Each of us is born with access to a powerful tool called an Internal Guidance System (IGS). Not unlike the GPS system that is built into cars, its purpose is to guide us through our lives by letting us know whether our thoughts and actions are moving us closer to, or further away from, the things we most want to create in our lives.
So promises author Zen DeBrucke in her new book Your Inner GPS: Follow Your Internal Guidance to Optimal Health, Happiness, and Satisfaction (New World Library, May 11, 2016).
We hope you’ll enjoy this interview with Zen about Your Inner GPS. You can also visit her online at http://www.zeninamoment.com.
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What do you mean when you talk about the inner GPS. What is it?
It’s a factory-installed system located between your throat and stomach, which expands and contracts in relationship to what you’re thinking. It gives you information on whether your thoughts are taking you closer or farther away from happiness and satisfaction in your life.
I call it the Internal Guidance System or IGS for short. When you follow your IGS, your life becomes much easier and more synchronistic. I’ve taught this to thousands of people and I’ve seen their lives transform in amazing ways.
What led you to develop the inner GPS?
In the mid-90s I stumbled across the term Internal Guidance System. A then little-known couple named the Hicks were touring the U.S. teaching people about the Law of Attraction. I remember being intrigued by the material and was quite taken by their explanation of what they called the Internal Guidance System. I knew that I felt in my own body what they were describing. In fact, I had been feeling it all my life.
Although the Hicks talked about the Internal Guidance System and what it felt like, I wanted more specific teachings about how it works and how to follow it. Thus began my quest to discover how it could change my life if I used it every day. The idea that the sensations I felt were actually guidance from some deeper, wiser part of myself was an exciting and inspiring thought.
Over the next few years I became skilled at using my own IGS. Through trial and error, I figured out what got in the way of me listening to it and made a commitment to see what would happen if I exclusively followed the guidance it gave me. I discovered that the internal guidance system has astonishing power in leading us toward fulfillment and success in every area of life. I was able to use my IGS to untangle all the messes I got myself into and it opened up opportunities I never dreamt were possible.
How do you use your IGS?
My IGS helps guide my life by guiding my thoughts. When I feel an opening in my IGS, I know my thoughts are accurate and will support my life. When my IGS gives me a closing, I know my thoughts are inaccurate and I need to shift how I am thinking. Most of our suffering and pain comes from the way we are thinking about a situation or our lives.
My IGS also shows me when to hang tough if I feel like quitting or when things don’t look like they are going to work out. It also lets me know when to stop moving down an unfruitful path by letting things go. I have never had so much joy and success in my life as when I began following the nudging of my IGS.
The IGS controls what I call the flow, which is how our lives literally flows along. Day after day I get so much done it is almost mindboggling. Thanks to my IGS, I have what I need just as I need it. When the time is not right for something to be done, I can feel my IGS guiding me away from starting the task. I see this as one of the most powerful unexplored business tools on the planet.
Where does the guidance come from?
This is one of the most interesting aspects of the IGS. To be frank, I cannot be completely sure myself. What I do know is that its guidance is very wise and it seems to know everything that needs to be taken into account in any situation to have everything work out for everyone involved. This is still astounding to me, even though I am used to it by now.
When you begin to follow your IGS, you quickly realize that it knows things about the past, present and future that your mind could not possibly know. Your inner GPS understands more about you and your limiting beliefs and thoughts than your mind can consciously recognize about yourself.
I encourage my clients and students to explore their IGS and to decide for themselves where they feel its guidance comes from. What opens up for me when I ponder this topic is that my IGS is a broader, wiser and more infinite part of me. It’s my higher Self, Divine Self, the Holy Spirit. This is referenced in many wisdom traditions from indigenous tribes to world religions. It is the energy that is running through all of life and is engaged in all aspects of our Universe. It operates out of space and time so it can see where our thoughts are leading us and what the ramifications are going to be if we continue on a particular path. It offers guidance on every aspect of your life — not just the big things, but the little things too.
Why do we have this guidance system? What is its purpose?
