Your Emotions Are a Gateway
An Excerpt* from
Follow Your Internal Guidance to Optimal Healthy, Happiness, and Satisfaction
By
Zen Cryar DeBrücke
One of the ways I discovered to bypass the craziness of the mind — all the doubt
and worry and fear that come up in response to the guidance you get from your
IGS — is to go through the door of your emotions. I use emotions as a gateway to
help people clear out their obsolete yellow yield signs. As I noted earlier,
when we feel an emotion, we are experiencing a biochemical reaction produced by
the mind, and the emotion may or may not be true. This biochemical reaction is
very often based on historical evidence that your mind has created — that you
have a reason to be fearful, that you have a reason to be angry, that you’re in
love, that you’re happy, or that you’re disappointed. There are all kinds of
ways in which our minds induce this biochemical feedback or emotion in our
bodies, and they are based on stories from our past — on what we believe we’ve
seen, heard, and felt, especially concerning the behavior of the people who
raised us.
Very often our emotions are actually not in alignment and so do not open us.
Instead, they were first triggered when we were younger and misinterpreted those
thoughts that closed us. Your mind hijacks the sensation of closing (worry,
fear, anxiety, and stress) and combines it with its own fabricated evidence to
make you believe that it knows what the future holds. It pro-jects as fact what
it thinks is going to happen. But in reality, it’s running a habitual program
that is repeated over and over in similar situations. If you have done the
“Discovering Your Closing Themes” practice on page 80, then you already know
that repeating thoughts are currently operating in your life.
The practice I’d like you to try now is to write out your feelings. Any time
you’re having an emotional experience — whether it feels positive or negative
according to your mind — write what you’re feeling. Use the list of emotions
provided on page 97 to help you isolate more precisely what you are feeling.
Most people are unaware of how they feel, or they have a limited emotional
vocabulary. In order to boost your emotional vocabulary, use the list. I
recommend that you copy it from this book, or you can go to
www.yourinnergps.org/emotionslist and download the list so that you can post it
in several places for reference. The office, fridge, bathroom, and nightstand
are good; your car, purse, and wallet are some other great places to access it
quickly. When you’re in the midst of, or just over, an emotional experience, sit
down with a piece of paper, look at the list, and write out the top three things
you’re feeling, such as “I’m feeling frustrated, I’m feeling disappointed, I’m
feeling hurt.”
Then write out why you’re feeling those three emotions. Just let your mind tell
you the story of why you feel the way you do. You don’t have to make it a long
story. In fact, it is best if it’s just one or two sentences long.
“I’m feeling disappointed because this project was canceled, and it was very
important to me. I’m feeling frustrated because it seems to me as if my manager
is pulling out the projects that I really enjoy, and he seems to be doing it on
purpose. I’m feeling hurt because I work very hard in this world and yet I don’t
seem to get the recognition or the rewards that I deserve.”
The next step — and this is where your IGS comes into play — is to drop into
your listening and read back to yourself each of the emotions/stories that you
have written. Notice whether you are open or closed with each emotion and story.
What I have observed is that very often a negative emotional experience gets
combined with a sense of closing caused by your IGS. This means what you’re
thinking is not true. The thoughts that prompted the closing, if continued, will
not bring you to a happy resolution. If you don’t get to the bottom of your
thoughts and understand what is closing you, then your mind can actually drive
you into a situation you don’t want. Keep this in mind: when you get upset, you
can use your emotions as a signal that it’s time to stop and check your IGS.
One thing you’ll discover in doing this exercise is that some of those
statements will open you. I’ll use the previous example to demonstrate how this
may happen. You may get an opening sensation when you say you are disappointed;
even though you feel disappointed, you will feel open. Then, when you tell your
story about feeling frustrated, you will be closed. What closes you is the claim
that the manager is specifically taking projects away from you. The closing
means your manager is not undermining you on purpose, so you can drop that line
of thinking and move on.
The feeling of disappointment, then, is authentic for you, and you can own it:
“I have a right to be disappointed. The sensation of opening I feel when I make
this statement tells me that disappointment is an authentic emotion in this
case.”
Do this exercise with positive emotions as well. You may be shocked at how many
times you’re really excited about something while guidance from your IGS is
actually telling you that it is not going to happen or is not true.
So it’s equally important to say, “I feel hopeful, I feel excited, and I feel
joyous.” Then write, “Okay, why am I feeling hopeful?” and answer this question.
For example: “I’m feeling hopeful because, for the first time, I’m being
recognized by the particular person I’ve been wanting to notice me for a very
long time.” Ask and answer the same question about feeling excited: “Why am I
excited? I’m feeling excited because this person is noticing me, so maybe they
want to date me. I’m totally attracted to them and know this is going to
happen.” Then look at feeling joyous: “I feel joyous because they could possibly
be my soul mate.”
