Happiness Comes From Being Able to Hear the Guidance of Your Inner Voice
But you gotta slow down enough to hear it
We’re in a rush. Our time is short and overflowing with tasks. It’s not often that we slow down enough to hear the guidance of our inner wisdom.
Looking to our friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and social media for answers is typical and awfully convenient. We witness their lives, make judgments of their success, and may think, Oh, I’ll just do that.
The problem arises when we lose touch with our sense of self — when our specific wants, needs, dreams, and desires are set aside for an easier, more conventional path.
When we consistently look to others for counsel on life decisions, self-trust disintegrates, setting us up for disconnection from our authentic voice.
We All Yearn To Fit In
I wasn’t raised with much parental guidance, which produced two opposing extremes.
On the one hand, it molded me into a determined, slightly reckless, I’ll figure it out and succeed kind of gal.
For example, when a high school counselor suggested I live at home and attend community college to save money, I stood up and politely told her to f**k off. I didn’t have a stellar ACT score or well-off parents, but I sure as hell wasn’t gonna stay in that small cornfield town.
On the other hand, my lack of healthy mentoring instilled crippling self-doubt and a lack of worthiness which morphed into various dissociative habits and endless loops of rumination. Oftentimes it was just easier to follow the path of others.
My best friend growing up, liked sports. Her family watched it together on TV and even took us to a few games. Which meant I grew up entrenched in baseball, basketball, and phases of hockey. Did I really like sports, or did I participate just to belong? We all yearn to fit in.
Back to the opposing extremes.
There are certainly positive and negative aspects to unbridled persistence. Learning is hard and fast and sometimes stings. It’s inspiring and kinda cute. Tenacious resolve is tolerated as a youngster, but as we get older may look like a sociopathic idiot. Nonetheless, it puts us into action where the most learning resides.
While copycatting may have a bad rap, it might not be too awful to consider the views and opinions of others. To think about options that I didn’t know I didn’t know.
And when fear creeps in, and I’m stuck in my lower, lizard brain spiraling out of control with critical self-judgment and condemnation, following the lead of someone I trust and respect might actually be the best option available at the time.
How This Plays Out
Life is messy and complicated. We’re meant to bump into challenges, get a few bruises, and gradually figure things out.
I’ve spent thousands of dollars on workshops, seminars, retreats, digital courses, masterminds, and coaching. And while it was invigorating, inspiring, and absolutely life-changing to learn from the likes of Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, and Oprah to Eckhart Tolle, Tara Brach, and Danielle LaPorte, not one of them has walked in my shoes.
Did I gain a new perspective? Yes.
Did I feel less terminally unique and alone? 100%.
Did I heal old wounds and release trauma? For sure.
Did my respect for these folks and our shared human experience expand? Every time.
We get caught up in the hustle. The demands of life can be overwhelming and exhausting. No wonder we get stuck or are painfully slow to make decisions.
When we lose touch with our true wants, needs, and desires, with our sense of self, our tenacious inner voice slowly fades away.
The road of discontent is paved with silenced dreams.
What To Do About It?
We may mimic our idols or justify our actions because we saw it on TV or social media. Or we may adhere to the guidance of our friends, boss, parent, or spouse. And yet, if it doesn’t shake out as planned, resentments can form, damaging the relationship.
When our internal compass is off-kilter, we lack self-trust and confidence in our abilities. Constantly striving for validation and worth from others is mentally draining and saps our energy and vitality. Our days become an unsatisfied existence where happiness is distant and elusive.
The best action is to pause and reverse course.
I ran into my therapist at the market the other day. She knew I’d launched my coaching business and asked how it was going. I rattled off a list of everything I was doing and all the things that were up in the air. She looked at me and gently said, “It sounds like you need to rest.”
This is a woman who is not only a highly skilled therapist and spiritual teacher but who also knows me quite well. Within 30 seconds, she pinpointed what I already knew but had been blatantly pushing away.
