Recently, my friend Mita turned her private journal into a public blog. This was something she had been sitting on for months. Even though she was nervous about exposing her personal thoughts to strangers, through some support from her friends, she decided to share her beautiful words with the world. I went to her launch party to celebrate, despite my nervousness that I wouldn’t really fit in with her cool worldly friends. While there, we had a conversation about fear. She told me she thought of me many times when working on her blog; how she remembered our past conversations when I would talk to her about my fears; and how I would just work to push through them. I laughed. I thought to myself that I just did that tonight in coming to her launch party even though I was afraid I wouldn’t “fit in”. That’s when I realized that pushing through fear has become a new normal for me.
Upon thinking further, I realized that I wasn’t just ignoring hesitation and blindly jumping into risky situations. What I was doing was getting better at listening to my intuition. It isn’t beneficial for you to just do things that you are fearful of, when the thing you are fearful of could put you in actual danger. This is where intuition comes along. You know what intuition is: that gut feeling, that little voice that likely has become so faint because you let other voices (like self-criticism, logic, and assumptions) direct your decision. Intuition is your compass, your internal GPS. Even if you can’t see how each turn will take you to where you are meant to go, you are supposed to trust it. Unfortunately, most of us don’t.
What I found was when you listen to intuition; you can better discern the fear of good things (evolution, growth) from the fear of bad things (danger). Heeding to both fears might prevent pain or struggle. However, not all pain or struggle causes harm. Sometimes what grows us causes us discomfort, which can produce fear. However, this discomfort can be for an ultimate good. I know we are naturally creatures of habit, of comfort. Why wouldn’t we be? No need to recreate the wheel, why fix what isn’t broken? Well, if we stay in our habits, we avert innovation and meeting our higher potential. This might be ok for some of us, but if people didn’t push outside of their comfort zones we wouldn’t have the modernization we do today. All the advancements we enjoy now are due to people in the past believing that the status quo isn’t good enough, people listening to their intuition.
So, how does one start listening to their intuition more? Well, here are some tips to help you become in tuned with that little voice, and turn it’s volume up.
- Decide on where you want to go– Do some soul searching, ask yourself where you want to go with your life, and be honest with yourself. If you tell yourself you want to follow the safe route, how do your body and your heart react?
- Check your GPS with your other maps– Take time to make your decisions, consider your options at different times of day, while you are doing different things, when you are in different moods.
- Zoom out to see the whole route– When a little voice is holding you back from doing something, ask it “Why?” Is the reason legitimate? Are you on the right path?
- Consider reasons for your route– GPS will often send us different ways based on traffic or construction, not just distance. When doing a pros/cons exercise, consider also adding all the feelings associated with each decision, not just the logical reasoning. Look at whether all the emotions for each option are positive or negative, or a mix.
- Remember you can recalibrate or change your path if needed– Remember that no decision you make will be completely right or completely wrong, that whatever path you take you have the ability to make the most of it. In that same thought, remember that no decision you make is permanent. If you don’t take an opportunity by the horns the first time around, take the time to learn from it. Use the time to understand better how your intuition works for when the next opportunity comes.
These are just some of the things you can do to practice listening to your intuition. Now it’s up to you whether you are content with your status quo or want to reach for your full potential.
