i have a few words to share about getting in tune with your intuition because there is a lot of talk in messages on here about "just follow your intuition" but that does not say much when you've never really followed yours before. and i get asked this question a lot so yeah.

the relationship with our intuition becomes damaged in the presence of relationships with others who decide that they know more about us than we know about ourselves. controlling parents, the ring leader in friend groups in school, partners that are controlling and dominant, etc.

when we are not empowered in childhood to have a healthy sense of self (self-esteem, self-worth, identity), we doubt that we know what to do for ourselves. and it is a bit deeper than that.

let's say you were a child with a vivid imagination and you liked to go on adventures and were a child that was okay with being an explorer and discovering life like a science experiment. but you had controlling parents that were overbearing +

overprotective and treated you like you were a danger to yourself instead of what you really were, which was curious and courageous. when parents or whomever introduces doubt into you vs empowerment aka "are you sure?" vs "go for it!", you internalize it.

and that is when it begins. you will always ask yourself "am i sure?" when you know something is blatantly true. you go from discerning to paranoid that you're always going to make the wrong decision because the people that were supposed to empower your intuition, crushed it.

and you internalize a need to always defer to others. and for those without a healthy sense of self and boundaries, they take advantage because people like to feel like leaders, even when they're not confident. and they will convince you that they know what they're talking about.

or you will continue internalizing the actions of those that influenced you to doubt yourself because they seem to be really confident in their decisions and some part of you respects them. everything seems to go right for them ... so you follow them and ignore yourself.

and it does not teach you to make your own mistakes. the intuition tells the truth and you can follow it and still make a mistake. that is very important to say. you cannot live your life afraid of making mistakes because you will never learn anything.

and that usually goes back to childhood. your resilience and curiosity often go hand in hand. i use myself as an example. i'm a deeply curious person but i am also resilient and i don't stop wanting to know just because i get things wrong or run into a challenge.

if you were constantly punished for truly innocent mistakes when you were growing up, you learn to silence that voice that tells you to try new things and learn about it and instead embrace perfectionism. perfectionism and intuition are not friends. let it go.

your intuition WILL encourage you to take risks. it won't tell you to embrace danger. it WILL push you out of your comfort zone because your intuition is here to keep you moving forward and not stagnant in a situation that is clouding how well you can HEAR yourself.

working with your intuition means getting back into your body, first and foremost. the solar plexus. the same place where your willpower and sense of self are. your inner child. children listen to their intuition until they're told not to.

you are not supposed to feel panicked every time you encounter some internal silence because that's when you're supposed to be listening closely. if you use other people to fill up voids in yourself or always look to tell someone what you should think and do, step back into Self.

i'm sorry to tell you, but your every decision does not need a second opinion because some decisions need to be in the moment and gathering opinions gives you more room to second-guess what you were genuinely going to do.

if a lion is chasing you, you cannot run to your phone to ask twitter if you should play dead instead.

transforming your relationship to fear and doubt are probably the two best things you can do for yourself besides the physical healing of your gut when it comes to repairing the relationship you have with your intuition. you have to know when fear is necessary and when it is not.

fear is a wonderful feeling when you are faced with a situation that truly has the potential to harm you and destroy you.

fear is a terrible feeling when you are faced with a situation that has the potential to help you evolve, love, transform, and achieve.

you have to get back into your body and determine what fear is communicating to you and whether or not you are supposed to be listening or if you're listening because it's comfortable for you to do, instead of telling fear to be quiet and go sit down somewhere.

when are you leaning on fear because you're still in a space of feeling like you're undeserving of achieving so you'd rather say you're scared of something else rather than admitting you're just uncertain of the possibilities?

are you comfortable with doing nothing because you see yourself as a failure anyway so what's the point in trying? be honest with yourself and ask where that came from? who implanted that into you and how can you uproot it and get YOUR voice back, not theirs?

all the mean things you learned to tell yourself came from somewhere. that's not your voice.

if you have the wits about you to set a goal, your intuition is not also going to sabotage you, and you need to stop believing that and get out of your own way by letting other people's implanted seeds be what you choose to grow in you instead of your own.

stop giving your power away to other people by believing the hurtful shit they said about you and what you could and could not do to the point you don't even try so you accepted that based off of a thought that came from thin ass air with no proof. cuss that voice out.

when having a conversation with your fear, ask if you're being saved from danger or sabotaged from a new experience? that's an important question to ask. it's the question i ask myself.

what is true danger to you? do you react to everything in your environment to the point you drain your sensing? are you to tapped in to the feelings in the environment and listen to everyone else's inner dialogue and forget your own? where are you enmeshing with the environment?

empaths, i'm talking directly to you. your intuition is not telling you to cross other people's emotional boundaries by sensing everything they feel. that is NOT empathy. it is violation. you need to develop some boundaries and learn to know what is yours and what isn't.

