Awaken to Your Inner Truth

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Jeg har været så heldig at få tilbuddet om at skrive et kapitel til en bog på engelsk, hvor vi er forskellige forfattere, der skal skrive under titlen "Awaken to your inner thuth" ud fra vores egen historie.

Og så fik jeg lyst til at dele det med dig, der læser med på bloggen. Håber, at det vil give mening for dig. Så lav en kop god kaffe eller the og sæt dig godt til rette og læs så med her:

Awaken to your Inner Truth – by Helle Lisle Denmark

I still remember the morning when my heart cracked wide open and I had no other choice but to fully surrender to what I later realized was my inner truth and my connection to The Universe.

That morning, as always, I kissed my husband goodbye. It was a beautiful summer's morning and I loved the fact that I had a quiet two hours before work. I made myself a cup of my favorite coffee as I enjoyed the view of the flowers blossoming in the garden. I smiled and felt gratitude in my heart – felt so blessed. Then suddenly I felt this well-known heavy sensation in my chest and I became aware of a feeling of sadness. I knew that sensation so well – it had been a recurring guest, since I had collapsed with severe burn-out symptoms in 2014.

Sorrow of “the life I had lost” – the loss of identity, of the person I used to be and of the ability to be more active both physically and mentally. Unlike the first years after burning out, I was now able to welcome the emotions and just accept them visiting me. Knowing that they would pass again, leaving me stronger and wiser.

I grabbed my coffee and went outside, walking barefooted in the freshly mowed grass. Appreciating our green and lush valley, I sat down smelling the coffee and feeling the sun on my face. “It’s ok – I’m ok “, I whispered to myself, just accepting the sadness – embracing it – being still. I felt my heart open and I just surrendered to everything that was.

Suddenly, this great light beamed towards me from The Universe. A divine vibrating light filled with love. The light and the vibrating energy filled up every cell of my body and at the same time surrounded me. I felt held and embraced by it.

I had never experienced anything like it before.

Then the words came flowing from The Universe. They were so simple but an overwhelming truth: “You are love and awareness. You are already unconditionally loved. You are already whole and perfect”.

The message felt true and nothing in me questioned it. I felt the energy and vibration of the words magically landing in my heart. They were repeated again and again, almost like a chanted mantra, flowing from The Universe and into my heart and body – as a sensed experience of light and love.

My heart recognized the message right away. The words resonated with an inner truth my heart already knew. I felt no doubt, no resistance and no fear – I felt more awake and present than ever before. A deep feeling of bliss and love filled my heart, body and mind. Witnessing how my heart cracked wide open and feeling this gratitude for life beyond words, I felt my soul awakening and unfolding. I intuitively knew that the message from The Universe carried my truth.

I felt myself surrendering to this magical moment and to this message from The Universe. I felt completely whole and more connected to this source than ever before. I felt one with the love and the light. A feeling of bliss and ultimate freedom filled up my heart and my body.

For a moment, the words stopped and I just sat there, more awake and alive than ever before.

Then the light and the words from The Universe returned: “Now spread this message. The message that we are all love and awareness. That we are loved unconditionally. That life on earth is given to us as a precious gift”. The message flowed towards me, carried by high vibrating energy and an immense beaming light.

Then everything went quiet. I felt the sun on my face and looked around the garden where everything was back to normal. Just as it had been before this magical experience. But inside of me, everything was changed. I had a profound feeling of being in contact with deep inner peace, joy and love.

It isn’t easy to put this amazing experience into words. When I try, some of the magic disappears. I hope, however, that you get a sense of my moment of “awakening to my inner truth”.

This profound experience took place in June 2018 and has changed my life.

I collapsed with burnout symptoms.

Let me take you back to 2014. I was living a meaningful and busy life with my husband and two boys in a small town in Denmark. For around ten years, I ran  my own psychiatric practice and really enjoyed my work. My focus was on helping clients primarily using therapy, mindfulness and compassion rather than just prescribing medicine.

One day, as I was sitting in my clinic at the end of my workday, I found myself sobbing and feeling completely exhausted. It was a cold and rainy day, already dark outside. I felt pain all over my body and so tired that I could barely move. My mind was a total blank.  Then, after a while, I heard my inner voice saying: “I can’t keep on living like this”. That day I collapsed with severe burnout symptoms and I haven’t worked in my clinic since.

