Being Substantial
I practiced all the arts of apology, evasion and invisibility, to

which procrastinators must sooner or later be reduced.

Maria Edgeworth "To-Morrow" (1804)

When we court a strong relationship with our intuitive guidance we must be prepared to acknowledge our attachment to premises that are counter-productive.

There is a part of us that fears and avoids change, emotional discomfort, visibility, vulnerability and the unknown. We want to be right, sure, safe and free from pain. We wish that we could findsome way to reap all of life's benefits and avoid any of the prices. We could call this our survival instinct.

We are alerted with feelings of alarm whenever our physical, mental or emotional safety or security seems at risk.

When we expect perfection from ourselves we become hypervigilant and use our instincts to scan our performance for flaws, cracks in our armor or potential problems that could leave us exposed and vulnerable. We use our energies to produce a constant stream of judgments about how we are measuring up. Are we good and right or bad and wrong? Are we better than or less than? Are we winning or losing the image game?

Opening to our intuitive message system can only be accomplished when we are willing to shift our focus from overprotectiveness of our established and tested image to a curiosity about who we are today. The door marked intuition is opened by a willingness to allow our feelings ample room to express themselves without being snuffed out the second they don't comply with our notions of how we are supposed to feel. Talking about love and peace when neither love nor peace is in our hearts is a cunning and evasive deception of the facts.

'I should and I have to' think and feel in a certain way, stunts our emotional expression and keeps us frozen in a prepackaged life that is numbed out and deadened to the unpredictable and juicy aspects of our daily realities.

Why would we want to risk the upset and discomfort that unruly emotions bring to a perfectly modulated life? The answer is that we probably won't want to take that risk unless we have a deep desire to be a person of substance.

Becoming substantial is a desire that often forms out of the rubble of the perfect life turned disaster. Those of us who wished, hoped, dreamed and planned to be perfect and have the perfect life, if we are lucky, get gifted with a second chance to build a life that is real rather than perfect. When we become fed up with apologizing for who we are and tired of evading the depth of our pain and discomfort, we start the process of becoming visible to ourselves.

The narrow judgments that we have used to muffle our inner voice and cripple our emotional intelligence begin to melt away. What surfaces is an awakening of our true heritage. We accept that it is our responsibility to create a quality life for ourselves.

We begin to securely anchor our thoughts and feelings to intrinsic core values that serve to motivate us to seek out and affirmlife-giving choices.

We give up procrastinating and finally decide to jump into the ring of life willing to be visible, vulnerable, vibrant and fierce with reality.

Susan McNeal Velasquez offers mentoring seminars on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Reservations are currently being accepted for upcoming groups. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com for additional information. You can reach Susan at: (949) 494-7773 or E-mail: SusanVelas@ aol.com.