Inner wisdom.
After my divorce, I said to myself, “Trust yourself.”
After I finally left a really shitty relationship, I said to myself, “Trust yourself. You knew you shouldn’t have been there.”
After hate mail left me feeling gutted and ashamed and self-rejecting, I again said to myself, “Have your back. You didn’t deserve this.”
After an employee (years ago) blamed me for her inability to grow professionally, I knew it wasn’t my fault but I still took the blame willingly.
After a shopper shamed me for 30 minutes for something that had nothing to do with me, my friends had to pull me out of a dark hole- reminding me that this behavior was totally uncalled for.
In all these situations, I’d ignored my inner wisdom. Took the blame. Believed what was being said about me. And internalized it all as my own character flaws.
Now, we all must find ways to know ourselves more. And my situation might be totally different than yours. But something seems pretty common- we ignore our inner wisdom and find ourselves in situations that are not healthy for us.
In many of these circumstances I’ve provided you, I reacted in a similar way. I ignored my inner wisdom. After reflection, time and talking it through with others, a theme began to emerge.
“Trust yourself”, my mind and heart said to me. “Being in those situations FELT horrible. Remember that.” You ignored what would have been right for you in order to preserve the relationship. To avoid conflict. To keep the peace.
I’m an overthinker (I have OCD) and usually the incessant thoughts running through my brain are correct. They’re warnings that often would have helped if I’d listened to them.
So, why don’t I? I really wanted to know more. So, I set out to learn more about why I ignore my own inner wisdom and how I could start listening to the voice that has my best intentions in mind.
LESSON 1: PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS + FEELINGS ARE THEIR OWN
Through these really difficult situations, I’ve learned something about myself.
I take ownership over other people’s thoughts and feelings. I don’t have my own back. I don’t advocate for myself. I believe the stories of what others are telling me. And something else happens- I almost don’t even know how to process the situations in the actual moment they’re happening. My mind goes blank. I immediately believe I’m to blame. That if people are coming at me with such intensity that what they’re saying must be the truth.
I used to chalk this up to being truly needing to learn more about how to operate better within the world. All the criticisms from my ex husband (“You can’t be trusted with money so I’m not allowing you to have access to our checking account.”), my ex boyfriend (“You can’t be trusted- you’ve been divorced.”), an old employee (“If you knew what you were doing people would like you and they don’t.”) left me believing I needed to improve- at being a wife, a girlfriend, a boss- instead of realizing that maybe I needed to improve my ability to stand up for myself AND improve my ability to pick people to be in my life.
LESSON 2: IN INTENSE SITUATIONS, MY BRAIN TENDS TO SHUT DOWN
In addition to ignoring my inner wisdom, I recently read a book that shed some light on what happens in the brain during interrogations and I found that it’s not uncommon that my response to situations I’ve encountered that I found to be more like interrogations and confrontations rather than discussions have left me not advocating properly for myself.
My mind goes blank. I lose energy and my ability to process the information in a neutral way leaves me. Now, I’m not talking about tough conversations or feedback but I’m talking about when someone comes at me with an intention to shame and blame me, with high emotion and a lack of care for my emotional safety.
LESSON 3: RULES OF CONDUCT APPLY TO EVEN TOUGH CONVERSATIONS
What I came away with was that the way feedback is delivered is important. If someone in a relationship with me comes at me trying to shame me, injure me emotionally, humiliate me in front of others, or trying to make me take the blame for their emotions then it’s ok for me to recognize that and remove myself from the situation. It’s ok for me to not get emotionally-tied to that moment. It’s ok for me to request a different time to talk, when tensions are lower.
LESSON 4: LOVE YOURSELF NO MATTER WHAT
The ultimate lesson in all of this has been to love myself no matter what. My heart has always been begging me for this. Just because someone believes I’m the root of their own discomfort, that doesn’t mean I have to jump on their bandwagon and turn against myself. Just because they present with high emotion, it doesn’t mean that they’re speaking universal truth. I can love myself even if someone is interrogating or attacking me. And if they are, I ask myself, “Should I even be in a relationship with this person?” This goes for both professional and personal relationships. Customers. Clients. Employees. Collaborators. If people try to shame me, what does that say about them? Does it really say something about me? Maybe what it says about me is that I’m willing to endure that type of treatment. And that’s something I’m no longer wiling to do.
My situation might be particular to me.
But ignoring our inner wisdom isn’t. I coach a lot of people who have confusion about what they should do, where they should live, if they should stay or go, what career path is right for them, and more.
We’ve lived lives that might have forced us to fracture the connection between our heads and our hearts. No matter who we are we’ve experienced situations that have changed us.
Unearthing who I really am and who I really want to be has been a lifelong challenge.
Finding ways to listen to the voice inside me that says:
take a nap
you should eat now
this is not a great relationship for you
that would be so fun- go for it
take the time to write
ask that person out- what do you have to lose?
tell that person no
it’s time to go to the doctor
it’s ok if they’re disappointed with you
cancel your meetings and take a day off
iI’s ok if you didn’t do this perfectly
has become my goal.
When I gave up sugar, carbs and drinking for 2 weeks, that voice came back. I felt more like myself. I felt that I KNEW myself.
See, I think we use some tactics to quiet the voice because it might require us to change- and our brain does NOT like that. It might require us to risk, and our brain certainly isn’t into that. It might require us to do some deep thinking and concentrating- but who has the time for that?
However, knowing ourselves requires all of that.
Your inner wisdom is there. You DO hear it. You’re usually also firing back a response like “Quiet down”, or “Now’s not the time,” or “We don’t have time for this,” or “We can’t do that- here’s 10 reasons why.”
Risk. Fear. Change. Pause. Focus. Quiet. Paying attention.
This is where our inner voice is. It’s always here.
But are we willing to listen?