are you feeling your own fear or have you enmeshed with someone who is fearful for you? before you walked into this situation, how did your body feel? did you come feeling fine and left with a headache? a stomach ache? irritation? that's a sign of weak boundaries.

excess fear in the body looks and feels like high blood pressure, trouble sleeping, feeling like you have no resilience and willpower to push yourself through OR you rush through everything, drained creativity, mental fog and lack of clarity, haziness, feeling persistently tired.

excess fear drains your vitality and your sense of stability. if your body reacts to the possibility of you getting a new job in the same way it responds to getting chased by a lion, your body will be spent and you will have no energy to act.

is it fear or uncertainty? are you scared or do you just want to know and can't control how the process moves?

if it's fear, then you need to ask what you're being saved from.

does it sound silly? does it sound rational?

your intuition told you to publish your paper, for example. and you want to sabotage it because you're afraid of putting yourself out there.

check in with yourself and say, if i don't do this thing i WANTED to do, what does it save me from and what does it bring to me?

okay, let's save it saves you from critique and criticism.

but

it brings you regret that you doubted.
it limits your chance of someone loving it and wanting to support you.
it may stop a chance of receiving something else.
it stopped you from being courageous.

it stopped you from having the energy to try again and getting better.
it stopped you from building a thicker boundary with other people's opinions.
it stopped you from being seen, and that's what you wanted.

do you really and truly believe your intuition is really telling you to invite all of that pain into your life?

or was that the fear speaking for you?

fear doesn't want you to be happy. it wants you to be safe. this is why understanding the difference between comfort and safety is so so important. your comfort zone cannot hold you forever. you have to expand. it is not safe to feel comfortable limiting and doubting yourself.

and it's really not safe to think it'll keep you comfortable to always ignore your intuition just because your mind has convinced you to overthink every little detail. zoom back out into the big picture of WHY you even set an intention in the first place. bc you expected to MOVE.

intuition, releasing control and surrendering to the possibilities because you have to retrain yourself to believe that good things happen. not as a reward for going through bad shit but at random, just like bad shit. it all exists. why jump to the worst?

some other ways to get back into your intuition that have personally helped me:

- you have to spend time alone and in silence. you have to be okay with not letting yourself consume so much of other people's noise.

this means limiting tv, news, social media. using filters and clarifying your intentions when you connect with these things.

- boundaries. bitch you guessed it. my faves. you need boundaries with people and how much you let them influence you. i am self-reliant but i still seek guidance but i don't just let anyone give it to me. i'm very discerning and have high standards. you need to be discerning.

- going through a period of time where you don't ask for advice or share your movements with other people unless they're directly involved. you don't need their opinion in the back of your head esp. if you're the type that is impressionable.

- telling yourself the truth. this does not mean to start cutting at yourself and saying wild negative shit even if you need to be corrected or even if you dislike something.

it's okay to tell yourself, i need to work on being passive aggressive w/o creating shit that's worse than that. or, the truth of this situation is that i feel hurt right now. and stop there without creating a villain and victimizing yourself.

when you constantly and unfairly victimize yourself, you train your intuition to be over-ridden by the first person that offers you a solution out of your problem(s). and then you bond with them as your savior and give them more trust than they genuinely earned. stop it sis.

same thing with honesty. it's okay to say, "my knowledge about this subject is not where i want it to be so how can i learn more" instead of saying "i'm so fucking stupid and i'll never learn anything." please stop talking to yourself like that.

because that teaches you to ignore your intuition when it's time to learn. go back to being a child and empower your curiosity again. you may mess up. everyone makes mistakes. there are no perfect people. i'm not one. you're not one. it is okay.

- don't internalize other people's shit. this is a BIG one and one of the most important things that helped me restore my sense of self and strengthen my intuition. you cannot take what people do personally because we are all selfish and it's time to stop lying about it.

all of us are motivated by something that is unconscious & until we do the real work to also repair the relationship with our shadow, we do not think about how our behavior impacts others. we do the first thing that makes us feel safe. focus on YOUR safety first.

which goes back to working through fear.

just going to link resources now because this thread is like all the others and it's a runaway train.

the soothing dialogue with fear (you need the insight timer app) https://insighttimer.com/soulfoodworkshop/guided-meditations/the-soothing-dialogue-with-fear

- self-empowerment workbook / https://www.michelleg.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/SelfEmpowermentGuide.pdf

- building resilience / https://www.acponline.org/system/files/documents/about_acp/chapters/or/resilience_building_plan_worksheet.pdf

- the road to resilience / https://www.uis.edu/counselingcenter/wp-content/uploads/sites/87/2013/04/the_road_to_resilience.pdf

and from my personal library. this book is one of my favorites especially as i am a person that integrates my work + research as a neuroscientist into my spiritual practice as a numerologist and plant medicine integrator.

OH! wait. FORGIVENESS!

forgive the people that doubted you and threw you off track because your intuition does not want you to sabotage yourself by trying to prove them wrong. prove yourself right instead. you have to let that old shit go for real.

now i'm done.