I won’t go into the details and reasons for ending up in this situation. The ever- increasing bureaucracy made it difficult for me to do my work the way I wanted to. The endless red tape made it so I had less time available for working with clients in a meaningful and respectful manner. The way I had to do my work got more and more out of alignment with my values and my approach to clients. I was continually confronted with clients stuck in the health system, witnessing how this aggravated their situation and mental condition.

During my sick leave, it came as a shock to me how burned-out I was. Even though, when I look back, all the warning signs had been there for a long, long time. For years my body had tried to wake me up, telling me that my life was too stressful and increasingly out of alignment with my true purpose.

There were signs and physical signals that all wasn't well throughout those years. Although I was aware of these, I kept postponing taking action. I always thought that I would feel better when ...!  I did not realize how close to the edge I was.

Consequently, I ended up in a terrible state until finally, I had no choice but to give up the life I knew. At that point, my condition was so disabling that I was nonfunctional in my work as well as in my personal life.

Burnout and chronic fatigue had been professional areas of interest to me as a psychiatrist and now I felt all of these disabling symptoms in my own body and mind.

I remember how just going for a short walk would deplete my energy entirely and leave me nauseous, dizzy, with flu-like symptoms. I felt exhausted and had to remain still for the rest of the day.

I had a long journey ahead of me. I struggled to find true acceptance of my situation. Unconsciously, I carried on trying to use my old strategies to get me out of that harrowing situation. Pushing myself, struggling, fighting my symptoms, not respecting the signals from my body. I wasn’t showing myself enough compassion and self-care. I had started a new business working with private clients, running groups where I taught mindfulness and compassion. Although, I now had the freedom to decide how much I wanted to work and what kind of work I wanted to do, it was too much. Most of the time I was still in survival mode.

Looking back, I was still living according to old paradigms, belief systems and my old mindset. Without realizing it, I hadn’t made the profound changes necessary to start healing.

One of the things that made the situation especially hard was the shame. I was an experienced psychiatrist, teaching mindfulness and compassion focused therapy, working with many burnout and chronic fatigue clients. Still, I  collapsed with severe stress symptoms.

“How could this happen? I should know better”, that inner voice told me. So even though I understood why I had ended up with severe burnout symptoms at a conscious level, my old limiting beliefs kept on working in my subconscious mind.

The voice of my heart.

Then one day, at the beginning of 2018, I had a profound experience. It was another cold day in Denmark, and I was resting on my couch as so often before. I had just completed my morning meditation and felt at peace and fully present. I loved these mornings alone in our house with no set agenda for the day. I looked
at the fire burning in the woodstove and felt surrounded by warmth.

Suddenly, I felt someone sitting next to me on the couch. A loving presence of some kind delivered this message: “Stop fighting and trust that everything will be fine”. The moment was brief, but I felt connected to a wise and loving source. The experience left me with a profound feeling of knowing my way out of my painful situation.

I realized that this was the voice of my wise heart.  This was my inner loving voice which had tried to get my attention for such a long time. Unfortunately, for years, I had been too busy and too stressed to acknowledge it. Previously, when I'd heard a similar whisper, I had ignored it and failed to realize how important its message was.

That day in 2018, for the first time, I fully accepted my situation without resistance. With that came the profound knowledge that life would again be ok. That I would be ok. Looking back now, I see how fully accepting my situation rather that resisting it, released energy.

Throughout my years with burnout and before, I had been doing inner work through meditation, reflection and mindfulness practice. I'd become increasingly aware that my mindset and beliefs were sabotaging my healing process. I went on retreats to work with compassion, self-acceptance and self-love.

However, before this profound experience of really connecting to the voice of my heart, part of me still hadn’t entirely accepted the depth of change necessary for me to begin the healing.

From that day everything started to fall into place, not all at once, but day by day I experienced my life changing for the better.

In June 2018 I had the magical experience I relayed in the beginning of this chapter. That day my inner truth fully awakened.

The first thing I had to change was getting enough rest to renew my energy rather that keep pushing myself. By forcing myself to continue working at the same pace, depleted my energy even more. It is still surprising how much rest I needed to recharge my inner energy battery.

I had known this to be true for my clients but accepting that this was now also true for myself took a long time for me. In a way, it was such a simple change to make but still so very difficult to include in my practice.

Learning to respond in a loving and caring way to my need of rest taught me how powerful the programming in my subconscious mind really was. I would find myself sitting on the couch with my embroidery, having decided to rest, and the next thing I knew, I was cleaning the bathroom. My most stubborn old belief to let go of was that prioritizing my own needs was equal to being lazy and selfish.

