The inner voice: dare to listen

We must turn away from the cacaphony of the outerworld to hear the inner voice. When we can dare to live its promptings, then we achieve personhood. We may become strangers to those who thought they knew us, but at least we are no longer strangers to ourselves. ~ James Hollis

and

 As someone who never followed another human being – not even the historical man Jesus – the very idea of following some human being or so-called “teacher”, never entered my mind. If one does not know and love God, who can teach this to them? No one!

Those who think they can teach the spiritual life to others are frauds – which is why I have constantly made it clear that I am not a teacher. I have even cut off those I suspect of being dependent on me – cut them off so they could get a spiritual life of their own! It is one thing for people to share their spiritual journeys, but another to mistake another’s for one’s own.  — Bernadette Roberts from Forcing-the-Fit, “A Case of Plagiarism”, page 118

The inner voice. ~~ The above sentiment is true about learning to live well in general whether you’re thinking of things in terms of spirituality or not. For example we would be much better served if we were told by mental health professionals from the very beginning to trust ourselves rather than anyone telling us what to do. Instead, the entire system is fraught with the infantilization of the client…this is (in general) true of both psychology and psychiatry as currently practiced.

Related posts:

Internal Guidance — a piece from Beyond Meds on Mad in America

May we all honor the mystery of our individual paths.

Other posts that features James Hollis:

• We’re not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide example for others…
• We are not meant to be well-balanced, sober servants of collective values…

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