Back to List of Articles

Trust in Your Self

by Meghan McChesney Gilroy

How do I learn to trust my intuition? How can I tell if it’s my old beliefs or is it really my intuition warning me about a situation with my boyfriend? How can I bring up these feelings with him?

What great questions! At the core of this work is the shift from allowing your mind to control your reactions to life to trusting your emotions and intuition to guide you. Before I answer your question, it’s helpful to understand what intuition is and why you don’t trust your intuition.

Intuition comes from knowing something instinctively. This natural ability requires no instruction, it is not taught, and it is not a function of the mind. Intuition resides in your body – both the physical and emotional body. So it often comes through feeling – through your solar plexus (as in a “gut reaction”) or it might be a deep knowing that isn’t coming from your head or mind. It might come in a flash or as a picture. Most often it is a feeling that “doesn’t make sense” (and doesn’t that make sense since intuition is not based in logic?)

As a small child, you lived completely from a place of sensation. When you were hungry, you cried. When you saw a pretty object, you reached toward it and put it in your mouth. You were trained with reward (good girl! Good boy!) and punishment (NO!) to override these impulses and rely on thinking. On a bright sunny day with all your friends calling you, you would pick up your room so you wouldn’t get in trouble before you went out to play (or at least consider it!). Your training continued to include all the societal & cultural norms that applied to the place and family that you grew up in. This instruction on how to be human served to keep you safe and taught you how to navigate the world. On a deeper level, it also provided opportunities for you to wake up and discover who you really are beyond what you are taught or what you believe about being a human with a mind, body, emotions, and spirit. Thank God for domestication!

The only piece of our training that is missing is to re-learn as an adult how to return to living from that internally centered place of knowing, feeling, and being once the program for understanding how to survive in this world is in place. It is no wonder that you do not trust your intuition or your feelings. It was literally educated out of you – both as part of the domestication process and through the traumas you experienced growing up. To re-educate yourself to trust your intuition, you can practice several techniques. First, pay attention to those flashes of intuition. This means you will be paying attention to what you are feeling and validating those feelings. For example, maybe you are about to walk out of the house and something tells you to take your calendar with you even though you are just running errands. Instead of overriding your intuition, “Oh that’s silly. I won’t need that.” Take it along and see what happens. Or it can be as simple as having a random thought about a friend and then noticing that they call you a few minutes later. Instead of dismissing it as “strange,” praise your intuition. This will build your confidence in your intuition muscle.

The second part to your question is about learning to distinguish between beliefs, which reside in your mind, and intuition, which resides in your body. This can be tricky to untangle but it can be done with awareness. If you hear your mind saying, “I think my boyfriend is up to no good.” Then you must go a little deeper to determine where this is coming from. Trace your thoughts back – is it based on your past history with men? A specific action from your boyfriend? A spontaneous body or emotion based sensation? Do your best to track the source of the thoughts. You can then make a choice about what action you wish to take from there. Do you need to let go of an old belief of “It’s not safe to trust other people” by not believing your mind? Or do you need to trust yourself by believing what you are feeling? Or perhaps a little of both? Only you will know the answer deep inside. This is not a mental exercise but an experiential one.

Finally, the link between your internal and external worlds is communication. Your mind, like all of ours, is an amazing storyteller and can create all sorts of scenarios based on little or no information. It is also easy to make assumptions. Clear communication can alleviate the drama and misunderstanding and it can also provide you with more fodder for trusting your information. One way to know is to ask, and the other way is to know through perceiving with your body and intuition. Using both of these together, will help you figure out what is true for you and for this situation.

It may take some courage to be willing to ask questions, particularly if you may not want to truly hear the answer. But you can ask your boyfriend questions in a way that creates intimacy between you. Start with stating how you are feeling, such as “I am feeling that something is amiss here and I’m not sure if it’s because my past history is coming up or if there’s something going on. This is challenging for me to bring this up and I hope we can work through this.” Then really listen to the answer. Listen from your whole being, not just your mind. If you two are creating a relationship that is based in building intimacy and trust, then there is an opportunity for you both to become closer.

No matter what the outcome between you and your boyfriend, you will have taken steps to build that relationship with yourself, one where you learn to trust your intuition and feelings. This will serve you in all aspects of your life. Just imagine living from a place of balance between your emotions and your mind, both of which serve you in creating the quality of life and the relationships that you deserve. It can be done. Ultimately, only you know what is best for you. You do have the answers. Trust the ones inside!

Back to List of Articles

Copyright © 2006 Life Mastery Programs. All Rights Reserved.