Openings Within

Things are stirring within me. Are there Openings within?

 Inner and Outer Life

 In Opening Blog, we often focus on Openings in our outer life – responses to changes and challenges we face, a new job, a geographic move, relationships. We have a rich inner life too – emotions, perspectives, anxieties, love, fear, confidence. It makes sense that our inner lives would offer Openings to us, as the purpose of Openings is to move us forward both inside and out.

Our inner lives can be rich ones. Creating that life can involve reflection, learning to enjoy our own company, learning more about ourselves, connecting honestly and authentically with others, nurturing our creativity and more. Our inner lives involve our psyche and consciousness – both can be shrouded in mystery, if we do not explore them.

Acknowledging the presence of inner and outer Openings serves us. It makes us whole so that we can move forward with all of ourselves. It is the essence of power. Inner and outer Openings fuel and enhance each other. Awareness and attention to both allows us maximum advantage. Why go only halfway when you are being beckoned to go the distance? 

Inner and Outer Balance

I was taught that walking in balance involves having one foot in the physical and one in the spiritual. This is inner and outer balance. Acknowledging and finding inner and outer Openings supports this balance.

Neglecting our inner life does not serve us. Focusing solely on our outer life disconnects us from our inner selves and the effects of our feelings and emotions. We may see the results of this in physical fatigue, stress or anxiety and not know what is causing these results. Our intuition is put aside and we begin to lose touch with ourselves.

Neglecting our emotions can affect our psychological health. Tough emotions like sadness, grief or disappointment, when suppressed deny an important part of ourselves. These emotions when suppressed can show up in other ways – perhaps depression, hopelessness or numbness to what is around us.

Inner Openings

In the current world, with the change and challenge we are experiencing, inner Openings can be important allies. Going within can get us what we need to make it through the change and challenge. Where are we to look outside ourselves when things are in chaos and the unknown surrounds us? Our inner life can support us with its intuitive wisdom, mastery of emotions and insight.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that the unexamined life is not worth living. There is so much in this perspective. We are not whole without both an inner and outer life. Our journey involves both. Our inner life supports our outer life. Our outer life gives us context and structure.

What of inner Openings? They exist. They could be precipitated by a crisis we experience that we cannot fully cope with in our outer life. We must go within to find the answers we need to make it through the challenge. Or, we could be drawn to our inner selves by an insight we have or the wisdom of another. Inner Openings nurture our inner lives and can give us strength and courage.