“Listening to our intuition provides answers and calm”
Megan Gunnell
March 7, 2011
For many women, the multitude of roles we play can become distracting. Where at one point in our lives we may have felt more focused and less overburdened, as the years pass and we take on more and more responsibilities, it becomes increasingly difficult to feel calm, focused and centered. It also becomes more challenging to listen to our intuitive voice. Some believe we collect information from three primary sources; our head, our heart and our gut. Sometimes one of these can become out of balance and suddenly we find ourselves searching for external confirmation or doubting decisions simply because we’re not in tune with our deepest knowing – or our intuitive gut level voice.
So how do we do this?
We must start by opening the channel of awareness to our intuitive self. Drop down and in from your cognitive process and further still from your emotional self, down to the gut level feelings. You know, the one that says “there’s something not right about this, or I’m feeling really sure (or unsure) about this or that.” When we feel out of touch with our intuition, we need to start small. Begin by listening in on simple questions like am I hungry or full, am I tired or awake, should I turn left or right here?
From there we can ask ourselves more important questions such as “what do I need?”
Answering this question “what do I need” may lead us down a path of successful self-care and nurturing. When faced with some open time in our schedule, many women, upholding many different roles, find it difficult to sit with this question. Our natural tendency is to keep up the frenetic pace of rush, rush, rush!!! We immediately create a huge to do list of tons of errands we could fill those empty hours with and inadvertently end up manifesting another layer of anxiety. This pattern repeats itself over and over and we end up wondering why we feel out of touch and chronically depleted.
If we made a commitment to ourselves to just sit for a moment and truly listen for an answer to the question “what do I need” we would most likely find answers like “replenishment, rest, stillness, quiet, reflection, calm, or nurturing.” The problem is, keeping busy keeps us out of touch with our emotional self and thereby protected from anything unsettling or uncomfortable that may come up for us. Many people are so uncomfortable with any amount of discomfort, that they hurry up to superimpose something on top of that feeling or have the impulse to go for something instantly gratifying. What we need to do is recognize that sometimes stillness and quiet bring moments of discomfort for us. Things can come up, feelings can surface and that’s okay because the rewards of being more in tune with our intuitive self are far greater than any instantly gratifying answer we may rush to satiate. The bottom line remains the same; pay close attention to your intuitive self and set an intention to become more in line with your deepest knowing. After careful practice and opening, this channel of intuitive information can become a great source of confirmation, validation and guidance.