Trust Your Gut, It’s Never Wrong

“Don’t go against your inner knowing. Just don’t. Trust yourself.”
― Maria Erving

Do you truly listen to your Inner Voice? That gut feeling that warns you when something is not right. Do you pay attention to that voice? Or have you brushed it off only to get confirmation later and then go Oh shucks! I knew it, I sensed it, and I should have listened.

Each of us has that inner voice that speaks to us and serves as our guide. It can be a hunch, feeling, impression or image. It is the intuition that pushes us forward.

Trust your gut! Follow your heart! Trust your instincts! Are common phrases that we use to reference the inner voice. That voice knows before we even start reasoning. However, sometimes we override our instincts when we start to apply our logical mind.

I, more often than not ignore my intuition when it comes to people around me especially people I consider as friends. My husband tells me am too nice and should stop assuming everyone is like me. I can count on so many occasions I’ve been disappointed by people I have associated with yet he has warned me about them.

Am not sure if it’s a blind spot I have towards people or I ignore to see people for who they are but I’ve come to acknowledge that he has better antennae in that area than I do.

I remember for a long time, my husband refused to participate in activities like dinner and fun outing with a specific friend of mine whom I will call Jenna with her husband and so I stopped pushing us to do couple engagements with them and only hanged out with my girlfriend as we used to in school before marriage life. Even then my husband kept telling me that my friend didn’t have good intentions. I would get mad and tell him he didn’t know her well enough anyway I knew her before him so basically, I ignored him and he gave up.

So last year I was having lunch with a friend who was in the same friend circle with Jenna since school days but their relationship had faded with time. So as we were catching up I mentioned I was meeting with Jenna the following week and asked her if we could hang out together as friends like old times. She said she wouldn’t be comfortable and I asked why. What followed was her warning me about my friendship with Jenna. She said she was not genuine and did not have good intentions and gave me a whole list of reasons why.

As I was listening to her so many light bulbs were lighting up in my mind and so many dots were connecting in my head, I was asking myself why I didn’t see that coming. On my way home I couldn’t help but think how my husband will have a field day with that information so I did not tell him till two weeks later, and of course, he said I told you so.

What am saying is, when you like something or someone so much, your instincts towards them may be clouded or silenced and at times it takes other people gut feeling to help us see clearly. Other times it may be we are not listening to our inner voice so we are not aware of our intuition.

I have witnessed both sides and paying attention to your inner voice has greater rewards than you can imagine. I have gotten jobs out of instincts I followed and the beauty of it is the satisfaction of knowing you followed your heart and it worked.

In this life, trying so hard will only make you frustrated. Trying to fix and get a solution to everything will only strain you. Let go, relax, seek peace and pay attention to your gut feeling and it will lead the way.

Slow down, clear your mind and intentionally make space for your instincts to occupy. Meditate or do yoga if you have to centre the focus within you.

In the long run, there is no way of proving your gut feeling. It’s like a guess, follow it and when it is confirmed you’ll know whether it was right or wrong.

“When the universe compels me toward the best path to take, it never leaves me with “maybe,” “should I,” or even “perhaps.” I always know for sure when it’s telling me to proceed — because everything inside me rises up to reverberate “YES!”
― Oprah Winfrey, What I Know for Sure