There are a few older movies, that when they come on the T.V. I am still excited to watch them: Shawshank Redemption, Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, The Family Man and Field of Dreams. So, a few days ago when Field of Dreams came on, I watched it yet again, for maybe the 3,000th time. For those of you who have never seen it, here is a film synopsis:
When Iowa farmer Ray (Kevin Costner) hears a mysterious voice one night in his cornfield saying “If you build it, he will come,” he feels the need to act. Despite taunts of lunacy, Ray builds a baseball diamond on his land, supported by his wife, Annie (Amy Madigan). Afterward, the ghosts of great players start emerging from the crops to play ball, led by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. But, as Ray learns, this field of dreams is about much more than bringing former baseball greats out to play.
After the mysterious voice sends Ray Kinsella on what appears to be a wild goose chase, we find out in the end that the voice coupled with Rays own intuition navigate him on a carefully crafted plan that, by the end of the movie and through a calculated chain of events, helps to fulfill the dreams of 2 additional characters in the story and lead Ray to self-forgiveness and the forgiveness of his deceased father. (IMDB Film Synopsis)
I challenge you to consider that however “out there” the idea of following voices and ghosts may seem, there are many levels of truth and to it and everyone, and I mean everyone, has access to comparable guidance.
You have experienced this guidance millions of times in your life. Remember when you had someone on your brain that you might not have seen in a while, and they show up? Why do you keep seeing your birth date on the clock (I see 6:28 all the time)? Why do you keep looking at the clock when it says 11:11? How about animals (birds, deer, squirrels, dogs, cats) showing up in your life at certain unexplainable times? These phenomena are part of a guidance that comes from within and acts like a positioning system that we will call your IGS (Internal Guidance System).
Your IGS is able to see a day, week or year in your life and/or your entire life unfettered by the confines of linear time. Which means that your IGS has access to your past, present and future life choices and events. And, since your IGS can see the unfolding of your life based on those choices, it works to help navigate you toward self-actualization, growth and evolvement.
Have you ever had an event in life that seemed too perfect to be coincidental? Or a synchronistic episode that made you stop and think “I can’t believe that just happened, what are the chances?” I had one of those events this past weekend. Lately, I have been thinking about an old friend of mine that I had seen maybe once in the last 25 years. I am not sure why I had been thinking about her, maybe some of her posts on Facebook had been resonating with me. I really didn’t know “why” I had been thinking about her. But two weeks ago I was inclined to reach out to her and share my blog, which I did. There might have been something in my writings she needed to read.
Fast forward to this past week when my dog threw up all over the house and all over herself. The dog groomer that we have used exclusively for 9 years, and who would have groomed her on short notice, had COVID. My wife spent the entire week trying to find a groomer to take her and could not find one. Our dog is an Old English Sheepdog and the last time our family bathed and groomed her, there were so many matts that she had to be shaved entirely. All the groomers were scheduling 1-2 weeks out and our dog was a smelly, stinking mess. Saturday rolled around and she was going to try one last time to get our dog into the groomer. By an act of god, a groomer not to far from our house had an opening, but we had to get her there is 15 minutes. Within 6 minutes our dog was out of the house and on her way to get a much needed bath. Afterward, I went in to pick her up and who taps me on the shoulder? The friend I haven’t seen in probably 20 years that I had just reached out to 1 week prior. What are the chances? The probability is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent. I had never stepped foot in that groomer in my life. This chain of events had to happen in relatively this way for us to meet on Saturday – dog had to throw up, groomer had to get COVID, every groomer near us had to be booked, at the last minute we had to call this groomer a little distance from our house and be able to get her there in 15 minutes. Then, I had to pick her up within a 5-10 minute window of when my friend was there. How does that happen?
The many, many chain of events that transpired after Ray decided to build the baseball field in his corn field culminated in the final scene with Ray playing catch with his father, who had passed on years earlier but was at Ray’s ball field as a young professional baseball player years before he actually got married and had Ray. That moment on the field together, playing catch, offered them both a chance at mending fences.
We all have an IGS (Inner Guidance System) and although it is not as overt or loud or blatant as a voice in the corn field or ghosts on our baseball field, it does speak.
The tone of our IGS is usually quiet and subtle and can show up as our intuition or a feeling urging us to go right when our brain wants us to go left or show up as danger in a situation when our brains are telling us otherwise.
How many times have you said “I knew I shouldn’t have done that?” or “I knew that was going to happen?” or “I should have just listened to my intuition?” And, even more then just our intuition our IGS acts on our behalf to help create certain situations, despite the chain of multiple, multiple, multiple events that have to transpire for them actualize.
There are a few ways to enhance the tone and frequency of our intuition.
- Meditate – Meditation can be done so many ways, from a practiced form to just sitting quiet with yourself for 5 minutes to taking a walk.
- The 24-Hour Rule – I learned this from many years involved in youth hockey. Wait 24 hours before making decisions, if time allows for it. The 24-hour Hockey Rule was designed to allow parents to calm down after a game or practice before calling the coach and asking him, usually “Why did my kid not get play time?” or “Why didn’t my kid see the ice on any power plays?” 24 hours allows a person to calm their nerves, take the emotions out of the conversation and make better decisions.
- Quiet the Noise – Try to quiet the noise around you by letting go of disruptive and loud people and situations. It wasn’t an accident that “The Voice” contacted Ray in a corn field.
- Listen to your GUT and your HEART – Our stomach is hypersensitive to fear, and our heart is hypersensitive to the feeling of love. If something feels wrong, we can usually feel it in stomach and if something feels right, we can usually feel it in our heart. Refer to those two areas for intuitional decision making.
- Trust – Your intuition has spoken to you with feelings, thoughts and words millions of times. Did you listen and act on it? Or silence it?
I will leave you with a monologue form Terrance Mann (James Earl Jones) in Field of Dreams…
Ray, people will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. “Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say. “It’s only twenty dollars per person.” They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it. For it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as if they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.
People will come, Ray.
The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball.
America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game — it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again.
Ohhhhhhhh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.
