How to Listen to That Little Voice Inside

Though no one can go back and make a brand-new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand-new ending.

–Carl Bard aka Carl Sandburg (American writer and editor)

Nearly all of us will not soon forget the name Amanda Gorman from this day forward because she was the star of the show just a few days ago as she read with absolute perfect diction her beautiful and touching poem for the Inauguration. Only twenty-two years old and she had the courage to tackle a dream of hers and present it to the world! We will surely hear and see more of her again. Amazing!

Sure, we may not be shaping our twenties or even thirties any longer, but whether we admit it or not, every single one of us has a dream (or two) we want to fulfill. A dream we have not had the time or courage to study. It is that little voice deep inside our thoughts that has been nagging us since we were born. We really want to make it a part of us because we fundamentally know—we have always known--it is an element of our personality. So, what is holding us back?

Seven Starters for Our List

Many issues, incidents, circumstances, and even ourselves (lack of confidence, procrastination, etc.), have derailed and prevented us from seeking our best path. Of course, life itself may very well have gotten in the way. It is certainly a full-time job, for instance, raising a family and an honorable one at that. Hats off to every one of us! As single-again women, we can recognize that along the way, there were unavoidable difficulties, dilemmas, and drawbacks. Whew! But we made it!

Since we cannot actually “go back” and reproduce our life, we agree with Carl Bard that the best place to begin is now! Forget the “age” number—it is a non-issue at this point. Twenty-two-year-olds are not the only poets out there. We have plenty of reasons to get back on track especially if we have not ever attempted to fulfill that dream of ours.

There are at least seven steps to adopt and get started on the path to “now.” Some of these may be familiar and already a part of our plans, so stay with us and see how far they can take us. Pick and choose what works for you. It is not required to do all of these! Also, feel free to add your own ideas as we go along.

1. Some people enjoy creating a “vision” board. It is a visible picture that can serve as daily encouragement. Use poster board or similar and start pasting photos that have been cut out of magazines relating to your dream.
2. Journaling is another way to get those creative thoughts out of our brains and onto concrete possibilities. It easily becomes addictive and feels like we are on the right path.
3. Research the subject of your dream on-line or at a library (if one is open during this pandemic). Find out what it will take to get started. Or go on Amazon for a book to keep as a reference (see Resources below).
4. Once the subject is settled in our brain, it is extremely helpful to subscribe to an actual print copy (our favorite) or at the very least, a You-Tube channel about the subject.         
5. If there is one available, sign-up for a class to learn as much as possible about the subject, and meet others doing the same. We all need a type of support group for encouragement.
6. 
   This is important: take care of yourself in the process! Find just one little way a week to improve on physical “movement.” Notice we did not say, exercise. That is a word that will stop us in our tracks. Any kind of movement (making the bed, gardening, walking indoors or outdoors, using stairs, etc) will keep our brains from getting old before their time (look it up, it is proven)!     
7. Resources. Start building your own personal library. Try these books for starters:

• What Color is Your Parachute? (2021 by Richard N. Bolles)
• Do What You Are (Paul D. Tieger)
• Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2^nd Half of Life (Marc Miller)

 Are We on the Right Path?

Now that we are on our way and have a starting point, let us not allow anyone to stop us. We have already been there, done that! What we need, instead, is a good guide just like many travelers consult when they begin a long and complicated journey.

The one guide who is readily available 24/7 is the same God who created the entire Universe—the sun, moon, rainbows, planets, and every single star that he loved so much he gave each of them a name! He is the ONE who knows us inside and out. He gave us a purpose for a purpose and is thrilled we want to begin right now!

How could he not be our perfect guide?

The Lord is good and does what is right; he shows the proper path to those who go astray (Psalm 25:8 NLT).

For that is what God is like. He is our God forever and ever, and he will guide us until we die (Psalm 48:14 NLT).

 

How to Listen to That Voice Inside

“One early morning around three o’clock as my husband and I was sleeping soundly, our four-year-old son somehow managed to unlock our front door and leave the house on an adventure! He walked all the way down our neighborhood block by himself in the dark.

“Eventually, he turned around and started back but got confused about which house was ours. Thankfully, he ended up in the yard of our next-door neighbors and tried to ride one of the bicycles left outside by their children that day making plenty of noise in the process. Several minutes later we were awakened by a loud knocking on our door.

“Being cautious, we didn’t want to open the door to a stranger in the middle of the night. So, we yelled through the door, ‘Who is it!?’ Our neighbor said to open the door because she had our son with her! ‘No way. That’s not possible,' I said. 'He’s asleep in his bed.’ Her voice (which I then recognized) came back with a panicked shout, ‘OPEN THE DOOR NOW!’

“Finally, we were convinced and opened the door. There stood our son in his pajamas, happy as could be. When questioned, he said he just wanted to find his new bicycle. We discovered that night what sleep-walking can do even to a child. And we were grateful for the wisdom of a good neighbor who listened to her own intuition in the middle of the night.” [B.C. 1973]

Possibilities and Imagination

Has that ever happened to anyone else? No, maybe not that same situation, but something that caused us to stop and listen to what’s going on in our minds. A moment when we are not sure what to do, but suddenly something tells us to turn around and go a different way or to stop and speak to that person we hardly know but who ends up helping us in a sticky situation.