In this case, I’d heard the nudge of my soul asking for more unstructured time of non-productivity, but I’d ignored it. I bartered with myself for a few weeks, justifying important tasks and self-imposed timelines.
When our creativity fades, and work that should be easy begins to be painfully hard, this is the cue to set the project aside and reset. Instead of trying to manage, manipulate, and force productivity, pause, set it aside, and listen. Allow for guidance to arise.
These are a few of my favorite remedies.
Meditation
I recently heard someone refer to meditation as mental hygiene. The analogy was given that you wouldn’t expect your dentist to counsel you to brush some of your teeth or concede to an every-other-day schedule. Same with meditation.
I used to take a softer line on meditation until I actually started meditating daily. Now, in my life and with clients, it’s more than just a nice to have.
I won’t go into the volumes of data backed by doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, and scientists. We all have access to Google. However, there’s no other remedy to life’s real and perceived challenges that’s cheaper, faster, more readily accessible, and historically proven than meditation.
If you’re not sitting in silence for at least 10–20 minutes a day, now is your time to start.
Journaling
I can feel your eye roll.
We all want answers to our deepest, darkest, most draining problems. And yet, we tend to expect the antidote to be multiple facets of a complicated process. Immediately dismissing small, simple acts.
Journaling is just that. It’s a conversation with your subconscious. A place to get out of your head and into your heart. The container to dump all your feelings and emotions no matter how reasonable or rash.
It’s not for anyone else to read. Heck, it’s not for you to read either. It’s a time to spew out the gunk, to foster a release. Journaling is a fantastic place to ask your inner wisdom for guidance and simply write what comes up.
Get Out Into Nature
My favorite part about living in Panama is the lush, tropical jungle surrounding us. I walk out the front door and am immediately enveloped by hundreds of trees, bushes, and flowers. It’s changed me.
I’m present in my body. I breathe deeper. I smile more.
Being in nature regulates our nervous system. It helps us to feel calm and curious, allowing our minds to slow down enough for our inner voice to speak.
What Our Inner Voice Sounds Like
If you’re a detailed person like me, you may expect to receive all the intricacies of a well-formed plan. However, that’s not the language of our highest self.
Your inner voice shares simple, impactful messages — powerful words that arise, often in incomplete sentences.
The tone is gentle, kind, and loving. You know it because it will feel overwhelmingly true.
My inner wisdom tends to speak in action words or phrases, encouraging me to,
Rest
Go slower
Be more kind or loving
Simplify
She also sends messages to pay more attention to a particular person or aspect of my life that I’ve been neglecting. I’ll be nudged to go for a walk or call a friend.
Most recently, I’ve been called to have clearly defined times of productivity and non-productivity. Working from home, days and nights, can easily blend together. Consistent unstructured, free-flow time to do whatever my heart desires keeps me balanced and fulfilled.
Candidly, these messages are the opposite of my tendencies and a bit out of my comfort zone. And this is also how I know the guidance is real and it’s not just my selfish ego spouting off.
When life gets hard, and you’re faced with significant challenges, this red flag is the telltale sign that it’s time to slow down. It’s time to heal a lingering, long-standing wound.
And while healing may bring up feelings of anxiety, shame, and fear, if you’re living an unauthentic, lackluster existence, what do you really have to lose?
Losing track of our inner voice doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual burn forced by our jam-packed schedules and constant productivity. Provoked by our busyness and striving, it’s tragically become the norm.
Regardless of your gender, age, nationality, or religion, your intuition is stronger than you give credit or may even know.
The answers are inside you. But you gotta slow down enough for your inner voice to shine through — to allow your highest self to guide the way.
. . .
Rebecca Murauskas is a high-performance Life Coach. She helps people be free of stress and overwhelm, reclaim their purpose, and feel fulfilled. Rebecca and her husband, Adam, abandoned their careers and moved to Panamá in 2019 to pursue passions for helping people heal. Take the free Time Saver Quiz and find additional content at RebeccaMurauskas.com.