I’m Not the Church Lady | Becoming available

Why do I assume I haven’t been heard when I may be the one not listening?

|||  I’M NOT THE CHURCH LADY from ROSIE KUHN |||

“I wish my guides would talk to me.” “They do.” “No they don’t.” “How do you know?” “Because they’re not telling me what I want to hear.”
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In a Blink of an Eye, Guidance—POOF!
Marcy said to me, “Gee, I wish I could hear my angels and guides speak to me.” Then, within the blink of an eye, she laughed. “Oh, wait! Actually… I hear them all the time. I just ignore and dismiss what they’re saying.”

A few days later, my client Sean said something remarkably similar. He’s navigating his way out of habits and patterns that have guided him for years. It’s uncomfortable. He said, “Rosie, just tell me what to do to get through this agony. I hate it.” I offered him a perspective and a few practices that had supported me and many of my clients. As I was speaking, I noticed his attention drift away. “Sean,” I asked, “what’s going on?” He smiled sheepishly. “Oh… I just dismissed everything you just said. It’s not what I want to hear.” I know that experience well. Like most human beings, I want what I want when I want it. I also want guidance that agrees with my agenda. If what I hear doesn’t match what I was hoping for, it barely registers. Next!

For years I’ve been told that our angels, guides, higher self—whatever language you prefer—are always listening. They know every thought, every longing, every fear, every hope before we even find words for them. If that’s true, why does it so often feel as though no one is listening?

Consensus View of Reality
Perhaps because our attention is almost entirely oriented toward the material world. Consensus reality tells us to trust what can be measured, proven, explained and controlled. Anything beyond that is often dismissed before it even has a chance to be considered.

And if our personal history includes abandonment, trauma or disappointment, trusting anything unseen can feel almost impossible. I understand that. Whether you believe in angels, guides, Source Intelligence, your higher self, intuition, nature spirits, or none of the above, isn’t really the point. The invitation I’m exploring isn’t about what to believe. It’s about what happens when we are open to the invitation to hear differently, see differently, think differently.

For me, the question isn’t whether we’re supported. The question is whether we’re available to acknowledge the support that’s already here—always, everywhere.

When I’m driving through Crow Valley, on my way into town, my mind often begins doing what minds do—planning, worrying, rehearsing conversations. Then, quietly, another voice enters.

Usually it’s only a word or two. “Yes” “No.” “Wait.” Sometimes it’s a perspective I hadn’t yet considered. It’s never loud. It’s never demanding. It’s simply there. It’s the same with synchronicities and with nature. And also with conversations that arrive at precisely the right moment, the books that seem to fall off the shelf, the lightbulb moment of inspiration that never could have been imagined. The support doesn’t come and go. My availability to that support is what comes and goes.

That Other Voice
Of course, another voice wants my attention too. It’s the voice that insists it knows best. The one that yammers and argues, justifies, complains and rationalizes. It’s the one that’s frightened something will be lost if I don’t stay in control. I’ve listened to that voice most of my life. But, these days, I’m becoming better at recognizing its tone. It almost always speaks from fear. It almost always wants something. And, it is never, ever satisfied.

The quieter voice is different. It never shames. It never demands. It never persuades me to act from fear. It simply offers another way of seeing. It creates a space where I know myself to need nothing, for, truth is, I lack nothing! I’m good!

How Do I Know Which Voice to Listen To?
So how do we learn to discern the difference? For me, it begins with becoming more honest. Marcy didn’t suddenly start hearing her guides. She realized she”d been dismissing them. Sean didn’t need more wisdom. He needed to stop arguing with the wisdom he’d already received. I’ve done exactly the same thing. Sometimes I ask a question, receive an answer almost immediately, and then spend the next three days looking for an answer I’d prefer. It’s wonderfully human. For me, the request is this: “Help me see things differently.”

I have a little image in my mind that always makes me smile. Somewhere there’s a Divine Support Operations Center. Mission Control. One angel says, “Hey, Rosie’s sending another request, but I think we answered that yesterday.” Someone in Quality Control checks the file. “Yep. Guidance successfully delivered.” The Morale Officer laughs.”She’s asking the exact same question again.” Everyone nods knowingly—not with frustration, but with affection. As if to say, “We’ve got her. She’ll get it!!”

There are still days when I feel completely alone. Days when I can’t hear anything beyond my own fear. Days when I wonder whether I”ve been forgotten. These are usually the days when my own agenda has become louder than my willingness to receive. It’s when I’ve already decided what guidance should sound like. I’ve already decided what support should look like. I’ve already decided how life ought to unfold. No wonder I can’t hear anything else. The conversation hasn’t stopped. I’ve simply become unavailable.

The Invitation
The invitation, then, isn’t to pray harder. It isn’t even to seek guidance. The invitation is to acknowledge the guidance that’s already here. To relax enough to receive. To loosen my grip on certainty. To release my insistence that life unfold according to my preferences. To notice the bird, the breeze, the sentence I can’t shake, the conversation with a stranger, the quiet knowing that interrupts my certainty with a simple, “Not this way.”

Easy. Right?

A Course in Miracles says, “I need do nothing…. I will be told what to do.” I’ve come to hear that not as passivity, but as trust. My work isn’t to make wisdom happen. My work is to stop getting in its way. Listening becomes a practice. Receiving becomes a practice. Equanimity—a space with no agenda, becomes the atmosphere in which both are possible. Not because miracles are rare, but because they are ordinary. Perhaps support itself is ordinary. Perhaps that guidance and support has accompanied us in wonderful, delightful ways, forever! We’ve just not allowed ourselves to receive it.

I don’t know whether what accompanies me is angels, guides, my higher self, Source Intelligence, nature spirits, or simply the deepest wisdom of my own being. I no longer feel much urgency to solve that mystery.

What I do know is this. When I become quiet… when I relax… when I loosen my grip on needing life to unfold my way… something begins to show up. It shows up through people, through nature, through synchronicities, through unexpected Ah-Ha moments of clarity, through a gentle inner knowing that asks nothing of me except my willingness to hear. Something always shows up! Can I remain available to what shows up? Because…

My availability comes and goes. The conversation, the support, the guidance—that never stops.

Maybe that’s the invitation: Not to become more spiritual. Not to become more certain. The invitation is simply… to remain available.