Sometimes our thoughts, or intuition, will lead us into believing something is possible or likely. In fact, our gut feeling may have prompted us exactly like that when we finally made the decision to start a new single-again life. We saw it as a possibility. It may not have been our decision to begin with but slowly we listened to our own thoughts and started planning our future with some imagination.

No matter which stages we are in right now—shock, denial, fear, possibility, or I-can-do-this attitude—the fact remains, life goes on with or without us. So, let’s not get left behind and buried in the chaos of the past. Creating a life of peace and joy may be difficult, yes, but oh, so very worth it!

Welcome the Voice Inside

We all have voices inside from the time we are born. They direct us to choose right from wrong, truth from lies, friends from enemies, and harmony from pandemonium. The main question is then, how can we learn to recognize and separate the voices playing tug-of-war in our heads?

Maybe, just maybe, training our ears to accept the most decent and honorable paths will bring us our best life. To begin, we need to develop practices and patterns to help us stay on track, and then they will just become second nature to us. Try these one at a time and keep adding to them.

Comfort… life can be scary much of the time depending on which direction the world is going and, more importantly, how we respond to it. But there is one sure way we can practice this life-giving habit. Every morning open this amazing book called the Holy Bible and spend just a bit of time reading and listening to the heavenly voice of God. He will direct our best path.      

Trust… humanly speaking, it is difficult to trust just anyone. We know this from our previous relationship(s). But we can build better, more trustworthy friendships if we try.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! you too? I thought I was the only one.’” [C.S. Lewis]

In the end, we need to remember, God is the only One whom we can put our faith in 100 percent of the time.

Prayer… Nothing we try will be more important than developing a habit of prayer. Many people don’t realize it’s not necessary to be inside a church building to pray or memorize a long, drawn-out prayer by rote.

In fact, the best thing about prayer is it’s simply a conversation with God. Since He is everywhere all the time, He can hear us speaking to Him and we don’t need any special words. Even just a one-line request, “Help me, God, to do well in this interview” is enough for Him to answer.      

“Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, ‘This is the way you should go,’ whether to the right or the left” (Isaiah 30:21 NLT).

That's Not Who You Are Anymore

Lost bottle in the ocean

It's hard to say what we were thinking about in second grade. Our memory may not be that sharp any longer. But Laura Terry may not soon forget her second-grade science experiment.  

In 2017, Terry and her classmates were studying ocean currents and thought they could test it out by placing messages in bottles, sealing them, and sending them out to sea from their town of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Terry never expected anything to happen to her bottle except that it would sink. Nearly two years later, her bottle was found on Doohoma Beach in western Ireland! [Ann Smajstria, Cox Media Group]. 

A grandmother in Ireland walking on the beach found Terry's bottle with a note inside and subsequently wrote to the girl at her school. Out of 70 bottles sent out, five have been found including one in Portugal and three in France. Wow! What an amazing science lesson.

That’s Not Who You Are

In today's culture though, we are nearly buried in electronic message sites like the top five Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and SnapChat to name but a few! Of course, good ole email and texts are still available. A message in a bottle, though, is so much more romantic, wouldn't you say? (Who can forget Kevin Costner, Robin Wright, and Paul Newman in the Message in a Bottle movie?). 

But today's blog is not about the internet. Whew! We are sliding back down out of the clouds and trying to figure out our role as a single-again woman and how we can go about changing our communication methods. Because what worked in our past may not work in our new world anymore.

We've come through one of the worst experiences of our lives. The good news is we've made it to the other side and are still intact. Congratulations! So now what do we do? In some cases, especially if we have young children, we may unavoidably have to face our former spouse and possibly former in-laws every now and then. 

Of course, when that happens, we can rage, scream, and freak out but hopefully, that's not who we are now. Yes, it's been a whirlwind of decisions, decisions, and more decisions heaped on our shoulders. It could make anyone feel like a witch from the movies. So, one more time, let's say it out loud, that's not who we are anymore.

Five Messages to Start Your Plan

Did someone say Relax?

If you are serious about becoming a better communicator, then grab a notebook and take down some ideas (no, you are not going to send it out to sea):

--Breathe. Make it a goal several times each day to deeply inhale/exhale. Amazing how good this feels.

--Relax. Of course, this goes along with breathing. Shoulders down!

--Plan. If you know the upcoming situation, practice what you will say.

--Listen. Ask questions and find out what the other person really wants (hint: address only one subject at a time, not your entire past).

--Speak with confidence. If you have never tried it, think of joining the Toastmasters organization. Nearly every city in the country has a club. 

These are only but a few, so go ahead and research it and then keep adding to your list above. You've got this! 

Never Stop Learning

Have you ever said Someone needs to write a book about this? Well, Someone did. He is God Himself and He knows exactly how you feel past, present, and even your future. Really. The Bible is His book written just for you. Most Bibles today have a section in the back called Index or Concordance. You can look up any number of topics such as “Speech,” “Confidence,” “Change,” and “Listening.” Careful though, you may not be able to put it down!           

"All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right" (2 Timothy 3:16 NLT).