Today is August 28, 2018 – (see August 28, 2018 on my Facebook page for video)
A few days ago I spoke to you about intuition and how I am learning to make some big decisions by listening to it (writing my book, starting my podcast, moving to France) and how by listening to my intuition my life seems to be flowing more smoothly, more effortlessly. And then the following day I spoke to you again about intuition. I gave you a reason I thought that so many of us don’t follow our intuition and that was because we are so busy and our minds are so full and constantly going, we can’t hear that quiet inner voice. I do think that is one reason we don’t follow our intuition.we can’t hear it. But I think there is another reason we don’t follow it and that is because we don’t trust it. We have a tendency to favor our reasoning minds and logic over this strange force that sometimes even flies in the face of logic; so trusting it is difficult.
Last night I was studying for my TCF exam, this is a test that will measure my French language comprehension. And to prepare I am taking online multiple choice quizzes. Last night I noticed something really interesting and that was that every time I didn’t know a answer to the question whether that was because I’d learned the material but hadn’t really internalized it or whether that was because I just had not been exposed to the material at all. I had an initial thought of what the answer should be. But instead of checking that answer and moving on to the next question I looked at the other three responses and tried to make sense of my initial gut feeling. And when it was not logical, I chose the logical answer. And in each of these cases I got those questions wrong. Not only did I get those questions wrong, but my initial feeling of what the answer should be was always right. Now here is a smaller example of how my intuition was leading me down the right path and I second guessed myself and talked myself out of.
I think that this is a lesson for us that we can take some of the smaller decisions we make in life and start paying attention to them, start paying attention to those gut instincts we have. And whether or not we listen to them pay attention to the result we get – whether we listen to them and things are going well or we don’t listen to them and they don’t seem to go as smoothly. This is all feedback that can help us learn to trust our intuition.
Now another example where I have seen my gut instinct in action has been at line in grocery stores. And I know you probably have had this same experience. You are in a hurry. You get into a line that you think is going to move quickly. There really isn’t a lot of thought that goes into your selection of lanes, but you are in this line and this line comes to a grinding halt. And the line next to you seems to be moving pretty smoothly. There are fewer people in that other line, the cashier in this other lane has been there for a hundred years, she’s seasoned, so you know you would get through this other line more quickly and on with your day. And so you change lines and as soon as you do, your new line stops and the two people who were behind you in that initial line are out the door and in their cars on their way home. This is another example of our intuition telling us the way and us choosing to go against it. If we start to pay attention to these small instances, then we can learn to trust our intuition with these smaller things and gradually build up a trust in it with the bigger things.
Today’s no challenge questions are:
- Can you hear that small inner voice, the voice of intuition, that knows the way?
- And if you can, do you trust it enough to follow it?
That is all for today. See you again tomorrow.
Patricia Brooks is a life experiences coach, speaker, and the author of Growing Bold: How to Overcome Fear, Build Confidence, and Love the Life you Live. She is the host of the Discovering Courage Podcast where each week she explores how ordinary people have managed to live extraordinary lives. Patricia is currently living in France, pursuing her dreams.
Photo Credit: Javier Allegue Barros