Skillful Means : Developing an Inner Guide

Your Skillful Means, sponsored by the Wellspring Institute, is designed to be a comprehensive resource for
people interested in personal growth, overcoming inner obstacles, being helpful to others, and expanding
consciousness. It includes instructions in everything from common psychological tools for dealing with
negative self talk, to physical exercises for opening the body and clearing the mind, to meditation techniques
for clarifying inner experience and connecting to deeper aspects of awareness, and much more.

Developing an Inner Guide

Purpose/Effects

An inner guide can be a great ally for your emotional and spiritual wellbeing. Developing an internal
nurturing and encouraging figure reminds you of your abilities and good qualities, while providing counsel
in difficult times. An inner guide combines the benefits of a good friend (a shoulder to lean on) with selfinquiry
and introspection, allowing us to make better decisions and improving our self-esteem and selfimage
when we need it most.

Method

Summary

Find a figure and allow it to help sustain you.

Long Version

1. Choosing a guide may seem like a difficult task. There are many options to choose from. Your
selection should be informed by your own personal needs: if you are hard on yourself, choose a
figure you think will offer unconditional love; if you need steeling and unsparing encouragement,
choose a figure that you respect as a caring but tough hero.

Perspectives on Self-Care

Be careful with all self-help methods (including those presented in this Bulletin), which are no substitute for working with a licensed healthcare practitioner. People vary, and what works for someone else may not be a good fit for you. When you try something, start slowly and carefully, and stop immediately if it feels bad or makes things worse.

2. You might choose a real person, alive or dead, whom you have known. Perhaps you had a
grandmother who was always a source of
intense love and affection, or perhaps your
father always knew how to sternly but lovingly
snap you out of lazy spells. These guides
don’t have to be accurate representations of
the people they represent; think of them as
archetypes put in easy-to-recognize forms.

3. You might choose a guardian angel-type figure,
one that seems detached from this world but
that nonetheless has a powerful investment
in you. A divinity also can be a great guide,
whether Christ or a bodhisattva. Figures from
mythology that attract and inspire us can also
be great guides, nurturers, and protectors.

4. You might pick a person or animal that
appears in your dreams, if she/he/it seems to be a repository of love and useful wisdom. For more
on dreams as a source of real guidance and inspiration, see https://dreamtending.com/.

5. Of course, there is a long tradition of animal spirit guides. Don’t try to adhere to traditional
indigenous totem traditions; if a hedgehog or a walrus seems appropriate, by all means let it be
your guide.

6. When you have found your guide figure (when your guide figure has found you), you can proceed
in many ways. You can allow its voice to come to you when in need, or you can actively engage
with it.

7. When dealing with a difficult situation, you might want to think to your inner guide figure. She/he/
it might begin to offer encouragement, advice, or a pep talk. This doesn’t mean you’re crazy! The
guiding figure is your subconscious’ way of helping you with what you need.

8. You may also want to enter a meditative state through deep breathing and physical relaxation. In
this state, you can engage actively with your inner guide and ask she/he/it for help. Record what
you learn and use it in the future.

9. Constantly engage with and build up your relationship with your inner guide, and its strength will
increase.

HISTORY

Praying for guidance is a part of many traditions, and through the ages saints, bodhisattvas, and angels have
acted as inner guides for many people in many different cultures. The stereotype of the indigenous American
spirit animal comes from many different traditions: from the totemism of the Pacific Northwestern tribes to
the nahualism of the Mesoamerican people, animals were often seen as embodying traits that influenced and
guided humans. In the late 19th century, early new age groups known as Spiritualists and Theosophists began
talking explicitly about “spirit guides,” often channeled spirits of the dead.

NOTES

Sometimes your best inner guide might come to you in a dream. The characters in our dreams, both those
based upon people and things we know in waking world and the completely mentally fabricated, offer insight
into what we might need in a guiding figure.

SEE ALSO

Establishing Safety
Lovingkindness

EXTERNAL LINKS

Meeting Inner Figures with Active Imagination