All of Your Answers Are Inside of You

“Look Inside yourself; Everything you want, you already are.”

Rumi

When people attend my retreats, I always tell them “all of your answers are inside of you.” I’ve learned through personal experience that this is absolutely true. No one has my answers to my inner-questions except me. I can ask someone for guidance and I can become more aware of the ways in which my Higher Power is speaking to me through other people. But NO ONE-- no other person-- can give me my answers. I have to do the work. I have to go inside of myself and discover the treasure that I have long been ignoring.

This is why I believe Rumi’s statement above is so true: Everything we think we are lacking, we actually have already. We just don’t realize it. And we need to be willing to go inside ourselves and find the answers we need to make our lives whole and complete. It may take us years, but that’s OK. It’s worth it. Every answer we discover, every feeling of self-worth and value we reconnect with makes it worth the effort.

Sadly, many of us long ago lost sight of the fact that we posses all we need to be whole and complete. This happened because we were told by others (mostly adults lacking in self-love and understanding) that we were fundamentally flawed and incomplete within ourselves. And so we were led to believe that we needed others to complete us, to make us OK and to fulfill us. Once we came to believe this tripe, we started the process of always looking outside of ourselves to find our answers and our inner-fulfillment. This has been a lifelong exercise in futility for most of us because no one else can fulfill us or make us OK.

If you are still looking outside yourself for someone to complete you, please STOP! We are all born with everything we need to be complete. We are all equipped by Higher Love to take care of our every inner-need. We are love incarnate and as living-love, we inherently have the power to nurture ourselves with understanding, empathy, compassion, kindness, gentleness and warmth. The more we nurture ourselves with love, the stronger we become in self-understanding, self-worth, self-esteem and self-confidence.

So look inside yourself and start meeting your own inner-needs for love and nurturing. Eventually, self-love will provide you with the ability to compliment, rather than cling to, others. You’ll find you want to share your unique self with others, instead of wanting to fade into everyone else. And you will find that the authentic love you share with others actually comes back to you to compliment and enhance the love you already have for yourself.