Rethinking Don’t Let Fear Take the Wheel and Steer

In one of my recent posts, I wrote about not letting fear take the wheel and steer and instead to let the Divine take the wheel. As I ponder this further, I don’t think I got it quite right.

I’ve been thinking back to my Getting Still post about the fear based stories our minds tell us and to filter our thoughts with Love to get to the truth. When I think about it now, this filtering process is really about listening to our intuition. And I’m beginning to believe that our intuition is an inner knowing that comes from our connection to the Divine. It’s this inner knowing we must trust to take the wheel and steer because the Divine doesn’t do the driving.

The Divine is our Guide

It’s our co-pilot.

It’s our personal GPS.

The Divine doesn’t seek to control our lives. It allows us to make own our choices, mistakes and blunders. That’s what free will is. It allows us to go off course and like the GPS on our phones, if we listen closely, we can hear it tenderly say, “Re-routing”.

The Divine gently beckons. It knows a better way. It has the roadmap. “Follow me”, it says. In order to do this, we must take our mind’s hands off the wheel and instead listen to the Divine’s guidance. 

But how do we better connect to this guidance so we readily access our inner knowing, our intuition?

Lately, I think the answer to this question has been hitting me over the head.

Meditate, Meditate, Meditate

Over the past few months, I’ve been bombarded with messages to meditate. From book recommendations to Instagram posts, all I keep seeing is meditate, meditate, meditate! Clearly, someone is trying to tell me something. So, I’ve decided to follow these messages and have become more disciplined about a mediation practice.

And I’m noticing that when I quiet my mind, my awareness always seems to settle into my heart space. Then, I came across this quote from Cynthia Bourgeault:

“The heart is not for personal expression but for divine perception.”

Feel your way into Divine Knowing

The heart is the place where we connect to this Divine inner knowing, this guidance, our intuition. It’s not a voice with sound so much as a feeling we have. That’s why the heart is the way to get there.

Because the mind thinks.

But the heart feels.

And we must feel our way into this knowing. When intuition happens, it’s instantaneous. It’s not thought out. It’s felt into. This feeling is often called a gut reaction. We don’t get to our gut from our minds. We get to it through our hearts. It is in this space where we draw upon what Thomas Merton calls “the dawning of divine light in the stillness of our hearts.”

Steering by Divine Guidance

The Divine doesn’t drive. It guides. When we quiet our minds through meditation, we settle into the stillness of our heart space and our connection to the Divine.

From there, we can trust and use the inner knowing guidance we receive to take the wheel and steer.

Shakti Gawain sums it perfectly:

“When the channel is flowing freely in both directions, you are being guided by your higher wisdom, and based on that guidance, you are making choices and creating your world in the highest, most beautiful way.“

Sounds like a lovely way to live, doesn’t it?