“Intuition is the whisper of the soul.” ~Jiddu Krishnamurti
“I can’t believe they are taking her side over mine. I gave this job so many years, and she decides to walk in and mess it all up for me,” I said to my husband.
A few years back, when I was working full time at my corporate job, I got into a disagreement with a team member. It spiraled out of control to the point where my boss then had to have a sit-down with us. I was so humiliated and angry that he could not see my side.
They will realize when they lose you, whispered my ego.
That was when I decided to leave. I started to look for new jobs and got offers.
Now here is the thing—I did have a great job, I had a great team, no long hours, and I liked what I did. But at that moment, due to that disagreement, I made a decision to leave it all from a place of anger.
Tony Robbins often says It is in your moments of decisions that your destiny is shaped. I wish I knew this back then. I took the new job, but the moment I accepted the offer, I realized the colossal mistake I had made. I remember going to my farewell party and feeling like I might throw up. I remember trying to hide my tears.
Your intuition often speaks to you through your body, and my body was clearly saying no. Unfortunately, the voice of my ego was stronger. It was too late to turn back. That wrong decision cost me two years of my life that I could have used toward my personal goals and business.
Instead, I was stuck at the wrong job, working long hours, in misery, and hating every minute of it.
There are many times when we feel the need to react, and the need to feel validated. The untrained mind often reacts the way I did, from fear and from anger. This is where the process of discernment comes in—discernment between whether you are making a decision to sate your ego or to truly evolve and expand yourself.
The primitive, reactionary mind is not the best for making decisions because we are in a downward spiral and are tackling multiple negative thoughts in our heads. Nothing good can come out of this space—we are neither neutral nor can we listen to our intuition.
In the grand scheme of things, when we ignore our intuition, we introduce complexities to our path. The reality is that in order to get to the next level, we must get out of victim mode and learn to take
responsibility for our actions. There is always a choice in any decision that you make. That choice is between fear and love, between blame-shifting and personal responsibility.
The easiest way to listen to your intuition is to ask yourself if you are making the decision out of fear or out of love. While this experience was unfortunate, it also taught me a very important life lesson. I rarely make big decisions in my life without “consulting” with my inner guidance or when I am not in the right headspace.
The tool that I use for this is meditation. Over years, I have learned to use the art of meditation to hear the whispers of my soul. Anytime I get into a conflict or my life spirals out of control, I turn to my
meditation pillow.
Before I get into the meditation, I ask myself: Why is this happening to me? What is the lesson that I need to learn from this? Help me see the way. I am willing to do what it takes to feel and do better.
And then I go into silence and complete surrender, without expectations that any insights or solutions will come through. The answer usually comes quite unexpectedly when the world around me is reduced to a silent hum. It is usually not the answer I was hoping for, but the answer I need at that moment.
I often get asked what to do if the answer does not come. This just means that you are not detached enough and that you are still expecting an answer to come. This is fear itself.
“Why is the answer not coming?”
“Am I not doing this right?”
“Maybe my intuition is broken?”
Intuition comes when you are in a place of faith rather than fear.
If this happens, try working out or watching or movie, anything that helps you not think about your problem. Then go back into meditation again with zero expectations, and you will be surprised at how soon the answer comes to you.
It will be a quiet whisper, an inner knowing. It will happen in complete silence or when you are thinking about something completely different.
It is akin to that little whisper that tells you that it may be a good idea to take the umbrella before you leave the house. But then you choose to ignore that whisper, and you later wish you hadn’t because it
rained so much.
One of the biggest benefits of meditation aside from intuition is that it helps you silence your mind. This helps you take bigger and bolder actions because there is no silent critic in your head judging and second-guessing your every move. Meditation helps you become more mindful and present. What others say or do does not affect your as much.
Over time, you start experiencing the “observer effect,” where you feel as if you are directly experiencing life as a series of moments rather than evaluating and analyzing it.
If you cannot meditate, journaling can help with this process too. Put on trance music in the background and free write. The trick to journaling is to let your pen flow without thinking. You will notice that twenty to thirty minutes into it, your handwriting will start changing and your words will start looking different. The message will become more loving and compassionate. This is when you know that you are tapping into your intuition.
Intuition is a powerful gift, but one that you can experience and learn how to recognize only in silence.