Now once again drop into your listening and check your emotions and stories via
your IGS. You may feel an opening at the thought that this person has been
noticing you, but you may close when you think this means you will begin dating.
Go through each statement, one at a time. “This person is noticing me.” Open.
Then look at the next part of the statement: “Maybe they want to date me.”
Closed. Oh, that’s not why they’re paying attention to me. “They could possibly
be my soul mate.” Closed. You feel tightening, or anxiety, in your chest.
Maybe the scenario above seems far-fetched to you, or maybe it sounds exactly
like what your mind does to you. Either way, we all have situations where our
minds make up instant stories and then, immediately after that, invent
ramifications for our future, whether positive or negative. This type of thought
process happens so quickly that we often miss it. Then we begin living the story
as if it were real, and our lives can go off track for a bit. One purpose of
your IGS is to clear out all the fictitious stories that your brain generates.
This allows you to be very clear and effective in your life. One way to find the
stories that close you is to do the following practice to address your emotions.
*Excerpted from the book Your Inner GPS:
Follow Your Internal Guidance to Optimal Health, Happiness, and Satisfaction.
Copyright
©
2016
by Zen Cryar DeBrücke.
Reprinted with permission from New World Library.
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR:
What do you mean
when you talk about the inner GPS. What is it?
It’s a
factory-installed system located between your throat and stomach, which expands
and contracts in relationship to what you’re thinking. It gives you information
on whether your thoughts are taking you closer or farther away from happiness
and satisfaction in your life.
I call it the Internal Guidance System or IGS
for short. When you follow your IGS, your life becomes much easier and more
synchronistic. I’ve taught this to thousands of people and I’ve seen their lives
transform in amazing ways.
What led you to develop the inner
GPS?
In the mid-90s I
stumbled across the term Internal Guidance System. A then little-known couple
named the Hicks were touring the U.S. teaching people about the Law of
Attraction. I remember being intrigued by the material and was quite taken by
their explanation of what they called the Internal Guidance System. I knew that
I felt in my own body what they were describing. In fact, I had been feeling it
all my life.
Although the Hicks talked about the Internal
Guidance System and what it felt like, I wanted more specific teachings about
how it works and how to follow it. Thus began my quest to discover how it could
change my life if I used it every day. The idea that the sensations I felt were
actually guidance from some deeper, wiser part of myself was an exciting and
inspiring thought.
Over the next few years I became skilled at
using my own IGS. Through trial and error, I figured out what got in the way of
me listening to it and made a commitment to see what would happen if I
exclusively followed the guidance it gave me. I discovered that the internal
guidance system has astonishing power in leading us toward fulfillment and
success in every area of life. I was able to use my IGS to untangle all the
messes I got myself into and it opened up opportunities I never dreamt were
possible.
How do you use your IGS?
My IGS helps guide my
life by guiding my thoughts. When I feel an opening in my IGS, I know my
thoughts are accurate and will support my life. When my IGS gives me a closing,
I know my thoughts are inaccurate and I need to shift how I am thinking. Most of
our suffering and pain comes from the way we are thinking about a situation or
our lives.
My IGS also shows me when to hang tough if I
feel like quitting or when things don’t look like they are going to work out. It
also lets me know when to stop moving down an unfruitful path by letting things
go. I have never had so much joy and success in my life as when I began
following the nudging of my IGS.
The IGS controls what I call the flow, which is
how our lives literally flows along. Day after day I get so much done it is
almost mindboggling. Thanks to my IGS, I have what I need just as I need
it. When the time is not right for something to be done, I can feel my IGS
guiding me away from starting the task. I see this as one of the most powerful
unexplored business tools on the planet.
Where does the guidance come
from?
This is one of the
most interesting aspects of the IGS. To be frank, I cannot be completely sure
myself. What I do know is that its guidance is very wise and it seems to know
everything that needs to be taken into account in any situation to have
everything work out for everyone involved. This is still astounding to me, even
though I am used to it by now.
When you begin to follow your IGS, you quickly
realize that it knows things about the past, present and future that your mind
could not possibly know. Your inner GPS understands more about you and your
limiting beliefs and thoughts than your mind can consciously recognize about
yourself.
I encourage my clients and students to explore
their IGS and to decide for themselves where they feel its guidance comes from.
What opens up for me when I ponder this topic is that my IGS is a broader, wiser
and more infinite part of me. It’s my higher Self, Divine Self, the Holy Spirit.