I had to learn to give myself “permission” to put my own needs before the needs of others and before the tasks on my to-do-list. Habitually failing to prioritize my own needs over others and the demands of everyday life, was a significant factor in me burning out.

I was always a resilient and energetic person. It had never previously been an issue for me. However, failing to renew my energy levels - physically, mentally and at a deeper soul level - eventually left me completely drained of energy.

Even writing this now, knowing how important it is to acknowledge and respect my own needs, my old self is still trying to pull me back onto my old path. Awareness of what energizes, inspires and makes me happy is, to this day, something that needs my full attention.

An important lesson learnt was committing myself, and my limited energy, to my healing process and not letting other things come first.

I often used this mantra during this time: “May my mind be peaceful and may my heart be open”. This helped anchor me to a new attitude towards myself and life in general. 

I find gratitude to be an inner super-power, for clients and for myself. Through gratitude, I connect to my inner source of joy, love and peace.

Looking at life through the lens of gratitude changes everything.

It helps me remember that life is full of miracles. It opens my mind, senses and heart to the magic around me. A beautiful sunset painting the sky in fabulous colors. The beauty of a flower. The heartwarming feeling of my son's hand in mine. Looking into the eyes of a loved one.

In my book, “My Grateful Heart” from 2021, I share the importance of the power of gratitude.


I became one with my inner truth.

The magical experience in June 2018, where my heart cracked open and I became one with my inner truth, was the beginning of my true transformation.

From that day on, I allowed myself to listen to my inner truth rather than constantly overruling it. I stopped letting my mind and ego define my next steps forward.

I started to truly listen to the voice of my heart. The message was clear: It was time to let go of old habits, old limiting beliefs, old stories as well as old thoughts and emotions. All those things kept me stuck in a reality that I didn’t want. Facing that fact was painful and debilitating for me.

I had consciously known part of this truth for a long time, but that day this realization became a part of me in a way that led me onto a path of change.

Fully embracing that I was already whole and loved unconditionally, I felt free, joyful and completely at peace. I felt deeply connected to both my own essence and to The Universe.

Through my study of the work of HeartMath Institute and visionary people like Joe Dispenza, Marci Shimoff, Eckhart Tolle and other spiritual teachers, I have found a way of relating to life and to myself that feels completely aligned with the true version of me. It has been like coming home. An inner knowing that my true path will unfold step by step as long as I stay awake with an open heart.

This new knowledge has bridged the gap between the scientific and the spiritual view for me. It connects the dots and enables me to believe wholeheartedly in this, my new paradigm.

Through this work, I have realized how we can co-create our life with The Universe, especially when we can fully trust our own full potential.

Fast-forwarding to today. I’m now in a place where I feel well and love my life. I’ve changed my business so that the work I do aligns with my soul's purpose. My work inspires me and ignites that inner joy.

I have learned to trust and honor the voice of my inner truth and the voice of my heart. My heart is the seed of my soul and is connected to the wisest and most loving part of me. The last few years have taught me to trust and surrender to the flow of life. It gave me a deeply felt knowledge that everything is going to be ok and that I am already whole and loved.

This doesn’t mean that my life is without challenges and painful experiences. Those are all part of human life. What has changed is my attitude towards what happens in my life. I am able to look for opportunities and learn lessons in confidence, knowing that The Universe always has my back.

I still get frustrated, impatient or sad. But even when circumstances are difficult, I try to stay aware and connected to my heart. I try to let go of the need to work things out, to fight and attempt to control reality. Of course, I don’t always succeed, but I listen to the signals of my body and heart. Then I make the necessary changes when I feel out of alignment. Sometimes I can do this straight away and other times it takes me a while.

When I connect to my heart again it becomes easier for me to stop fighting what is already happening. When I find myself accepting and surrendering to the present moment as it is, I find peace and happiness.

Even though I had some difficult and painful years following my collapse with burnout in 2014, I now believe they were a gift given to allow growth and expansion of awareness and love for life.

Today, I know we can all learn to trust our inner truth. To see the essence of who we truly are. Trusting in the voice of our hearts and making decisions aligned with our essence changes everything.

Peace, joy, love and freedom are freely available when we connect to our inner source. We are divine beings with infinite potential and co-creators of our own life. Trusting in this and in The Universe makes all the difference in the way we live.

When we understand that we are not our past. We are not the stories in our minds. We are not our own limiting beliefs. We are not our old habits. We are free to create the life we dreamed of and to love life.

Helle Lisle