What on earth kind of connection am I drawing between the Chronicles of Narnia and the Interior Life?! While listening to Sr. Miriam explain the symbolism of the wardrobe, it felt like a thunderclap to my heart! Read below:
"The symbolism of the wardrobe is to go into something to find a new land... Lucy goes within to find the deeper reality and that's the journey of the human soul, that we go within ourselves... to find God, to find where the indwelling Trinity dwells. All of us have an adventure in Narnia within ourselves ... to get to the heart of who we are as daughters of God as sons of God, that reality has to be encountered within ourselves where God dwells… to go within ourselves to find him and he reveals the riches of Narnia so to speak, which is the riches of the interior life, which is so glorious."
We all have the possibility of this incredible knowing at our finger tips. An ability to know ourselves and in so doing encounter the God we were first introduced to on the outside, deep within ourselves. This is the purpose of the Interior Life, but how do we engage wit it?
We start in a way that may sound too simple, too obvious: we start with our thoughts and our emotions.
What is the interior life? It is our inner world where all of our thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions, impulses, compulsions, fears, and hopes all lie. It is the place where we find our belief systems, our expectations, our disappointments, our opinions, and our loves. It is the very rich and fertile soil that produces your character - who you are and how you show up in the world, and it is necessary that we cultivate this space so that we can show up the way we desire, in a way we can respect and in a way that is honorable, but more importantly, it is the place we go to meet God.
Our interior space is the place where we can become fully alive, understanding ourselves and engaging with God in all things and finding his grace in our disappointments, our joys, and our struggles. It is in this space we can bring him into our big plans, ask him for guidance with hard decisions and sit with him during the painful space of waiting.
It is in this space that we get to know ourselves, we get the opportunity to understand many things about us we initially can't make sense of, and in so doing, start to shake off the shackles of shame.
It is a space just waiting for your engagement, just waiting to reveal itself to you!
So many of us were never taught how to know ourselves. Often we were told to "get over it", to "toughen up", to "stop being so sensitive," but what if these painful places just needed to be seen in their struggle? Could it be possible to "not be so sensitive" if we were given a sensitive heart to attune to us in the places we needed it most, thus empowering us to go back into a world that can be unpredictable and hard?
And what if you were able to get to a place where you could see those sensitive parts of your soul as a revelation of the unique and unrepeatable way that God designed you to be in in order to be a gift to the world. We learned as kids to shut down the parts of ourselves that made us vulnerable, to quiet that inner voice that told us we were not okay because we needed to keep going. We needed to stay socially alive, we needed to go to school, and often we weren't met with the sensitivity or compassion that would have allowed the inner gates of our hearts to remain open.
There is strength to vulnerability, but we often need a guide to help us find that inner courage and strength to keep those gaits open because there is the very real risk of emotional pain and the potential for misunderstanding. But there is an even more real danger that if we don't, if we keep our hearts closed, then we will never get to know and become the glorious person that we are, that lies within, and we will be bereft of the intimacy for which the Lord made our hearts to know and be known by HIM!
You may be someone who, like me, felt like God was on the other side of a glass window. Or perhaps you are someone who has become so used to not asking themselves their own opinion that they no longer know how they think about things. Perhaps you are someone who has repeated behaviors they want to stop but cant and worse than that can't understand why they do it in the first place!
This is the place we start, and once we begin this process life starts to become a thing of possibility and wonder. So join me in this work. Reach out for a discovery call and begin the journey to find yourself and in so doing know what it means to be fully alive!
"Know O beautiful soul that you are the image of God, know that you are the glory of God...and the Glory of God is man fully alive!"
Sts. Ambrose and Irenaeus
God Bless,
Nora
Certified Catholic Mindset and Interior Life Coach
Hi, I'm Nora :) Catholic mother, daughter, wife, poet, blogger, podcaster, avid reader, 12-Stepper, and Certified Catholic Mindset and Interior Life Coach. I help people who struggle to see their dignity and value amidst the hardships of life find hope and fulfillment by reworking limiting belief patterns and learning how to know themselves deeply in a way that invites compassion and understanding. I use the tools of Mindset Coaching through the lens of Internal Family Systems to help my clients see the Truth of the Goodness and Beauty of who they are and how they were Made.
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