This is Going Inward, a 7-day journey into your inner life.

+ FRAMING TRANSCRIPT

This is Going Inward, a 7-day journey into your inner life. Today is Day 6.

So how do you do it? How do you connect with your inner Spirit?
On the most essential level, only you can answer that.
The very essence of what brings us here, is that you carry the capacity to form an intimate, personal connection with Spirit,
and that relationship is yours alone.

What I’m here to do is offer some suggestions that I hope will be helpful in forming and deepening that relationship.
My first suggestion is to remember that the Spirit side of the connection is always open.

Your inner divinity is always present, constantly attentive, and totally dependable, so you never have to worry that Spirit won’t show up.

In regular relationships, other people can sometimes bail when things get hard -- and we can too.

We’re not always dependable because we’re in progress, we’re growing and we’re learning.

But the Spirit we carry is whole and replete and will always show up -- especially when things get hard.

It is Spirit’s nature to be a true friend and partner.
Our capacity to love and be loved comes from our Spirit core.
So if you imagine the most trustworthy, loving, compassionate, openhearted, loyal friend, the closest confidante you could have, all of that and more is what Spirit is to you.

But you might be asking, why can’t I just connect? If Spirit’s right there, why is this so hard?
Well, first of all, you’re right.
It is hard.
And the reason it’s hard is that we are physical, we’re biological creatures, we’ve evolved from animals, and yet we’re indwelt with this divine Spirit within our minds.

So it takes real effort, and practice, for us to expand the borders of our consciousness to make contact with Spirit.
If you choose to accept this challenge, I imagine you’ll be working on it your whole life.

And I suspect that you’ll find, the more you do it, the more you will be able to access that place of inner Spirit presence. And not only that, but you’ll come to crave it and rely on it as you move through your days.

The assurance of the presence of Spirit, as a partner and a friend, is one of the most profound and peaceful experiences there is.
So don’t worry if each day and each season is different from the next. Sometimes you might feel intense connection, and other times you might feel quite disconnected and far away.

This is all part of the journey, and all that matters is that you keep showing up.
Keep opening the human side of the connection.
And say to Spirit, I’m here, you have my attention, I’ve come to spend time with you.

Confide in Spirit as you would in a friend, share what’s on your heart.

And take time to listen and receive.
This relationship, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, is different from other relationships, and listening in this relationship is different too.

In this inner conversation, you are most likely to feel a response from Spirit as a feeling in your heart, or an insight in your mind, or a discovery of a possibility you hadn’t considered before.

The voice inside your mind is your own, and by partnering with Spirit, more and more you’ll begin to discover a truer expression of your voice, one grounded in the truest part of you.

+ EXPERIENCE TRANSCRIPT

Confiding

Welcome back.

As we reenter the inner world today, I want you to know that this place is always available.
You can always come back here
and your experience will be different every day.
Some days you might feel really open and receptive and amazed by the powerful things that happen.

Other days you just might not have it in you,
or you might really try and feel like you can’t get in, no matter what you do.
All of that is totally natural.

Just breathe for a moment and arrive in this inner space.
Acknowledge your mind.
Acknowledge your heart.
Acknowledge your inner Spirit.
These are all parts of you.
It’s totally natural that you would have constant access to yourself, and that you would feel different and experience differently throughout the day and the week,
throughout your life.
So try not to feel pressure around this practice we’re developing.
Try it, try it again, see what you encounter, see what holds you up, and then do your best to let it go until the next time.

Let’s enter that mind space again.
Take time to arrive.
There’s room for you here, plenty of room for the fullness of your experience.
No one else can see you
and no one else can judge you.
Our sole focus in here is on deepening your capacity to feel loved from within.

Over time, we’ll focus on letting that love expand within you and then through you, which will affect the way that you are in the world. But there’s plenty of time for that.

For now, just keep breathing and become aware of your inner life.
Open yourself to the world that exists within you.
Today we enter this world seeking spirit insight.
I love this word “insight” - literally, seeing from within.
The loving Spirit at your core is where you can source the power to see from within.

Let’s come now into Spirit’s presence.
Today, when you greet your inner Spirit, also express something about your longing to know Spirit better.

Invite Spirit in to inhabit your mind and your life more fully.
You might say something like, “Come in.”
“I want to know you better.”
“I want to learn to love you as much as you love me.”
Just take a moment to say whatever feels right to you, silently or out loud.

This is the most intimate relationship you’ll ever have, because Spirit knows everything about you, having shared every aspect of your experience for your whole conscious life.
This is the place where you can bring your deepest trust and greatest confidence.

Today, briefly, we’ll again practice confiding in Spirit.
So as we did last time, I invite you to share something that’s on your heart.
This time, make it something that’s really real for you right now, really alive, in the sense that it’s hard or confusing or new, and you don’t know what to do about it.

So, for the next 90 seconds or so, share that with Spirit -- silently or out loud.

Share what’s on your heart.

Good.

Now I invite you to just relax, and open yourself to receive.
Your inner spirit carries wisdom and love and strength.
Your inner spirit is the source of your creative power.
The more you come into this space, the more you will begin to receive insight into the most challenging aspects of your life,
and we’ll practice receiving over time.
For now, just take a full minute to relax into Spirit’s presence.

Good.

Notice if anything is arising in you, any new ideas or possibilities. If not that’s okay.
If so, maybe take moment to jot them down for later.

Let’s end in a moment of gratitude.
For the magnitude of what indwells you, and therefore, who you are.

Nice work today.