An audio recording of this post can be found at the bottom of the post. 
Written by: Anne Bolender
By definition a guru is a teacher or an intellectual or spiritual guide in ‘matters of fundamental concern’.
Gurus are persons with knowledge or expertise or experience in a particular subject. Now, if you are like me, an avid reader/consumer of self-help materials, then I’m sure you have come across any number of truly awesome Gurus.
For me Oprah, Martha Beck, Byron Katie, Wayne Dyer, Brené Brown, Jonathan Fields, Abraham, Jeannette Maw, Lisa Hayes are just a few of the Gurus whose work I have followed and respected over the years in my search for answers to questions I wasn’t even sure I knew how to ask.
But all to no avail. Well, maybe not “no avail”. Lessons learned and techniques tried have helped me experience some truly awesome transformations, but still frustration and discontent remained. And then……. I was listening to Jonathan Fields, a very wise person, and he said something that was quite revolutionary, or at least, made an awful lot of sense to me.
“The best Guru that anyone could ever have is their ideal version of themselves!”
I know!! What the hell does that mean???
But when you think about it, those words are immensely powerful.
Who knows you better than you know you? Who knows better than you what your hopes and dreams are; what your strengths and weaknesses are; what makes you happy; what gives you the confidence to succeed; what it means to you to be successful….? Only you have the answer to all of these questions and so many more.
Ok, so maybe there is something to this self-as-best-guru-ever approach.
But seriously, if I knew what would connect me to my essential self and what I needed to do to create my best life, wouldn’t I be doing that right now?
Ok, I had to think about that one for a while……but……. I have always believed that we do know the answers to the questions that we need to ask. In fact, my favourite quote from Lao Tsu is: “At the centre of your being you have the answer, you know who you are and you know what you want.”
Gurus are great as teachers that help us learn what questions to ask and how to ask them, but they don’t know me as well as I know me. And this makes me my-best-Guru-ever!
So, here’s what I have discovered, the process that makes me my-best=-Guru-ever, (remember that your process might be different from mine, but this works for me):
- I start by creating an image of who my best ‘me’ is. I write it, draw it, cut bits and images out of magazines and patch together an image of best Guru until I have a physical image of my best me that I carry with me everywhere I go. It’s a small image, one that I can easily look at throughout the day.
- Then I create the story about who my best “me” is. What would my ideal lifestyle career be? What would my ideal lifestyle be? What would I be doing for fun, for recreation, as hobbies? What would my home look like – where would I live? What colours would I paint my home’s rooms? What would my furniture look like? What car would I drive? What would my relationships be like with my partner, my family, myself, my clients? What food would I eat, holidays would I take, clothes would I wear, toys would I buy? Basically, I create a vivid, detail rich story around who I am in my best ideal life and around what my ideal day would be like.
- And then, when I have a decision to make, or when I’m trying to change something about myself, I look at the picture of my ideal self (which reminds me of the story of my ideal life that I created) and ask myself “What would my ideal self do in this situation?” I might not get an answer right away, but I will get an answer and it is always perfect for me.
For example, if I want to lose weight, I create an image of my ideal self at the weight I dream of being. I imagine the clothes I am wearing, the boutiques I am shopping in, my hair style, the activities I am participating in, that kind of thing. Once I have that image firmly visualized, then I ask my ideal self questions like:
- Ideal self, what exercises do I have planned for today? or
- Ideal self, what am I going to eat for dinner?
Or occasionally throughout the day, I will just look at the picture and ask myself “How did I get to be so awesome!!??!!”
With the image of my ideal self firmly planted in my mind, I can generally answer my own questions. My answers would probably be something like: My ideal self would be going out for a nice long walk right about now. or My ideal self would love to have some roast chicken and a mass of oven roasted vegetables for dinner. or You got to be so awesome by doing things that make you feel good.
When we look to outside Gurus for answers to who we really are, we give our power away. We wait for someone else to tell us what to do, who to be, and how to act.
Gurus are fantastic for giving us ideas, tips, techniques, stories, and examples of who we could be, and with helping us formulate the right questions to ask.
But our own internal image of our own best ideal self is the Best. Guru. Ever!!
“Till next time 🙂
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