Outside-in vs Inside-out

Gary Goodhue

Gary Goodhue is a student and teacher of Consciousness and Creation. His purpose is to bring deep principles of Truth and Love into practical, everyday application. The results are increased presence, clarity, peace, focus and power.

 

This morning’s performance arts held a lot of beautiful and amazing expressions—through the body, voice, words and sounds. It was a delicious display of expression, yet it’s the place that it came from—within each person—which is truly important; the place that the words of the “Prayer of Being,” by Martin Exeter, were written from, the place of inner creativity that the sound of music and song came through, the place of joy that moves the body into dance and animates the hands to beat on the drum. I want to talk about the choice we have in the space where our expression is coming from. I see this as vitally important to how we are creating the lives that we live, and our individual effect on the whole.

There’s something that each one of us, as humanity, does with the way that we perceive our world and the way that we express into our world. This has a huge impact on the type of experience we’re having in our world and the world that we’re creating for ourselves to experience. We’re looking outside for our fulfillment instead of looking inside.

The mission of Emissaries of Divine Light is the spiritual regeneration of humanity, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. I like to think of it as a restoration of consciousness. This is the restoration of the pattern of how we are made as human beings. When I imagine restoration, I think of a piece of art that’s made out of wood or some metal. Over time and use, it loses its shininess and luster, its fineness of detail and the original beauty of that piece of art. It’s still there, just kind of covered up a little bit. It’s a little worn away but the essence of the art still exists within the piece. With the right application of material and effort, the artwork can be restored back to its original beauty, as it was first created. I think the idea of restoration explains a lot about us, as humans. Because that amazing heavenly God-spark of Being that each one of us is, or is connected to, is still there. We recognize it as ourselves or outside of ourselves to whatever degree we identify with it. Either way, that presence of God is inside of us. It has not ever gone anywhere, even if we look out into the world and it’s tough to see sometimes. It’s just a little covered up, heavily worn and waiting to be restored.

One of the main ways I see that we cover that connection up is contained in a little phrase I like to use. It is the simplest way that I can come up with to describe this dynamic. Outside-in versus inside-out. What I’m using this phrase to mean is that the outside experience is influencing the inside experience instead of the inside experience influencing the outside experience. When I say “outside,” I am referring to things of form, things in the material world, things that you see with your eyes and perceive with your senses. This includes our daily situations, other people and all of our life experiences. Sometimes, oftentimes, a lot of times, most of the time…I see that we’re relying on the outside forms in order to give us a particular emotional experience inside of ourselves. Outside-in.

Yet creation works the exact opposite way. The outside forms are relying on us to produce a particular emotional experience and expression to respond to. Inside-out. For us to restore ourselves to divine identity and bring it through our living in the world in a way that generates and creates spiritual culture, it’s an inside-out job. It’s tuning in to the inside essences, the spirit of something, the invisible vibrational reality, and then allowing that to express through us out into the world, thereby affecting other people, situations, and all the forms around.

This is essentially the message from The Secret, the Law of Attraction, and many other great teachings. We commonly operate from the idea that if I get something particular out here in the world of form or have a particular experience, then that will give me a certain feeling experience that I desire. I will be happy, I will be fulfilled, I will feel powerful, I will feel wealthy. Whatever it is for you, if that inner experience is relying upon something out here to happen first, then you are working outside-in. “If I have lots of money, then I’ll feel abundant.” And yet most people who have money are focused on trying to amass more money. It can never be enough if there is still a feeling of lack and scarcity around the idea of money, even if you already have plenty.

It could be easily imagined that if we would just turn that idea around, then it would be inside-out thinking instead. “If I feel abundant, then I’ll have lots of money.” And that may be true for you but it’s not guaranteed. “Okay, I’m going to feel abundant now and I’m going to have lots of money mysteriously appear.” From the outside-in perspective, it appears that lots of money is the source of feeling abundant. It’s not.

The truth is that if you decide to feel abundant, you are more able to see abundance all around you that you didn’t see before, when you were feeling like you were lacking and needed money in order to feel abundant. You express and show up differently from this perspective. You relate to people differently. You may have no more resources available to you than you did the day before, and yet as you see yourself differently, so does the world, and you also see the world differently. That means that your experiences are going to be different.

This really has nothing to do with money. It has to do with how we show up and interact with our world and the type of culture we’re creating through our expression. Are we here for giving or are we here for getting?

My purpose in exploring this is about creating spiritual culture. I look around in the world and I find it’s easy to look outside of myself and see all the things that aren’t working right. There are all the distortions in the systems and the people. There are all the ways that people are selfish, greedy, manipulative, oppressive or any other number of character traits. It’s easy to see, especially when one is looking for it. We see those things outside of ourselves, and then what does that stimulate inside? An upset-ness. So then we go thinking that if we change the outer forms, we’ll have a different inner experience. And a person can go through an entire life manipulating outer forms without ever really achieving that other inner experience of wholeness and fulfillment.

