Some months back, my tech-loving partner got involved with a group of Nix OS rebels on a mission to save their favorite open source software.
(That’s as deep as my understanding goes, as the politics of technology are far over my head.)
When Olly started having long zoom conversations where he was unusually lit up and enthusiastic, I couldn’t help but notice. I’d stroll by to glimpse the face of a young person wearing pink cat ear headphones.
The topic of their conversation was beyond my ken, but clearly, Olly was enjoying himself.
When I asked who he was talking to, Olly told me it was his new tech friend, Skyler.
So when during a Friends-giving promotion for the PLAY program last November where people could bring along a friend for free, and Olly didn’t have someone to invite, I suggested Skyler.
Olly had no idea if Skyler would be interested in a program like PLAY: Falling In Love With the Game of Business, which had nothing to do with technology, but she showed up, pink cat ears and all, and played.
I discovered that she was a nineteen year-old trans programmer and self-proclaimed “chaos gremlin” who somehow fit with the entrepreneurial misfits inside the IMPACT program.
Something about Skyler stayed with me.
Now, sometimes I don’t know why I say the things I do; I get a feeling and when I speak, interesting things come out. In this particular case, I said:
“Olly, I think we should invite Skyler to visit us in Portugal.”
Olly mentioned it to Skyler, and within a few weeks, she was on our doorstep.
It turns out we had some common elements in our childhood stories, including fundamentalist Christianity and sexual repression. More than that, though, we just enjoyed each other, and I was given the honorary status of the “cool aunt.”
A few weeks and a new IMPACT program went by and I didn’t hear from Skyler. Until one day when Olly called me over to his video call.
“Skyler has something to tell you,” he said.
In her words:
I had been meaning to go to Belgium for a while – decided on the country, rough area, etc. – and even started non-commitally asking people about the process. The problem was, I never hit the trigger. I found myself worrying “what if they reject me?” – but your emails helped me realize that by doing nothing I was as-good-as rejecting myself! That realization encouraged me to start the administrative journey and make my going to Belgium inevitable.
Feedback like this means so much to me. My hope for these emails, my YouTube videos, podcast episodes, and daily conversations with beautiful souls…
…is to help you rediscover your brilliance and create the life you desire by following your inner guidance.
That inner guidance is what nudged me to invite a stranger into my IMPACT community and then my home, and I believe it was also behind Skyler’s willingness to say yes to my invitations and her own desire to move to a new country.
Most people have experienced an inner knowing at some time in their life, guiding them to just the right spot at the perfect time, leading to miraculous and magical possibilities. For many it only seems to kick in with rare circumstances.
The truth is that your inner guidance is always available; you take it with you into everything, including your business.
The reliability of this inner guidance is highlighted in His Dark Materials, the fantasy series I’ve been re-watching.
The young protagonist, Lyra Belacqua, is gifted with a forbidden tool called an alethiometer, a clock-like device with mysterious symbols that always tells the truth.
It takes decades to learn how to decipher the alethiometer’s message, and then only by studying scholarly texts. Lyra has no such education or time, and for her, the tool is meaningless.
Until she discovers the secret to unlocking the alethiometer’s guidance.
She needs to think of a question and then let her mind go blank. Only then can she feel her way to the meaning of the symbols, “like walking down stairs in the dark.”
The alethiometer is a metaphor for the inner compass built into every human.
Your compass provides reliable, real-time guidance that often doesn’t make sense to the intellect, but can always be trusted. It’s best accessed with a quiet mind and understood through a felt sense. The guidance may come as images, words or a feeling of knowing, in whatever language will be understood by you.
Following the guidance of my inner compass leads to surprising and serendipitous adventures, like my connection with Skyler, that couldn’t happen any other way.
Living from this guidance unlocks the creative power of the universe on your behalf to make the difference in the world as only you can.
You don’t need an instruction manual to learn how to use your inner compass because it’s already yours and using it is natural. In the IMPACT membership, you’ll be encouraged to experiment and engage with your guidance, living and choosing in alignment with your truest desires, rather than the stories you may have been taught.
https://www.theawakenedbusiness.com/impactinvite/
Yours in love and play,
Steph
