Compulsion vs freedom. A pausing practice for more peace.
Inner Invitations by Lucy Tierney is a universal wisdom guidebook for nurturing inner balance, healing and freedom. An adventure awaits, as you dare to go within and discover the unique-to-you invitations for growth that arise from your deepest Self.
Compulsion vs freedom. Do you recognise these contrasting energies within yourself?
Lucy Tierney | Author Inner Invitations
Have you noticed how life can get busy and stressful very quickly?
In Chapter Six of Inner Invitations I describe two contrasting inner energy movements - freedom and compulsion.
Can you recognise these energies in yourself?
Do you have an intuitive “felt sense” of how they show up for you?
I’m inviting you now to pause….breathe…..and notice how becoming familiar with the way freedom and compulsion energies operate within you can help you to find more peace in your life.
Exploring compulsion
Compulsion is a driving energy - forceful, insistent, and convinced of its own rightness. The tone of voice is often loud, fast, strident - like a megaphone.
Often accompanied by self-defending rationale and heightened emotion, compulsive energy is vigilant and protective.
Compulsive energy will marshal inner resources to maintain an established pattern. It’s priority is to protect the status quo, even if that status quo is harmful.
Therefore, choosing to give free reign to inner voices associated with compulsive energy narrows our field of inner vision and limits our potential for growth.
Exploring freedom
Freedom is an inviting energy. It comes with a surprising sense of completeness. The pace and tone of voice is often lower, softer, deeper, unhurried and wholesome.
Opposites seems to be held in a way that brings cohesion or the emergence of new possibilities.
Freedom energy invokes a sense of inner spaciousness, quiet, movement, and ease. It is not as loud or insistent as compulsive energy and so it can sometimes be overlooked, or drowned out.
Freedom energy widens our field of inner vision. It opens up rather than closes down. In this wider field, there is freedom to care about more than my own comfort zones.
Therefore, choosing to go with voices associated with freedom energy will open new possibilities for growth and greater fullness of life.
Using the “2” practice as a pausing practice for greater peace.
At any time during a busy day you can choose to pause and listen within and notice if compulsive or freedom energies are most dominant.
The “2” morning practice (as outlined in Free Chapter One of Inner Invitations) is a simple process that can be used any time you feel yourself getting worked up or out of balance.
Find a brief moment in your busy day to be silent and still.
Drop beneath your busy mind into “you-in-your-skin”.
When at this deeper level of consciousness, release the question in your being: ‘How am I?”
Allow the response to arise spontaneously.
Receive this response in an unfiltered way.
Hold this inner reality gently and compassionately.
Notice whether this inner reality comes out of compulsion or freedom energy.
If you can, identify a follow-through insight or action that can shift your energy to a freer and more balanced reality.
Carry this awareness into the rest of your day, allowing to bring the freedom of making more balanced responses to the events of the day as you encounter them.
I’d love to hear how it goes! Please feel free to email me.
Inner Invitations is available as an PDF E-book or on Kindle and Paperback via Amazon.
AUD$25
Inner Invitations: a universal wisdom
e-book for nurturing inner balance, healing and freedom.
This e-book from Lucy Tierney offers potent and practical wisdom for growth. You’ll explore insights and practices to help you find your authentic path for personal development and spiritual unfolding. Learn to exercise your innate human capacities to balance your conscious and unconscious domains in the service of freedom and healing. An adventure awaits, as you dare to go within and discover the unique-to-you invitations for growth that arise from your deepest Self.