Awakening to Your Inner Wisdom
with EFT and Imagery

Wouldn’t you love to carry around a little wise person inside you—someone who knew all the answers to all your questions? Someone you could always rely on when you were scared or confused or even just unsure about what to do? Someone who knew just the right thing to say or do when you needed support?

Well, actually you do carry such a person around inside. It’s a part of you that I call your inner wisdom. The guidance our inner wisdom offers is available to us 24 hours a day—even when we are asleep (some people say especially when we are asleep).



What is Inner Wisdom?

Did you ever get a “bad feeling” when you walked into a room filled with people and just knew that something upsetting had just occurred? Have you ever had a song pop into your mind out of the blue, just as you were thinking about a problem? Or, did you ever “just know” that what you were about to say to someone was the wrong thing (but probably said it anyway?)

That is your inner wisdom speaking to you.

Our inner wisdom is the part of us which lies just beneath our logical, rational, conscious mind. It is sometimes referred to as Inner Knowing, as the Higher Self, as Spiritual Self or even as Self. It is a knowingness beyond words, beyond logic, steeped in a wisdom our ego minds can barely comprehend. This does not mean that the goal is to connect to our inner wisdom and disregard our rational logical minds—quite the contrary. The aim is to awaken to the riches of the inner wisdom so that it can inform the rational mind that operates in our everyday lives.

We can think of our minds as having two parts (Remember this description is purely metaphorical). There is the rational ego mind. This is the part that helps us navigate the everyday world, but this ego mind is like a double edged sword. On the one hand, it has the skills and experience needed to function in our rather complex world. It assures our security and safety through rational planning and control. On the other hand, the ego mind’s attempts to assure our safety are often fear-based. The goal of awakening to your inner wisdom is to connect to a deeper spiritual wisdom that can guide the ego mind. (How to tell the difference between the voice of the ego mind and that of your inner wisdom will the subject of a future newsletter).


How does your Inner Wisdom Speak to You?

Your inner wisdom communicates in myriad ways. It may take the form of a subtle inner prompting, a feeling that you should or shouldn’t do something. Or a song may suddenly pop in your head. Many years ago, I found myself singing the Simon and Garfunkel tune Fifty-ninth Street Bridge (Feelin’ Groovy) especially the part “Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the mornin’ last.” I couldn’t get the song out of my mind. Finally, I realized that my inner wisdom was probably trying to tell me something, so I sat down and tried to unravel the message of the song. Pretty obvious. I had been working hard and had been feeling washed out and tired for several weeks, almost like I was on the verge of getting the flu. The song was trying to tell me to slow down. I listened to the message, and felt better within days.

Your inner wisdom may also speak in body symptoms. A client of mine recently complained of a sore shoulder that just wouldn’t go away. When we asked the shoulder what it was trying to tell her, it showed her a picture of herself as Atlas, holding the world on her shoulders.

Inner wisdom can come in the form of a quiet whisper or a loud voice that “speaks” to you from inside your head. A number of years ago, just as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, I heard a voice in my head “Something terrible is going to happen this year, but don’t worry; it’ll all turn out okay.” At the time, I was rather upset by this message, but within a few weeks, as I went on with my busy life, the message was all but forgotten. Then, in mid-August I received an emergency phone call from my 19 year old daughter “Mom. I have a brain tumor” As she said those horrible words, that voice, the same voice I’d heard on New Years Eve repeated “Don’t worry, don’t panic. She is going to be okay.” If only I could have trusted that voice. It would have saved me a lot of pain and suffering. My daughter had surgery. The tumor was benign, and she was fine. I have since heard that Inner Voice many times, but now I am more able to trust its message.


How do you Learn to Connect to Your Inner Wisdom?


Sometimes people ask me “What if I don’t have an inner wisdom to connect to?” We all do. As psychiatrist and author Mona Lisa Schultz says “If you have a brain and a body….then by definition you are intuitive.” For those who are still skeptical, isn’t there an inner body wisdom that regulates your breathing, that functions just below your conscious, rational mind, deciding when you need to take in more oxygen and when you need to expel carbon dioxide? Isn’t there an inner wisdom that tells you when your body needs sleep? That same inner wisdom can tell you what your body needs to eat. Little children instinctively know what their bodies need. I remember when my daughter was a toddler and always craved oranges whenever she was getting a cold. Intellectually, she had no knowledge of Vitamin C, but her body knew it craved something in those oranges to fight off the virus. We learn over the years to block our awareness of that inner voice of wisdom. We can relearn to trust the wisdom.
Just as there are a myriad of ways the inner wisdom speaks, there are a variety of ways to awaken to its voice. Guided imagery, guided meditation, Energy Psychology, especially Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), all are ways to connect to the body’s inner wisdom. And, as you learn to tune into your body’s wisdom, you learn that it speaks to more than just your physical needs. That voice of wisdom can guide you in all areas of your life—physical, emotional and spiritual.

Each person will have their own path to awakening to their inner wisdom. What works for one, may not for another. For instance, some people work best with imagery; their wisdom will usually speak in the form of images or pictures. Others, more focused on body sensation, will get “gut feelings.” Still others will “hear” a voice. Some, like me, will receive information in all the different modalities. Future newsletters will focus on the various ways to re-awaken your awareness of inner wisdom. For now, you might want to try the following:

1. Spend some time in the next few weeks noticing how you function. Are you a “feeling” person? Do you get “gut feelings “about things? Do you tend to react to things with body symptoms? Are you a “visual” person? Do you tend to think in pictures? Are you a “verbal” person? Do you tend to think more in words? Knowing your style will alert you to the ways your inner wisdom will tend to “speak” to you, but remember, even though your inner wisdom may have a preferred way to communicate, you should be open to the other modalities as well. Even if you are not a visual person, try the imagery exercises which will be presented in future newsletter issues. You may be surprised.

2. Spend some time in the next few weeks noticing whether you are already getting messages from your inner wisdom. Some people are unaware that they are already listening to their voice of wisdom. Others are hearing the messages, but have been disregarding them as nonsense. Pay attention to what you feel inside. Be on the lookout for those gut feelings or mental images that come unbidden. Follow the subtle voice that tells you to lie down and rest. The inner voice of wisdom is often a whisper, especially after years of being ignored or disregarded. The more you listen for that whisper, the stronger it becomes.

3. Each day try to take at least two five-minute rest periods in which you tune out the external world and tune into your inner self. Check inside and see what surfaces.

4. Take a look at Judith Orloff’s website. Judith Orloff is a psychiatrist who is also an intuitive. Intuition is one form of inner wisdom that can guide us. Dr. Orloff has included on her website a series of articles on listening to your intuition. Her “Introduction to Intuition” is a good start. Links to her website are in the resource section of my website www.marionbilich.com.