Internal Guidance System - Tuning Into the Part of You That Has All the Answers

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want or what's important to them. See, I'm here to cut through all that noise, connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to slave away at a corporate job that I hated, but I broke through the social norms and pursued my passion. As a result, I own my own coffee company, I'm Espresso sommelier, and I get to travel the world. You, too, can live a life that you love, but it starts with getting clear about what you want. It starts with a new decision. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life, your internal guidance system. Each one of us has an internal guidance system that points us in the direction that of our happiness, points us in the directions of our purpose, points us in the direction of what feels good. Right? I was listening to another podcast, the Mindset Mentor, and he proposed something about the meaning of life. And he said something along the lines of, the meaning of life is to have an experience. Because at any given moment, we're always having experience. So the idea is that in any moment, you can choose your own experience. You can choose to see which frame you see the world. And how you choose the frame or the frame you choose determines how you feel and how you progress forward. So that is somewhat related to what we're going to go in today. Today we're going to talk about how do you use your internal guidance system to pursue the life that you were meant to live, pursue the things that make you happy, and do all those things that you want to do in life? But before we go there, we have to know, well, what gets in the way of us pursuing our, you know, going down our path? What gets in the way of us from being happiness, experiencing the liveliness of maybe that travel, you know, booking that vacation, or starting that new career? There's three things I'm going to talk about. So the first is just distraction, you know, spending too much time on your phone, on social media, these things that constantly put you in a state of fear. Fear and a state of comparison. Secondly, let's talk about habitual living. When you get in that mode of doing the same thing over and over, sometimes it's very, very hard to break free from that. And the last of those holding you back is the shoulds. The shoulds are usually shoulds of other people, right? Like, you've been given this set of beliefs, a set of values, saying, oh, you should get Married by a certain time. You should feel like shit once you turn 40, because you know what? You're getting old. And, yeah, you put on weight. You should, you should, you should. So we're going to address those, but then go into how do you really, really connect deeply? And how to connect deeply is going to be several things. One, you get quiet. Two, you ask your. You ask a question. You ask your heart to guide you. And then secondly, you follow your emotions. I was on the subway yesterday. I was going into New York City to have a health procedure done. And on the subway, it was funny. I was just standing up, watching everyone as they sat there. And nearly every single person had their cell phone out. There was a guy next to me who I was just peering over shoulder, just curious. I said, well, what is he looking at? Right? He's on his phone and he's looking, you know, he's swiping back and forth on his home screen where all the icons are, and he's moving back and forth. And then he looks, opens his messages, no new messages, scrolls up, scrolls down, closes it out, goes back into it, scrolls up down, closes it out, goes into his contacts, scrolling through his contacts. And I was like, what the hell is he doing? What is he looking? What is he looking for? Very likely that he wasn't looking for anything. It was just the mind being addicted to being stimulated. So he had to do something. He couldn't just sit there and be on that subway. Across from him was a girl who was literally. You saw the finger swiping up, up, up and rolling. There's no way she could even possibly view anything that was on her screen because she was scrolling so fast. Why I mention this is because there's this habitual need to always be doing something, right? And when you have this, when you feel like you need to be doing something, you have to catch yourself, because it is because of that need that what you want in your life is absent because you're living a distraction. Your mind can't focus on what it is you want because it's too busy focusing on the nonsense you're looking at on your phone. So your phone is your biggest distraction. Secondly, let's talk about habitual living. There were times where, I mean, I have to be something. I have to be very conscious of my own life where I need to get out of the house more frequently. Sometimes I will start doing work and I will literally sit at my desk and I will not move from my desk. This was especially true after Covid. I had spent so Much time, you know, in my room doing stuff alone that when it came time to go out, it actually felt awkward. I would find myself when things opened up and I can go back to the gym. I'm like, all right, I'm going to go to the gym at 1 o'. Clock, 2 o' clock comes around and I am still home. I'm dressed for the gym, but I'm literally walking around the house. It's like, what am I doing? You know, I know what I had to do, but it was almost like I didn't want to get out of the house. And I was using the COVID example. That's an extreme example. But even maybe going out to a new place to meet new friends or a social gathering, I would find myself doing that same thing. It was like in a way, like self sabotaging because I'm like, alright, no, that's too new. Let's stay in lines here, right? We don't want to do anything crazy. And so those are the things, like the distracted mind, the shoulds. The shoulds are things that are put on by your parents, the people around you, society. I had heard something very, very interesting. They said the shoulds are usually some societal contract that was made up by someone who believed in something. And more often than not, they're probably dead. So the idea that, oh, bringing up my Catholic background, no eating meat on Friday. What's the reason behind it? Where does it say that? No, you have to get married by the time you're 30. Really? Says who? Or you have to have children by such and such a day. I know there's a biological clock in women, but some women have births. I know someone who's had births, birth in their 50s. It's not that it's impossible, but these, what I want to address is these shoulds that are saying you have to live your life in a certain construct because it's just not true. And the only thing it's doing is it's putting stress on you. So how do you get out of that? Right? How do you, how do you find what it is that's really pulling you forward? Take everything I said. You can apply it to any way, any part of your life, any aspect of your life. But when I speak to you here, I am specifically speaking to the things that you want to do, the things that will bring you the most joy and happiness. I'm talking about like those trips or even just taking the moment to go outside and watch the sunrise or the sunset, or take a coffee break with a Friend, right? These are the small moments that mean so much and have such an impact on your day and the way you feel. But yet how often do you literally just brush them off because you're like, ah, yeah, I don't have time for that. It is the little things that matter. But let's talk about those big things. Often I hear people say, well, oh, my God, you live the life. You know, I travel. I