The Art of Listening to Your Intuition
I felt out of breath. As I continued to breathe in more and more air, I noticed that the air I was breathing was not enough. It was almost as if there was a shortage of oxygen in the room and I was the first person that had been affected. But it was ongoing and it had continued for years. Life had left me breathless and my doubts had paralyzed me.
Deep down inside, I knew that something wasn’t right but my mind questioned my ability to understand my own body, my own prowess. So I succumbed to doubt and ignored all the signs. I let my inner critic win when the truth was my intuition was right.
This is not the first time that I’ve ignored all the signs.
To my own detriment, my inner critic has stopped me from most things in my life. But it leaves me to wonder how ONE INCESSANT VOICE that repeats over and over in your ear can stop you from believing what your own body knows? Well it can and it does. It stops us from following our hearts and listening to our minds but behind that voice of doubt lies something deeper, our intuition.
The voice is strong and incessant. It offers numerous signs that so often go ignored. She raises her voice for us to hear and right when she screams the loudest we raise the voice of our inner critic so we can continue to tune her out. We blatantly ignore what we need to hear most.
Our intuitions are powerful and all-knowing.
But even still, life has taught us that it’s easier to doubt and harder to believe. When we believe in something, better yet anything, we open ourselves up to possible discomfort, but when we doubt in anything, even ourselves, we eliminate the future possibility of feeling pain. We believe it’s safer to not believe.
So we go on, listening to our inner critic and doubting our intuition.
However, if we don’t control our inner voice then our intuition will always be distracted. It is when we silence the voice of the inner critic that repeats in our mind that we allow our intuition to guide us through this epic journey of life.
It is when we listen to our intuition that we can live a life that is wholeheartedly authentic. We become our truest self.
The intuition doesn’t look around to see what others are thinking. Or to see the material things that others may have. Or even attempt to mimic experiences that others may be experiencing. It doesn’t search to fit in, as it knows that it by itself already belongs.
Intuition exists within and it doesn’t find happiness from without. But the inner critic is different and she keeps us from our epi-center. In order to live lives that are guided by our own hearts and desires we need to silence the inner critic and allow the intuition to shine.
So how do we silence the inner voice?
In order to silence the voice we must determine its root. This is best done with a simple inner critic journaling exercise.
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Buy a small pocket size journal that can fit into your purse and carry it with you everywhere.
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Jot down every time your inner critic questions, doubts or criticizes you.
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Continue to do this for every moment of the next 3 days. (and yes I do realize that the first day will primarily be spent writing down thoughts).
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After day 3 has ended go through your journal entries and begin to pull out patterns and themes. Can you tell when your inner voice is insecure? Can you tell when she doubts you?
The process of inner critic journaling will bring a deeper awareness to your thoughts. Are there thoughts that are hurting you that need to be surfaced rather than ignored? What does your inner critic stop you from doing that you want to do?
Remember the thoughts we don’t confront are the thoughts we continue to carry. These thoughts will resurface and haunt us through every milestone that we experience in life. As daunting as they may appear to be it’s best to confront them, let them go and be open to what life may bring.
Also keep in mind that there numerous times in life when we decide to swallow our stories and walk through our lives broken. We’re concerned about what others may think so we remain silent and unexposed.
Will they shame us? Dislike us? Or even change their opinion of us?
It is in these times of silence that we must remember that this is our life to live. We are the only person who will walk this path for the rest of our existence. We can choose to walk through it broken and filled with fear or we can choose to walk through life filled with bravado, knowing that deep within ourselves lies a person who’s strong enough to face it all.
Let go of the voice that holds you back and learn to embrace the voice that wants to see you grow.