My understandings are still developing, yet I can speak from where I am and what I see. My process for switching from outside-in to inside-out is that I begin to reflect my experiences back onto myself, and claim myself as the creator of my experience. With that, I’m actually drawing back the power and responsibility that I’ve invested outside of myself. Every time I’ve blamed the government and the politicians, claiming the fault was with the bankers or the military, my neighbor or a different race of people in another country…whatever it is, I’m giving away responsibility to all the reasons I’m not having the inner experience I want. I’m not saying that any of those outer forces are in the right or wrong or don’t have influence over the culture of our society. I’m just saying that the realm of our inner experience is sovereign to each person and we need not feel victim to sources of outer power.

As I take responsibility for my own inner experience and bring it back home to myself, I begin to reclaim some of that power that was given away. But I can’t just reclaim it. I also want to restore my humanity to its own spiritual potential. This means giving that power back up to God and Source, rather than claiming it through the humanity of self. Give it up as an homage or sacrifice to the place where all is eternally, infinitely available to go as deep as you want to. And I’m saying that is “in.” You could see it as “up,” or whatever analogy. I believe that space lives inside each of us. We can touch into that and express ourselves from there. Now there is something truly great, of a higher vibration, that is still who we are and moving through us. That’s the experience of living and expressing that I want to have for myself, for my world, for the people in the world, and for the awakening of humanity.

There is only one way that humanity can awaken: through the humans. That’s it! We have to be the ones claiming and stepping into the new space of expression because we’re collectively at a crossroads right now. We have an old world that’s mostly still operating based off an old system that’s distorted and unsustainable. And everybody, to some degree, sees it.

And yet we have this new way of being that’s based in principles of oneness, kindness, respect, care, love and service. We’re moving more into that, but we’ve still got parts of ourselves over here and parts over there. It’s true in society and in each one of us. The more of us that do the inner work of expressing and operating from inside-out—regardless of what’s happening around us—then we each add to the awakening power for humanity. That’s my perception and the belief that I stand for.

There are a lot of different teachings out there about the awakening of humanity. When I was a young teenager, I read that our planet and solar system were moving into a different sector of the galaxy, and that there are light photon energies that are going to enlighten and awaken humanity. That inspired me into a greater context of what I thought of as reality. I have also heard that there are other beings, multidimensional races, throughout the universe that are assisting humanity to raise our vibration so that we can stop our own insane crazy-making. Well that’s great! I’ve heard that there are legions of angels that are here to help remove the darkness and help lift humans up into our forgotten true stature. Okay, fantastic!

All of those things are probably true. There’s not much I don’t believe anymore. But they’re not causal. That’s not going to be how humanity awakens. Those factors and many more can affect and influence, but only to the degree that humans are choosing to receive and work with the influence. Humanity awakens into higher consciousness through humans making the choice to be in the space that was being expressed from this morning. Take back your creative power by owning responsibility for one’s own life and experiences, inner and outer, as your creation. And then, sourcing your experiences from within, lift it all up, surrender and allow something greater to move through into expression. Essentially, it’s about in each moment being a little more aware and making a new choice to live and express from a place of love and connection.

 


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Andrew Horwood
Andrew Horwood
August 13, 2017 11:20 pm

Thanks for highlighting this essential choice of stance that each person makes. I’m impressed what it’s taken for me to get to this point of effortless expression from inside out, rather than hoping it will happen some day. Years of inspiration, reflection, trying new ways and not quite hitting the bullseye as my vision of the possible expanded. And all along the journey, being held in love by wise elders in this EDL ministry. The layer upon layer of unlearning that’s been asked of me so that I return to the simple place of starting anew and observing for myself how Life works has humbled me.

There’s an ascending spiral which is what you’re describing, I believe, in which choosing to express my highest will lead me to experiences that then open doorways through which I discover that there’s something even more generous, higher, more inclusive & encompassing than I’d been able to see previously – and expressing from that place leads to experiences that open the next doorway, and so on.

Yes, it does boil down to that simple choice – to where do I look for my fulfilment, inspiration, creativity etc? Am I looking for these outside, or am I discovering the wellsprings of these within myself, which, when expressed, become my experience? As you say, it’s the felt experience that matters most – the feeling of abundance can be there no matter how much money a person has. Abundance, in this sense, is being deeply in the flow of Life energy and is unrelated to any material matter at all.

Anne-Lise Bure
Anne-Lise Bure
August 13, 2017 7:57 am

Thanks Fiona, Plato said “Man know thyself” -I say ” Give it up to Life – Clean up, and restore consciousness now” – restore sacred order to accurate harmonisation with universal whole. Restore the soil of our Souls, thank you Gary for your beautiful words and inspiration.

Fiona Gawronsky
Fiona Gawronsky
August 12, 2017 2:33 pm

This incredible senario is playing out; from outside-in to inside-out. Is the universe really “out there”? Or could it be the cosmos within which is finally moving into expression! This is a time of liberation, actually; for the whole of humanity.

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