am fortunate to travel quite a bit. But it was a choice that I made. It was a choice in how I, you know, my living arrangements, how I set up my business. You know, it's not always easy, but it comes down to a choice. And what I want to tell you right now is there's an internal guidance system that is always guiding you as the decisions you should make. When you go against that guidance system, that's hell, that's when you feel pain. So the internal guidance. Let's get into. So internal guidance is tuning in, right? Tuning into this inner sense of knowing. How do you tune into that? The first thing you have to do is you have to quiet. You must do. I should say not have to. You must do is you have to quiet your mind. In the quiet of the mind, the heart speaks. Have you ever, going back to what I mentioned, that one of the things that holds you back or prevents you from seeing it, the distraction, the fear, the comparison. How does your mind feel? When you're swiping through Instagram and you're looking at all the people who are having. Looks like they're having this ideal life, what does your mind do? You're like, oh, my God, well, why don't I have that life? Oh, my God, she's over. She's traveling again. I haven't traveled in a while. And you literally, your mind starts to race. Or if you turn on the news, oh, war again. Oh, someone is doing something. Treason, insider trading, whatever it may be. All of a sudden, now, your mind is in the state of fear. And in a state of fear, your mind is going to do what it does best, which is preserve you, protect you. It shuts out everything else, shuts out all possibility, all creativity. But if you look around you, the world's not really a bad place. There are some wrong things with the world, but if you're honest with yourself, it's really not that bad. If you turn on the news, sides are literally throwing propaganda at one another, and it's all to keep you tuned in and tuned out of your own life. So silence. Your mind is number one. You can do silence your mind by going into prayer, going for a walk in nature, meditating. Number two is to follow your emotions. I was, well, with my friend Cynthia. We went out to dinner for my birthday, and I was telling her about different opportunities for. For me to move in. Telling her that. I was telling her the shoulds as to why I feel like, like man. But if I make this decision, what happens? And she goes, no, you have to. The only thing you owe yourself is to follow your heart, is to follow the motion. If that is what you're being called for, that is what you must do. Where do your emotions literally light up? Like, where do you. When you talk about an opportunity, when you talk about a trip, when you talk about something that you want to do, you literally light up. And people can. If they were to look at your face, they can see the excitement in your face. What happens after that? Do you normally then dump yourself, like all that you should all over yourself? Do you do that afterward? And then just kind of, you know, you put your dreams, you tuck them in a little box somewhere and like deep in your drawer where it'll. Once in a while it'll resurface again, but you won't think about it for a while. I want you to know that those extreme, those moments when you feel the attention, you want it, that is your internal guidance system. Say, that is what I want. Go in that direction. You must follow it. You owe it to yourself. Coincidentally, the night before that, I had a dinner with another friend. I was sharing this same predicament, or I would say that, you know, the same conflict that I was having. And she goes, well, listen, you know, and then this is. This is the one that I feel like is almost most simple because when you ask the question, it always gives you an answer. She goes, tune into your heart. This is my friend Jen. She goes, tune into your heart. What is your heart telling you, right? And then when you actually stop, you feel it, right? Then all of a sudden the mind is like, hey, wait, what are you doing? You know, like, your attention's on me and it starts doing the mind dance, right? But then also when you tune in here, quiet comes, guidance comes, and the answer will arrive as well. So I hope that I gave you three different methods for just starting to use your internal guidance system. So I'll end it with a few questions like, what is it that you're. What is it that you want? Right? What is. Where do the emotions. Where do your emotions stir in the positive sense, right? Where do you feel excited, joyous, playful. You get happy about the possibility, anticipation, like, what things do you speak about that stirs those emotions? Secondly, that thing that you've been questioning, that, that thing that's been keeping you on the fence, if you were to literally just put your hands over your heart, take a deep breath in, feel your heartbeat, and say, where is my heart guiding me? What is the answer you get? And then the last thing to do is just to take action on it. You can't. I. You can't always take that exact action at that time, but you can start to take steps. And step by step will move you in that direction. Things will unfold, people will appear to guide you. It's one of the things that I feel that has prevented me in the past of making a lot of decisions, because I was always. It was literally burn the bridge for me. Meaning, all right, I have to do it exactly, like right now, otherwise I'm not going to do it. And it's worked for me because by burning the bridge, AKA making a decision in which you couldn't turn back, it forces you in that one direction. But the, the decisions or the actions don't always have to be so extreme, right? So me moving down to Florida, right? If I'm like, you know what, screw this, I'm leaving tomorrow, what happens? Yes, I'm there. But now all of a sudden, you know, the business that I created is not. It's not ready for me to move and the customers just. It would be premature and irresponsible of me to just drop and go like that. But, well, how can. Plus plus finding a place, right? But again, it's different for everybody. You follow your comfort level, you follow what feels right to you, because only you know what you need to do in order to make that thing happen. Maybe it is that drastic change. Maybe you just say, you know what, let's sever it off right now. I know exactly what I want. Go for it. By all means, go for it, guys. I want you to live the most passionate expression of your life. That is the intention of this podcast. Yeah, it's a little bit of personal growth. It's my own experiences in the world, but really it's to awaken that desire in you to want to live a more full life, to really step out, because there's so much more beyond the day to day that you experience it. And when you get out into the world, when you have new experiences, just touching again on the habitual living, when you have new experiences, that is when the guidance system kicks in. Because all of a sudden, now you're giving it the opportunity. You're giving the universe the opportunity to guide you. It can't guide you if you're sitting in your room all day. You need to be out around people. You need to be stepping in the direction of where you want to go. That is all I've got for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please give it a thumbs up. Share it with a friend if you think that it would benefit them. And if you would, please subscribe because that is how we grow our listener base. So share it, subscribe. And thank you so, so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode. God bless and I will see you again. And remember, you only get one life. Live it. Thank you so much.