Inspiration for THE GUIDANCE GROOVE

My inspiration for writing The Guidance Groove grew partially from my conversations with the undergraduate students I have the privilege of teaching and learning from as a conservation biology professor at the University of California, San Diego. The young people who attend UCSD are amazing—bright, motivated, hard-working, and the best of the best in a myriad of ways. However, so many of them come to my office hours speaking of their imposter syndrome, uncertainty, unhappiness, and fears. I noticed that the underlying themes of their stories were not that different from those I heard from people in other areas of my life, and I sought to understand why so many outstanding, brilliant, and shiny people had self-doubt, lacked contentment, and were unsettled. 

Publishing research papers is the currency for advancement within academia, so translating complicated scientific findings into simpler stories through writing and teaching has been part of my professional life for 20 years, making the use of words my most comfortable form of expression. Thus, I started writing down what I observed and experienced from my students and others and that process helped me discover potential reasons why we humans move through life with less than ideal levels of ease and contentment. Before long, a draft of The Guidance Groove was born.

The Guidance Groove is my first book and, even though the subject is wholly different from my research, throughout the process of its creation, I drew heavily from my scientific writing experience. As with a science paper, the book is logical, succinct, organized, and easy to flip through to find the parts that are most meaningful for the reader. Much like the figures and tables in a research article, the stories used to illustrate my ideas are contained within boxes, making it simple for readers to find the examples that will help them better understand why we adhere to what I call the Unproductive Grooves of inadequacy, obligation, scarcity, and unworthiness and what it feels like to be stuck in those grooves and escape them. 

The logical progression I describe above was invaluable for the creation of my book, but the writing of and the inspiration for The Guidance Groove has another component that is less tangible, more difficult to explain, and not particularly logical. The process involves finding, paying attention to, trusting, and translating the voice that comes from somewhere that urges us writers to string words together in the hopes that we can relay the message of that voice into something meaningful, useful, and wholly authentic for another human to experience. That is the unknown magic of artistic creation. 

I have known this authentic voice for my whole life, and I long ago learned to pay strong attention when I hear its whispers, murmurs, shouts, and calls. For my writing, I listen to and transcribe the wisdom from that voice. To hear the voice better, I consciously quiet the untrue thought patterns in my mind. Those falsehoods that were long ago programmed into me by my upbringing, society, and my own choices to believe the made-up stories that comprise the bulk of my thoughts. I let go of what my mind tells me I “should” do, say, or be, and instead invite my mysterious and wholly authentic voice to be louder, clearer, and more distinct.

I let the words from that source flow through me while I try my best to speak or write them down so as to remain in harmony with their authentic inspiration. When I feel my mental self suggesting what I “should” say, I gently remind her that her job is to structure the words in the most logically appealing way and make decisions about paragraph structure and grammar, but that the message itself must come through unvarnished.

The voice I hear and follow when I write, including for this piece I’m transmitting right now, is the very same messenger that provides me with the intuition and inspiration for navigating the flow of all aspects of my life. It’s what I describe in The Guidance Groove as our “inner spark of radiance” or “source of true internal guidance.” The basis for this voice is mysterious and, as a scientist, I would love to logically explain its origins, but I cannot. I do know that we all have that internal source of knowledge to draw from because the concept is described universally across books, television, movies, songs, poems, and spiritual teachings. These ideas are ancient and ubiquitous, leading me to understand that every single living thing has access to the gorgeous spark of light that emanates intuitive guidance and may be firmly lodged within the core of our beings. 

I invite you to look at your fears, move toward them, dive into them to discover where they lead you astray and trap you in Unproductive Grooves, then gently and lovingly quiet their incessant chatter. You can then better access the whispers from your own personal voice of guidance. You can listen for it, invite it to speak louder, and choose to trust its wisdom. The guidance from that place reflects your truest self and your deepest authenticity and provides you with your own personal and gorgeous roadmap for experiencing the uncomplicated flow of your life. Once you learn to do this, the process becomes easier and more clear—and perhaps you will hear the inspiration to write your own story, however that unfolds.

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Dr. Carolyn Kurle is a Professor at the University of California San Diego and the author of The Guidance Groove: Escape Unproductive Habits, Trust Your Intuition, and Be True. For more information on her book, to sign up for her email list, and to further connect please visit GuidanceGroove.com or LinkedIn.com.

The Guidance Groove: Escape Unproductive Habits, Trust Your Intuition, and Be True

There’s a voice inside you that knows exactly what to do when it’s time to make a choice. Every single time. That is your authenticity, your truth, your spark, your own personal Guidance Groove.

You can find your voice, trust it, and live by it. You can escape the untrue thought patterns that obscure your voice, breed inauthenticity, and feed your Unproductive Grooves of inadequacy, obligation, scarcity, and unworthiness.

The Guidance Groove is a roadmap for navigating the flow of life while in continual communication with your own authentic, intuitive self. It’s an invitation to live your life from a place of wholeness.

The Guidance Groove is for those of you who are used to relying mostly on logic and the mental stories you have accumulated over years of personal, familial, and societal programming when making decisions. You believe the thoughts in your head, no matter how untrue, and this leads to a life of inauthenticity, dissatisfaction, and unease. Despite this, you intuitively feel and know there is that true voice inside you, there is a different and more authentic way for living that goes beyond your reliance solely on the rational realm.

The Guidance Groove shows you how to recognize when you are stuck in the false mental programming that feeds and drives your adherence to the Unproductive Grooves. The book examines what it means to be trapped in those Unproductive Grooves across multiple life arenas (intimate partnerships, family, friends, school/work/life, and community), how to escape from the automatic thinking that perpetuates the Unproductive Grooves, and how to find, value, and listen to your own personal guidance.

In this way, you can approach all choices from a place of wholeness, wherein your logical thinking self is fully integrated with your intuitive, feeling body. When you release your beliefs in false stories and become firmly rooted in your personal Guidance Groove, you then navigate the flow of life from a position of authenticity and clarity which naturally increases your ease, contentment, and joy.

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Category: On Writing