We are all equipped with a guidance system, you might have heard of it, I refer to it as our intuition. Those thoughts and feelings that nudge us one way or another. One day, I was in the store buying a printer ink cartridge. Immediately after I picked up the package I had a thought to put it back and pick up another one. On the surface that seemed absurd to me to put back a perfectly fine ink cartridge package for the one behind it. I picked up a second ink cartridge, but believed they were similar, so I disregarded that thought and kept the box that I originally took off the shelf and paid for the item. Once I got home, I put the cartridge into my printer and tried to test it. However, it failed. I tried again, and again it failed. The printer was telling me that there was no ink in the cartridge. My first thought was something was wrong with my printer. I just bought a brand new cartridge, how could that have been empty? I pulled the cartridge out of the printer, put it back into the package and off I went back to the store. After getting to the return counter, I explained to the cashier that the printer informed me that there was no ink in the cartridge. The cashier took the box from me and examined it. They noticed on the bottom of the package that there was tape on it and it appeared to be different from the original packaging. They went on to explain that someone probably purchased the item and returned an empty cartridge and passed it off as new. They put it back together, returned as an “unopened” package and received a refund. The employee who returned the item didn’t think anything about it and returned it to the shelf for someone else to purchase, unfortunately that was me.
Now, if I just listened to that voice in my head that told me to put the box back and take the one behind it, then I would not have had to waste a bunch of time with this ink package and would have been home happily printing. Although we are not encouraged to listen to our intuition. I think most people don’t even talk about their intuition. Our intuition, as I like to define it as, is knowing something without knowing how we know. In this specific scenario, I am sure that my eyes picked up that the tape on the box was slightly less than perfect. It didn’t quite register in my conscious awareness, so I was not able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with the item. For that reason, I over rode the intuitive thought and had to deal with the nuisance of returning the package for a new one. Even though this example is simple and inconsequential to my overall life experience, I think it illustrates clearly how we can fall victim to not honoring the intuitive guidance center that we all possess. There are some of us who do use intuition or speak about it, but unless we grow up around others that respect and recognize intuition or we have an experience that encourages us to develop our intuition, then it is likely we do not use our intuition in our everyday lives or maybe not at all.
Imagine if we were taught from a young age to listen to our intuition, to respect it as another sense that can help us navigate our lives. To understand when to trust our intuition and when we may need further evidence to help us make decisions. I think we would open up a world of possibilities to experiences in our lives. On the contrary, we all spend a great deal of time listening to what others believe are the right things to do. We spend lots of time reading and listening to the advice of others on how best to navigate our lives. We spend much time trying to emulate what others have accomplished. Of course when we are born we require guidance from others on how to do the fundamentals, like walking and talking. During our development we are being taught from our caretakers how best to behave in certain situations and as we get older we learn what steps we should take to attempt to become “successful” adults. Many of these thoughts that were drilled into us are based on the life experiences and programming of other people. Subsequently, we end up navigating our own life experience based on those of others.
I have witnessed this guidance system helping with small tasks as well as big life decisions. It continues to come into my awareness that we, as people, struggle with making decisions that are best for our own overall health and happiness. As I have written before, many decisions that we make tend to be directly or indirectly accommodating others’ wishes and expectations. Living our life only by others’ guidance can create chaos for ourselves. It may lead to sickness, engaging in unhealthy behaviors, having unfulfilling relationships, or remaining in negative moods more often than not. When we allow others to take over our world and steer our ship, we lose our connection with ourselves. What we need to do is start telling ourselves that we trust ourselves, that we know inwardly what is right for us. We need to be able to do that to be able to feel love for ourselves. If we are continuously not trusting ourselves and only trusting others then we are saying to ourselves that we lack worth and others are worthy, that we are not capable, but others are capable, that we do not respect and love our own self, but that we only respect and love others.
Intuition may be one of the ways to connect back to ourselves and show ourselves love. Provide us with safety and lead to our happiness. The inner knowing that guides us without us quite understanding at that exact moment how we know the information we are receiving, is more powerful than many would think. Say we meet someone and just feel that they are not a good person for us to be around. Instead of following our mother’s advice and giving that person a chance, because she always said “give everyone a chance”, but instead we listen to our intuition and keep our distance. As time goes on we find out that that particular person is constantly getting in trouble and treating others poorly, we give ourselves a pat on the back for listening to our intuition, overriding our programming and we create more respect for our intuition. Ultimately, we start to accept ourselves more in matters that are important to us. When a job opportunity comes along and people are telling us not to take the position, because it is not worthwhile enough, but we feel that it would be a good experience for us at this time in our lives. We decide to disregard others’ judgements and we go with our gut feeling. A few years later we are in an even better position, one that we wouldn’t have found unless we initially took that one job that everyone else thought we were way too overqualified to accept.
We lead ourselves by trusting what others tell us is the best way to navigate our own life. We rarely tap into our intuition, our inner self, to discover what we are internally being told. The inner guidance for when and how to take action, what things we should engage in most often and what would be the best options for us. We should observe our feelings often throughout the day. We should listen to the voice in our head that helps guide us toward things that are beneficial for us and steer us away from things that are not good for us. Learning to trust our own intuition and understand how to use it to guide ourselves toward the best version of ourselves. Every time we listen to our intuition we will grow stronger in our acceptance and love of ourselves. It might not be easy at first to listen to our intuition or even know if we are following our own true intuitive guidance, but just like everything else, the more practice that we have with our intuition the better we will get at it.
A great place to start is to go internal and part of the internal process is beginning to learn about our own intuition and start to trust it so that we make choices that are beneficial for our own journey and not of others. My sentiments should not be confused with selfishness. As I have come to realize that when we create a fulfilling and authentic life we are able to serve others more abundantly than ever before. My belief is that when we take on others’ expectations, that we limit ourselves from being the best versions of ourselves. Basically, limiting the ability to be of service to humanity. The process of switching from one of being guided fully by others to being guided more often with our own intuition is not simple, but is well worth the time and effort.