How To Follow Your Intuition, Even When You Think You Can't Hear It

You may have thought, but I don't know how to follow my intuition. I don't even know what my intuition is telling me. Friend, I've got you! I had the same problem for years. People would talk about following your gut, but I didn't have a clue what that meant. My gut constantly betrayed me by sending alarm signals (aka anxiety) when I was faced with any decent sized decision. Even when I wasn't faced with a decision, I felt anxious that something bad was going to happen, that the bottom would fall out. In case you are wondering, that can be a result of trauma in your past. It was for me. And it really made decision making difficult, for years. Eventually though, I started to figure out what it meant to tune in to my intuition, and I want to share that with you so you don't have to stay stuck where I was.

First though, let's talk about why you'd even want to. According to heysigmund.com a significant study showed that the intuitive part of your brain actually knows the right choice before the analytical part of your brain does. So basically your intuitive brain takes in subtle cues from all around you to determine which choice makes the most sense for you. This can be so incredibly helpful if you can tune in to your intuition and use it to your advantage when taking on life's big decisions. But how do you do that?

There are many different ways that you can start to build that muscle and strengthen your ability to "hear" what your intuition is telling you to do. A simple Google search will return several results, and these can all be helpful. But one of the most helpful things I've found isn't listed on most of these sites, or not the way I've learned to do it anyways. That's because anxiety can cloud our judgement making this simple (not easy) skill more complicated. If you have anxiety too, you know that's true. It makes trying to listen to your gut almost impossible. But don't give up yet.

Listen to your body. Really listen. When you are mulling over a decision, what do you feel inside and where do you feel it? For example, when we started seriously debating our move to Georgia, I felt scared. I felt anxious, unsure, jittery. I felt it in my chest and my throat. Because I've worked so diligently on my anxiety, I recognized it for what it was, but if you are newer to this journey, it may be more difficult to recognize. That's why the next step is crucial, and why I still do it today.

What happens when you make a conscious agreement in your mind, one way or the other. For me, when I thought about staying in Florida I felt physically ill. It made me feel such disappointment that I could almost taste it. But when I flipped that choice to agreeing that we would move to Georgia, despite the fact that we'd be moving at 7-8 months pregnant, with no job lined up, knowing that the housing market was going to make it nearly impossible to find a rental, but also knowing that we did NOT want to buy yet, I felt peace. That's how I knew it was the right choice. Super simple.

And that's why this technique is so effective. The simplicity makes it possible for anyone to try this out and find some clarity. Now maybe your reactions aren't as dramatic as that, and that's ok. This can still work for you, pinky promise. Get still and quiet, use a journal if you need to, and feel what happens in your body. You've got this friend, I believe in you!

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