Trust your Intuition
What do I mean by “Intuition”? The deep knowing that you get as you experience information, a situation or a decision in front of you. I don’t mean a reaction. Intuition is not an emotion, it is not fear or joy, it is not judgement or criticism. This “knowing” may leave you with an awareness of what must be done or what direction something is going to go. If you are on track with your path and follow your intuition, it will leave you feeling good, relieved, happy etc. If you are not on track it may give you a sick feeling, a tight feeling in your stomach, and thoughts that “this isn’t good”.
In my life as a public servant and a leader, I have had both situations happen on a daily and hourly basis. I can say that in times where my intuition was in sync with support from my superiors I felt a sense of elation and joy, when my intuition was out of sync, when I had to go against my intuition, I felt a definite “nope” or sense of dread and nausea. In those situations, I informed my superior what I thought and I usually had a logical reason to support what I thought, if not, depending on who it was, I shared my intuition. In this situation, it’s important to trust the person you are sharing with, if they are a smart leader, they will know that intuition is real and will give it the time and attention it deserves. When I went against my intuition, it may have turned out fine in the end, but the road was likely rocky. Personally, I often had to discern whether I was feeling fear or intuition; a knowing. When I had a “bad” sense of things, I would approach people I trusted with my confidence and ask them what they thought of the situation, sometimes it would help clarify things and give me perspective, but often, I was on my own to filter out my fear from my intuition.
In general, it’s much better when you can follow your intuition because the path is easier and more fulfilling. But when you work with others and at the direction of others you may have to decide if regularly going against your intuition puts you in conflict with what you know to be true. That’s when you need to be brave and follow your intuition. It is there to direct you to your joy and purpose. Pay attention.
As the leader of your life, you can develop your sense of intuition. When you have decisions and situations in front of you, get to know the information to the point where you understand the nuances, sit with this information. Allow the information to settle in you mind. I often let it sit overnight or go for a walk when I don’t have an immediate sense of my intuition. Once you fully understand the situation and the details, you can check in with your intuition on whether this or that direction makes more sense to you. For complex and highly nuanced decisions, take each step and complexity at a time. This will help you navigate the situation while respecting your intuition and yourself.
The point is to use your brain to understand logical information and then allow that to go and be open to what else comes up for you. Be aware of your tendencies (like my tendency was fear so I often pushed that aside instead of dealing with it) and emotions because intuition is not emotional but it can lead to having feelings of comfort or discomfort, depending on which direction you choose.
Take the time to practice tuning into your intuition. Start with easy decisions like: what do I want to eat for breakfast? What do I want to do on my next time off? Who do I feel like writing a nice text to? Often it’s just a “yup” or “yes” that comes to you as you ponder a situation, followed by a sense of release and ability to move forward easily. The more you do it, the quicker your intuition will respond but just be patient and let your intuitive knowledge come, you cannot force it.
It’s the best scenario when you can follow your intuition. In moments when you cannot follow your intuition, you will walk away with at least knowing that you went against your intuition and at most, you have had the chance to learn about yourself and your limits….which is very valuable information.
Feel free to reach out, connect with another human, and evolve.
I wish you all the best, oxoxoxoxoxoChristinexoxoxooxox
