Your Intuition is Talking, Are You Listening?
How to recognize, and when to listen to your inner thoughts.
We all have an inner voice, consciousness, gut-feeling, intuition, or whisper that tells us when we do something wrong or if a situation does not feel right. Usually, it is a feeling you can’t explain, yet you trust it. But could that inner voice/feeling help you understand what you are meant to do in this life and predict the future?
Kinda. This intuition that you experience is your brain just predicting what the outcome will be. With all of the experiences you have, conscious or subconscious, your brain stores the experience. When presented with a new situation, the brain makes an educated guess in the best course of action, which is your brain predicting the future. (Is it rational to trust your gut feelings? A neuroscientist explains)
Some of the most notable people like Oprah Winfrey live their life by listening to their gut-feelings. Oprah once stated: “Difficulties come when you don’t pay attention to life’s whisper. Life always whispers to you first, but if you ignore the whisper, sooner or later you’ll get a scream.” How do you know when you are getting whispers/gut-feeling/consciousness? Here are the signs to look out for.
These whispers can be red-flags in a relationship. You don’t always acknowledge them until the relationship is over and the rose-colored glasses are off. When you finally see the behavior and patterns that should have sent you running a long time ago.
I experienced one of these whispers when I was a freshman in college. I was dating a senior and I could just sense that he wanted to move fast in the relationship — faster than what I wanted. To give some back story, at my college, ring-before-spring (getting engaged by spring) is very serious business when you are a senior or junior. If you are in a relationship, you may feel some pressure to get engaged. After expressing that I felt he wanted to move the relationship quickly and how I was not ready in the slightest to move that fast, he assured me that he just wants to date. But that feeling never went away. I broke things off with him a couple of weeks later. Less than a year after we ended things, he had a new girlfriend and proposed to her.
That gut-feeling or intuition that I had did serve me right. Had I ignored it I would have had an awkward time telling him that I did not want to be engaged, and even if I did, not to him. What helped me listen to this intuition is the fact that I paid attention to the gut-feeling and reflected on it. Why was I feeling like this? Why was I so sure that what I was feeling was true? Is there anything that I or he could do to make that feeling disappear? The answer, I knew the environment I was in was adding to the feeling and I listened when he made off-handed comments about wanting to get married and have kids. Listening and reflecting was the main reason I listened to my gut-feeling.
Another example of the whispers, the little voice, and the gut-feeling can be seen in this blog, I Was Totally Duped by Rachel Hollis | by Gillian Sisley | Fearless She Wrote Where the author talks about her journey with investing in Rachel Hollis a popular author of her famous self-help book, Girl Wash Your Face. In the blog, she gives the reader a story of how badly she wanted to like and believe everything that Rachel Hollis is saying but little red flags kept popping up and getting in her way of liking and believing in her unconditionally. She finally dives into the research on why some of her close family members and friends do not like her. Gillian talks about her intuition that was saying something isn’t adding up:
“That said, I haven’t stopped doing my research, ever since this little voice in the back of my head kept poking away to look into things more and more.”
That little voice nags at you. Her little voice was nagging her to research and question the motives and information of Rachel Hollis. This nagging helped to uncover information about Rachel Hollis that does not bring her up in the most positive light. If you want to know more about Rachel Hollis, please go check out her blog!
That little voice, gut-feeling, whisper, whatever you want to call it is always talking and trying to help you be the better you. This doesn’t mean that it should go unchecked. Think of it as double-checking your work. You are not going to send in the first draft of a big project that could turn your career around. . You check and revise to make sure it is correct before you turn it in.
The little voice can be a realization. One day at my desk job I finally got up to go to the bathroom and as I was walking back to sit at my desk when it hit me — I am not satisfied working a 9–5 office job.. . Usually, I would ignore this thought and chalk it up to having a bad day at the office. But what was different with that realization is that it was crystal clear and wasn’t something I could push off and pretend I was happy doing what I was doing.
When a clear realization hits, note it, let it simmer for a bit, and think of all how you can achieve this fulfillment (if you decide you want to pursue it). Maybe it’s asking your boss to give you new opportunities. Maybe it is a new job or creating yourself a new position. Sit with the idea and note what you are feeling and the possible options that you have.
Listening to your intuition and getting real with yourself and the situation you are in can help you decide if your intuition is right. The goal is to continue to make a mental or physical list of what is working for you and what is not. Try something new to get more clarity! If that new thing doesn’t work, try something else and try again! Meditation, prayers, or whatever it is you do that involves internal reflection can also help in giving you the clarity that you need. There might be times where you wish you listened to your intuition and other times you wish you didn’t. So decide what are you more willing to live with, the what-if or I wish I didn’t.
