Don’t Listen To Your Intuition!
What?!?
OK, I should have said “Don’t ONLY listen to your intuition.”
It is not enough to just listen to your intuition. That is the start, for sure, but you must go further than that.
Listen to your intuition. Trust your intuition. Follow your intuition.
All three of these are essential and they are each a little different. Let’s take a quick look at them.
Listen to your intuition. This is the first step. Your intuition is that small voice that is telling you what is best for you. It can be so small. Not a big deal at all, but it is your voice and it is your truth.
When we start out (and even when we have been at it a long time) we may listen to our intuition, but sometimes not trust it and ultimately not follow it.
Let me give you an example – this happened to me just this morning.
I was driving to my class at the dojo and on my way I passed the bakery where they sell wheat-free pizza that my kids love. Now, as it turned out, I was planning to get pizza for them at the bakery for supper this evening. But I knew I would pass this way later in the day on my way back home.
So far, no big deal. I’m just driving along.
But as I got closer the bakery, I heard a small voice inside say, “Stop and get the pizzas now.”
“That is weird,” I think to myself because I never go shopping in the morning, I always pick up in the afternoon. “Stop and get the pizzas now,” I hear.
Can’t be bothered. “Get them now.”
They will get too hot in the car. “Get them now.”
I’ll be by here later. “Get them now.”
I had LISTENED to my intuition, I surely heard it and I knew exactly what it was telling me, but I didn’t trust it and I certainly did not follow it. I kept driving.
So what happened? Yup, you guessed it. I got to the bakery in the afternoon and all the pizzas were sold out. “It’s so strange,” the sales clerk said, “we never run out this early in the afternoon.”
Ok. So the consequences of this example are not really such a big deal. Plan B for dinner.
But what happened is that eventually my inner voice stopped telling me what to do in this situation. I ignored it and just kept driving.
This story is a micro-picture of what happens when you continuously stop paying attention to your intuition. If you ignore it enough, it stops informing you.
So the first step is to listen to your intuition. But in order to get anywhere with what you hear, you must also TRUST your intuition.
Know that your intuition is completely trust worthy.
In all situations.
Every time.
Always.
Your intuition will never lead you astray.
When I get to the point where I feel like my intuition is leading me someplace weird (picking up pizzas early in the morning) that is when I (usually) just say aloud to myself, “I trust my intuition.”
By saying this, it allows that extra moment or two to collect myself and it opens up the opportunity for the next step.
And the next step is to FOLLOW my intuition.
This is the juicy action, this is the good stuff. This is what keeps you from second guessing yourself. This is what directs your life to what is very best and true for you.
Sometimes there is no explanation in the results to suggest what would have happened if you did not follow your intuition.
Like the pizzas, had I gone first thing in the morning, I would have never known that later they would run out. It’s just a matter of trusting that your intuition is right.
So actually, yes, listen to your intuition.
And by all means, trust your intuition.
And most importantly, follow your intuition.
It may lead you on some big adventures and a few off the beaten track errands, but it will never lead you astray.
xo,
Kathleen