This is referenced in many wisdom traditions from indigenous tribes to world
religions. It is the energy that is running through all of life and is engaged
in all aspects of our Universe. It operates out of space and time so it can see
where our thoughts are leading us and what the ramifications are going to be if
we continue on a particular path. It offers guidance on every aspect of your
life — not just the big things, but the little things too.
Why do we have this guidance
system? What is its purpose?
I was once given a
vision of a pond with reeds all along the edge. A large boulder was thrown
violently into the pond and as the large ripples moved out to the edges toward
the reeds, the reeds stopped the ripples, so that behind each reed was a place
of calm. When a person uses their inner GPS, they become a reed and everything
behind them becomes at peace regardless of what boulders life might throw their
way.
So much of what is causing us pain in the world
today comes from a reaction against our inner experience of our IGS being
closed. We feel this closing as a constriction in our chest, tightness in our
stomach, or lump in our throat. When this occurs and we don’t know how to change
our thoughts and shift our perspective, it leads to misery, anguish, and
suffering.
Sounds like this is very
self-centered. Does the guidance only work for you? By following this, is
someone being selfish?
Your IGS not only
takes your life and purpose into account, but those of everyone around you. When
it gives you guidance, you can trust that it is taking the highest good of all
into account.
It’s pretty incredible, and it works for
everyone this way. I had a student who had a sick relative who she called every
day to see how he was doing. As we were discussing that, she got a closing in
her IGS when she said “I need to call my uncle every day.” When we talked about
it, she said: “I don’t understand. He needs me. He lives alone and he’s sick and
nobody’s there for him. I call him every day just to see how he’s doing and give
him a pep talk.” However, a closing
in the IGS means that what you are thinking is not true and not in alignment for
the greater good.
They talked about it after she got the closing.
She said, “I've been calling you every day, and I haven’t really asked if it’s
okay with you. What do you think?” He replied, “Actually, once a week would be
good, sweetie.” As it turned out, calling him every day was stressful for him.
It made him feel like he needed to be happy when he talked to her, which did
allow him to feel what was real for him in his own process.
It was the closing in her IGS that
allowed them both to come to this conclusion.
Can this work in every area of
your life including relationships, family, health and your inner life?
The IGS works in all
areas of life. I’ve coached people to success in their relationships with
bosses, coworkers, in-laws, and romantic partners as well.
And, don’t be mistaken – the IGS will also
guide you by opening to a thought that’s not particularly positive, but it’s
still true for you. An example would be thinking “I’m going to be laid off” and
getting an opening to that thought, which would allow you to wrap up anything
you want to complete and move into a job search, without falling into fear and
anxiety.
How will the IGS help someone
discover their passion and purpose?
Mahatma Gandhi once instructed his devotees to “be the change you wish to see in
the world.” His point was not to identify the problems of the world and stress
over the shortcomings of humanity. Rather, he advocated an active practice of
embodying the higher qualities of being that each of us desires to see in the
people around us. With the cultivation of your IGS, you have a tool to help you
to “be the change you wish to see.”
Your IGS will open you up to a new perspective
that is different and far more rewarding than the habitual, reactionary one that
most of us perpetuate. By focusing on and following your IGS’s opening
sensations, you align yourself with a source of new solutions from a deeper form
of intelligence that is conscious and creative.
This practice is about bringing sacred
awareness into your every day life. It’s not about being perfect and conscious
all the time; it is about being conscious when you’re not perfect, and being
conscious and present enough to find your opening thoughts to help see you
through. Over time you will increase your level of consciousness and capacity to
remain present to your IGS, and as you do, you will be able to focus on its
opening and move toward divine collaboration with others — collaboration that
leads to the furthering of love, joy, compassion and forgiveness on the planet.
Following your opening thoughts naturally supports you in finding your purpose
and being a part of this collaboration.
Following our IGS sounds a lot like being guided by intuition. Are they
related? If so, how?
Your IGS is separate and different from your intuition. Intuitive messages can
come to a person in numerous ways. One person may be a clairvoyant (sees the
information), while another is clairsentient (simply knows) or clairaudient
(hears messages). The IGS works the same way for every one. It offers guidance
based on what we are thinking. Its purpose is not to send external information
that you need to know. It helps clean up your limiting beliefs and thoughts
while guiding you toward our soul’s purpose. Like our intuition, it does have
access to knowledge that we don’t yet know, which it uses to keep us on track.
But the way it works and it’s purpose is very different. Intuitive people often
have a difficult time getting information about their own lives, but with the
IGS everything it offers is about our own lives.
Zen Cryar DeBrücke
is the author of
Your Inner GPS. She is an
internationally renowned teacher, speaker, and coach whose programs have helped
people all over the world transform their personal and business lives for the
better. Visit her
online at
http://www.zeninamoment.com.