Who is your wisest guide?

When I am frantic or in deep emotional pain or overwhelmed, my tendency is to believe that I can climb quickly out of the muck by finding a wise someone who will give me the answers I am seeking.

I want answers now.

A quick solution will surely relieve the deeply uncomfortable, itchy feeling of "not knowing."

What I have grown to trust, however, is exactly the opposite.

If I can stop running and seeking long enough to identify the question I need to ask, and then discipline myself to sit quietly and wait, the answer will appear, from within myself.

I become my own wise guide.

I practice being patient enough to formulate the question while I am sitting in the muck, resisting the urge to run, freeze, or frantically flail around, trying to escape. And then I sit quietly and listen for the answers, while feeling the muck between my toes and fingers, oozing around my belly and filling my lungs.

Only then, after formulating, asking, waiting patiently and listening deeply, will the answer appear.

And, interestingly, once the answer appears, the muck miraculously begins to release me.

Our own wise teacher resides inside each one of us.

Sitting patiently in the muck, while asking and listening, is slow medicine and it works.