Born in Chicago and raised catholic, best-selling author Caroline Myss discovered she was an intuitive at the age of 8, and today is a well-known medical intuitive, teacher and author of books including “Anatomy of the Spirit” and “Sacred Contracts.”
Myss recently sat down with Oprah Winfrey on Super Soul Sunday where the two discussed intuition, life purpose, and navigating our own spiritual path. Oprah started off the discussion by by asking Myss to define “spirit.”
“Your spirit is the part of you that is seeking meaning and purpose,” Myss told Oprah. “Another way to understand spirit is that it’s the part of you that is drawn to hope … that will not give into despair. The part of you that has to believe in goodness, that has to believe in something more.”
In life, we are given choices, and our intuition or inner guidance system, is there to help us navigate these choices. “We have an intuitive voice with us. We are all born intuitive,” said Myss, explaining in every moment, with every choice, we can either choose to enhance our life or drain it.
Oprah read the following from the author’s best-selling book “Anatomy of Spirit:” “From a spiritual perspective, in fact, the entire physical world is nothing more than a classroom, but the challenge to each one of us in this classroom is will you make the choices that enhance your spirit or those that drain your power.”
We need to view everything in our life as a learning lesson as we seek to find our truth, purpose and path in life – and then stay on that path once we find it. Are you enhancing or draining because “there is nothing in between,” these two, said Myss. It’s either a choice of fear or a choice of love.
“Even if your in a grocery store and your thinking ‘Should I buy this or not?’ and your gut says ‘You know you can’t eat that!’ and you decide ‘I’m not going to listen to that voice.’ Right there, even in that tiny thing, you’ve walked toward fear because you blocked your intuitive voice,” she explained.
Myss believes each person is born with a purpose for being alive in this physical world and she calls these “sacred contracts.” This is not a literal document, but a “spiritual document” our soul recognizes, she said. Many people say: “I just have to be true to myself” or have a knowing that they just have to do something. That “knowingness” is the soul recognizing its path, she noted.
“You have fundamental agreements that you simply feel and you can’t put your finger on them because they reveal themselves to you within the context of your life, through coincidence, through synchronicity, through obligations you can’t get out of, through mad love you can’t stop no matter what you do,” Myss told Oprah. “These are all parts of your sacred contracts that form the whole of your contract.”
Despite these contracts, many people remain confused about their purpose for being here, or wonder if they are truly on the right path. In her book “Anatomy of Spirit,” Myss says: “People suffer when they pursue a life or chase a dream that doesn’t belong to them.”
She told Oprah we often become fixated on something and believe we have to have it, when in actuality, the dream or goal doesn’t belong to us. “In society we are taught to imitate what doesn’t belong to us,” she said, explaining that knowing if we are on the right path is not as difficult as many people think.
“Have no judgments about your life, no expectations, and give up the need to know what happens tomorrow,” Myss said. “Be fully present and appreciate all that is in your life now.”
However, for many who are suffering after losing a job, struggling to pay a mortgage, or getting over a breakup, this can be difficult to embrace. When Oprah asked what she would say to these people, Myss replied:
“I need to say to you, you had your life focused on something that didn’t belong to you, and a path that didn’t belong to you … or you wouldn’t be here [now]. You locked in on something that did not belong to you, or someone that didn’t belong to you. You didn’t let go of a yesterday that didn’t belong to you. You hung on to a rage that did belong to you, and you wouldn’t let it go. You lost track of being here or something happened to you and you said this to yourself – ‘it shouldn’t have happened’ and you never got over it.”
Additionally, many people assume when they go through troubled times it’s a sign they are on the wrong path, but often things we deem “bad” can turn out to be exactly what we needed, she said. It’s about remaining true to who we are and making choices that enhance not drain our spirit.
“There is a lot more pain that comes from answered prayers then unanswered ones,” Myss noted. “If people really got what they wanted, they would be in deep grief. This is why they say ‘be careful what you pray for, you might get it.’ There is a lot of wisdom to say just trust. I don’t [always] know what it in my own best interest.”
She also explained we are never really on the “wrong path,” there are just times when we are not navigating or “managing” our path well. “Your making choices that are harming you, and that is why it’s hurting you right now. You are making unwise choices. When your lifepath begins to harm you, then we have to sit back and say – we’ve taken a detour.”
You know you are managing your path well when you don’t put yourself in a position to betray yourself, she told Oprah. If we are in a situation that we feel we are giving away our power, draining our psyche or compromising our integrity, we need to reevaluate.
“You can be physically tired, but not psychicly drained. If you are, you are betraying yourself in some way,” she said, explaining we are all aware – if we are honest with ourselves – when we are betraying our true self.
“It’s that voice that says, ‘You shouldn’t have said that.’ It’s the voice of your conscience, consciousness and gut instinct. It’s the voice you don’t want to hear that never turns off. When you follow this voice and push, it’s the part that keeps us moving and turning the wheel of our life. It will guide you.”
Watch the full episode with Caroline Myss online, and tune in this Sunday for a new episode with Deepak Chopra and bishop T.D. Jakes on the OWN Network, online and on Facebook.
And read our coverage of Oprah’s interview with Devon Franklin and Sarah Ban Breathnach!
