For years, I was walking around on auto-pilot, going to school, going to work, going to the gym, coming home, making dinner, watching movies, hanging with friends…

But something was missing.

Meet Your Inner Pilot Light

For almost two decades, I lost touch with myself and my Divine spark, the part I now call my “Inner Pilot Light”. What is your Inner Pilot Light? I wrote about it in detail here but at its essence, it’s that brilliant, radiant, always-ignited, never-extinguished, 100% authentic, intuitive part of you that was there before you were born and will live on after you die.

Call it your soul. Call it your spirit. Call it Cap'n Crunch, for all I care. It’s YOU. Not the ego-identified part of you that thinks you’re separate from All That Is.  Not the insecure, self-doubting, stuck-in-your-head-but-absent-from-your-body part of you that listens to Gremlins of fear and gets sidetracked by anxiety and dark moods. The other part. The sparkly part. The genius part. The part with all the answers to all our questions.  The part that knows the truth about how you feel and isn’t afraid to act on your truth. The part you had in spades until someone hurt you and you accidentally covered up your Inner Pilot Light, thinking you were protecting yourself. The heart of you that loves like there’s no tomorrow and isn’t afraid to lose everything.

Your Inner Pilot Light isn’t a poser. It doesn’t wear masks or pretend to something untrue. Your Inner Pilot Light is unapologetic about what it likes and doesn’t like, although it never passes judgment on those who feel differently.  Your Inner Pilot Light is fearless about wearing purple, getting tattooed, dying your hair pink, letting your freak flag fly, or happily and unapologetically rocking your 2.5 kids, the PTA meetings, and your white picket fence.

Your Inner Pilot Light loves everyone, knows we’re all interconnected in this web of energy that unites us all, and isn’t afraid to express this universal affection openly. Your Inner Pilot Light keeps an open heart, even in the face of serial heartbreak. Your Inner Pilot Light might be unpopular at times, because it isn’t concerned about pleasing everyone else, but ultimately, it’s also the golden ticket to finding true love, inner peace, spiritual connection, inspired, meaningful work, financial abundance, physical and mental health, and the tribe who really adores you.

Now that’s juicy!

Trauma As A Vehicle For Connection

For me, connecting with my Inner Pilot Light required massive trauma.  Within two weeks of having given birth to my daughter, my dog died, my brother wound up in full blown liver failure, and my father passed away from a brain tumor. Then a few months later, my hubby, who was the full time Daddy of our newborn, cut two fingers off his left hand with a table saw.

Talk about getting hit by a two-by-four from The Universe.

Looking back, I realize my Inner Pilot Light had been screaming at me for years, trying to wake me up out of my blind stupor. But I was so comfortably deaf and numb in my unhappy existence that I couldn’t hear any of the messages from my essence of truth.

Then my Perfect Storm hit and all hell broke loose.

Clearly, I needed the wake up call in order to get back on my path after veering off course. But you don’t have to wait for that kind of trauma to listen to your Inner Pilot Light and feel connected to yourself and All That Is. You can start by just getting quiet and listening to the messages your mind, heart, and body send you about what’s true for you.

How To Connect

• Trust that your light always shines. If you feel like you’ve lost touch with your Inner Pilot Light, start by trusting that it’s right there, shining away, even if the light has grown a bit dim. Know that your light is just dying to express itself like a sunbeam.  Even at night, when you can’t see it, the sun is still shining.
• Get quiet. It’s hard to hear the quiet whispers of your Inner Pilot Light if you’re addicted to busyness. Try meditation, taking a silent walk in nature, practicing yoga, painting in your art studio, or writing in your journal. The more you can bring yourself to a place of what Martha Beck calls “wordlessness,” the more you’ll feel what’s true for you in a way that isn’t so much intellectual as it is embodied.
• Don’t be afraid of what’s true. As you start hearing the whispers from your Inner Pilot Light, resist the temptation to make the whispers wrong. Don’t judge your desires. Don’t be fearful of your truth. Sometimes, what you hear will command big change in your life. But don’t let that scare you into tuning your Inner Pilot Light out. You don’t have to take action right now. The goal, at least in the beginning, is simply to be honest with yourself about what’s true for you.
• Ask for help. If you long to feel more connected to your Inner Pilot Light but can’t seem to tap in, ask The Universe (or God or Goddess or Buddha or Allah or Jesus or whatever Higher Power rocks your world) to help you hear the voice of your truth. Pray. Light candles. Go to your place of worship. Get on your knees in fields of wildflowers. 
• Sign up for the Daily Flame. For almost a year now, I’ve been offering my community The Daily Flame, messages from your Inner Pilot Light to YOU. Here’s a sample of what you’ll get when you sign up for these free emails.

The Daily Flame

Dearest, darling YOU,

Can I let you in on a little secret? You and me - there’s no separation between us. You are me. I am you.

The only difference between us is that, in moments of blindness, you still have the illusion that it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, that others are out to get you, that you’re only valuable if you give until your depleted, that you’re a lone island in a big sea, and that how we treat others doesn’t affect ourselves.

Take off the blindfold, precious.

See the truth.

Eyes wide open,

Your Inner Pilot Light

Sign up for the free Daily Flame here.

How Do You Tap In?

Share your tips. Tell us your story. Let your Inner Pilot Light sparkle!

Beaming,

Lissa

Lissa Rankin, MD: Founder of OwningPink.com, Pink Medicine Revolutionary, motivational speaker, and author of What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend and Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide To Creating Fine Art With Wax.