Why It’s Hard To Hear Your Intuition – And What To Do About It

We live in a word filled with wonderful exterior distractions with which to let ourselves get swept away from interior thoughts. Sounds kind of romantic, doesn’t it – to be carefree, caught up in news, social media, the arts, movies or a great book.

However, after you’ve enjoyed spending your time enjoying the music of the world, when you ignore your intuition, muffling your innermost feelings, it turns out that this is just you, disrespecting yourself. Ugh. Not what you want! Would you ignore a loved one when they come to you to share something important? Hopefully not! You would hear them out. So why is it so hard to listen to your OWN intuition?

Why It’s Hard To Listen To Yourself

I shared in a previous post that knowing yourself and your relational preferences via something like Myers-Briggs personality assessment can increase your self-awareness. Is being able to listen to my inner voice as simple as knowing that I am an ESFJ with a preference for “sensing” instead of “intuiting”? No. Just because you know your relational preferences does not mean you are doing anything with this information.

In previous relationships, it was hard for me to speak up and honor my intuition because of fear. I was afraid of confrontation, afraid that it would lead to breaking up, afraid of the other person “getting mad at me.” Fear is one of the biggest reasons WHY it is so hard to listen. And courage is the antidote. More on this thread from a previous column here: 5 Signs You Have Courage.

What To Do About It

Practice makes better! In this post from Tiny Buddha, Kathryn Hall encourages you to step away from the situation, be honest with yourself and trust your journal. All great ideas. To add on, for those of you like me, with a tendency to people please, getting to a place where you can quiet your mind and become an objective observer of your thoughts will be helpful.

This way, non-judgementally, you can get a realistic grasp on the situation. You can give your little voice inside the mic. And when you turn inward and listen, you can hear your own feelings. And then determine how best to express your internal thoughts externally. By respecting your inner voice, you are honoring yourself … even if it means facing the music.

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Image credits.

Fear. Listen.