I was once given a vision of a pond with reeds all along the edge. A large boulder was thrown violently into the pond and as the large ripples moved out to the edges toward the reeds, the reeds stopped the ripples, so that behind each reed was a place of calm. When a person uses their inner GPS, they become a reed and everything behind them becomes at peace regardless of what boulders life might throw their way.
So much of what is causing us pain in the world today comes from a reaction against our inner experience of our IGS being closed. We feel this closing as a constriction in our chest, tightness in our stomach, or lump in our throat. When this occurs and we don’t know how to change our thoughts and shift our perspective, it leads to misery, anguish, and suffering.
Sounds like this is very self-centered. Does the guidance only work for you? By following this, is someone being selfish?
Your IGS not only takes your life and purpose into account, but those of everyone around you. When it gives you guidance, you can trust that it is taking the highest good of all into account.
It’s pretty incredible, and it works for everyone this way. I had a student who had a sick relative who she called every day to see how he was doing. As we were discussing that, she got a closing in her IGS when she said “I need to call my uncle every day.” When we talked about it, she said: “I don’t understand. He needs me. He lives alone and he’s sick and nobody’s there for him. I call him every day just to see how he’s doing and give him a pep talk.” However, a closing in the IGS means that what you are thinking is not true and not in alignment for the greater good.
They talked about it after she got the closing. She said, “I’ve been calling you every day, and I haven’t really asked if it’s okay with you. What do you think?” He replied, “Actually, once a week would be good, sweetie.” As it turned out, calling him every day was stressful for him. It made him feel like he needed to be happy when he talked to her, which did allow him to feel what was real for him in his own process. It was the closing in her IGS that allowed them both to come to this conclusion.
Can this work in every area of your life including relationships, family, health and your inner life?
The IGS works in all areas of life. I’ve coached people to success in their relationships with bosses, coworkers, in-laws, and romantic partners as well.
And, don’t be mistaken – the IGS will also guide you by opening to a thought that’s not particularly positive, but it’s still true for you. An example would be thinking “I’m going to be laid off” and getting an opening to that thought, which would allow you to wrap up anything you want to complete and move into a job search, without falling into fear and anxiety.
How will the IGS help someone discover their passion and purpose?
Mahatma Gandhi once instructed his devotees to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” His point was not to identify the problems of the world and stress over the shortcomings of humanity. Rather, he advocated an active practice of embodying the higher qualities of being that each of us desires to see in the people around us. With the cultivation of your IGS, you have a tool to help you to “be the change you wish to see.”
Your IGS will open you up to a new perspective that is different and far more rewarding than the habitual, reactionary one that most of us perpetuate. By focusing on and following your IGS’s opening sensations, you align yourself with a source of new solutions from a deeper form of intelligence that is conscious and creative.
This practice is about bringing sacred awareness into your every day life. It’s not about being perfect and conscious all the time; it is about being conscious when you’re not perfect, and being conscious and present enough to find your opening thoughts to help see you through. Over time you will increase your level of consciousness and capacity to remain present to your IGS, and as you do, you will be able to focus on its opening and move toward divine collaboration with others — collaboration that leads to the furthering of love, joy, compassion and forgiveness on the planet. Following your opening thoughts naturally supports you in finding your purpose and being a part of this collaboration.
Following our IGS sounds a lot like being guided by intuition. Are they related? If so, how?
Your IGS is separate and different from your intuition. Intuitive messages can come to a person in numerous ways. One person may be a clairvoyant (sees the information), while another is clairsentient (simply knows) or clairaudient (hears messages). The IGS works the same way for every one. It offers guidance based on what we are thinking. Its purpose is not to send external information that you need to know. It helps clean up your limiting beliefs and thoughts while guiding you toward our soul’s purpose. Like our intuition, it does have access to knowledge that we don’t yet know, which it uses to keep us on track. But the way it works and it’s purpose is very different. Intuitive people often have a difficult time getting information about their own lives, but with the IGS everything it offers is about our own lives.
Thank you!