more quickly “got” what was happening and said “no” or pulled out. There was challenge, confusion and conflict. I could feel an inner chafing and resistance.
In the meantime, my Soul Self actually fired up and guided and coaxed me into a whole new direction with no mention of the message of the Call. I could SO feel it. I almost COULDN’T do anything else. It was wonderfully powerful! I was in a zone, in a state of flow! I trusted what was showing up. I began to have faith that everything would be ok, that everything was somehow working out even though I didn’t understand why I was getting so involved in what was going on in our country, in politics and the Presidential election. I had not ever been civically engaged in my community or involved in politics before.
And so, here I am today in 2021 acknowledging and answering that Call. I’m writing my first essay about heeding the still small voice, asking for guidance from Soul Self and letting whatever flows through me appear on the page.
My saying YES now, my decision to publicly write the first one, knowing that others will follow, is a clear choice for me to remember who I am as a Soul Living Being. It is a clear choice to reenter the NOW moment over and over and over. Because in the NOW I’m present and aware of all the ways my Soul Self sends me messages. I can then act, because I have a knowing now that I wasn’t accessing before. I have faith and trust.
It’s a clear choice to reenter the zone and flow of living Soul purpose.
It isn’t easy. The personality egoic self wants to be in control. It wants me to nap. It isn’t hard either though. It’s simply training and practice. And it’s giving myself grace.
I’ve been asked what I think the Voice is. It’s Soul Self. It is Source. It is love. It is wisdom and love. It is Spirit. It is God. It is I AM. You’re going to call the still small voice what you know is right for you.
I now often share my knowing that we all have an “inner wisdom channel” to tune into and you do really need to tune into it like you would tune into an FM radio station on the dial.
Why now? Firstly, I’m ready. I’ve remembered that when I reenter the flow of NOW and tune in to my inner wisdom channel, I experience more peace, more happiness and more moments of joy. When I’m hearing and heeding the still small voice and it’s guiding me I KNOW I’m living my Soul purpose. So much of the challenge, conflict, confusion, and resistance is gone.
When things don’t work so well and especially when I don’t feel at peace I now know I’ve exited life in the NOW. I’ve gone to “sleep” and my personality ego self has taken over.
And second, I received another clear prominent message as I asked myself only one question over and over in 2020 in regards to the state of our country and my role as a citizen. The question was “what is mine to do?” And I received a very clear Answer from the Voice. “Unleash the Soul of America.”
