Have you ever wanted to do something and stopped yourself because another part of your mind thought it was a bad idea? Do you end up regretting these moments afterwards?

I always regret not trusting my intuition.

Whether it’s something small like clarifying a detail with someone or something much larger like choosing an apartment to rent, I have experienced that my intuition will always guide me much better than my intellect.

In this article, I’m going to cover what intuition is, where it comes from, what clouds your intuition and how to begin to trust it.

What is intuition?

Before you can fully accept the need to trust your intuition, you need to be crystal clear on what it is.

At the very core of your being is a calm, all-seeing, all-pervading consciousness that is the very essence and goal of human life. This is your Higher Self or Authentic Self. Between that inner consciousness and who you see in the mirror, are different layers of your Self.

You are much more than flesh and bones. In fact, between your body and your consciousness lie your breath, mind, memory, intellect and ego.

When these layers are clouded and full of impressions, it becomes more and more difficult for you to communicate with your inner knowing.

Nonetheless, you are reminded now and again of the presence of your Higher Self by your intuition. Your intuition is also known as your gut feeling, your primal instinct or your deep, inner knowing.

The latter is a very accurate description of what your intuition is. Your intuition is the deepest layer of your Self communicating with you.

Examples of how accurate these messages are and how they can save your life are given in a wonderful book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. In this book, fear and nagging feeling that something is terribly wrong are decoded and connected with your inner knowing.

What clouds your intuition?

Your connection with your intuition and your inner knowing is inseverable. It is the very essence of who you are and it doesn’t matter what you do or where you go, your Higher Self is always going to be there looking out for you.

So if this consciousness is always with you, why do you feel so alone sometimes?

You feel alone because you are disconnected with yourself. This stems from being caught up in the world and not spending time and making the effort to go inwards.

The further and further you go outward, the less you feel like yourself.

Have you experienced this?

Let’s take the example of trying to fit in with a certain crowd or at a certain workplace. The first little while you spend in that environment is great. You laugh, connect and have a wonderful time.

However, the more time you spend with these people in this environment, the more you feel like you’re compromising with yourself. It’s as if you’ve put on a mask and are pretending to be someone you’re not. The more you ignore the growing discontent within you, the more disconnected you’ll feel and the more you’ll cloud your intuition. You are actively taking yourself away from your Higher Self when you place yourself in this situation and ignore the signs you’re getting that this is not for you.

This is what I mean by going further and further outwards.

It requires patience, awareness and discipline to remain centred and connected with who you are at your core. You will inevitably fall out of balance every now and then and that’s okay! Your next step is just to recognize this and come back to centre.

The reward for this, of course, is that your life will begin to flow again. You will be in touch with the most authentic version of you and life will be full of little serendipities.

Perfectionism and the illusion of control

The biggest culprit that takes you away from your centre is your mind. Your mind is the root of all obstacles in life and one prime example of how your mind clouds your intuition is through perfectionism. Perfectionism is the idea that you can control everything in your life.

There is nothing wrong with wanting things a certain way and attempting to make them so. In fact, I used to go out of my way to make sure things were the way I wanted them to be. The issue was that I didn’t let myself rest until every thing was perfectly in its place.

How could I? Things would bother me until I was happy with them. When I would finally sit down to rest, I would be exhausted. And sometimes my mind would continue to search for imperfection so that I could improve it.

It was one of the most tiring things I’ve ever experienced. 

On top of that, I wanted to control things that I had no right to try to control. I wanted people to behave a certain way: to say, think and act the way I thought was best.

In my world, everything was either perfectly my way or perfectly against me.

If things weren’t the way I wanted them to be, my mind searched for a reason. That reason was almost always antagonistic and directly related to me. It made the other person or situation out to be the villain or it made me feel like I wasn’t enough.

The tendency of the mind to always want proof and want a reason for things brings you endless misery. If you’ve ever felt like you never get any time to yourself to rest and do the things that you want to do, know that this feeling is coming from the mind.

Your sphere of influence

Letting go of perfectionism begins with realizing that your sphere of direct influence is limited to your actions, speech and thoughts. This means that you can only control your own actions, speech and thoughts.

Your mind makes the world out to be a scary place that’s out to get you but everyone you interact with has as much going on in their lives as you do. Like you, they behave based on their mind, emotions, and past experiences. Your speech and actions aren’t based on the person in front of you and the same is true for them. To think that people’s behaviour is directly related to you is false and it brings you nothing but misery.

Your mind is projecting your insecurities onto them and reinforcing your negative self-talk.

Letting go of perfectionism

Letting go of the illusion of control includes letting go of situations and people. It requires you to accept that almost everything that happens in the world is out of your hands, especially your dealings with other people, whether that’s coworkers, friends, relationships or family members. It’s one of the most difficult and rewarding things you’ll ever do.

The concept may logically make sense to you while reading this, but in the heat of the moment, you’ll completely forget everything you’re reading and your emotions will take over. Calm, collected you will be nowhere to be seen.

For this reason, it’s necessary to experience and witness this truth to ground the idea and emotionally accept it as well.

Approach it in this manner:

Start to listen to other people’s arguments. Especially in disputes that are similar to your own. Make it a point to hear both sides and really understand the situation without any bias. Almost every time, you’ll find that no one is at fault.

There are no negative intentions involved.

It’s a misunderstanding that both sides take to heart. Through their anger and hurt, they’re unable to communicate clearly and sort it out.

Pretty soon, the knowledge that people are just doing the best they can and no one is out out to get you will become firmly established in your consciousness. You’ll be more able to let go of illusion of control and ease out of the hold that rampant perfectionism has on you.

The Grace of Intuition

The more your ego quiets down and accepts that you aren’t the centre of the world (i.e. the culprit for every situation everywhere), the more you’ll be able to hear your intuition speaking to you.

It will come in the form of subtle suggestions and a lot of the time, the suggestions will be out of your comfort zone.

For me, I initially ignored my intuition a lot, thinking that there was no way I could follow through with some of the ideas that came into my head. I eventually put together that every time I ignored my inner knowing, I experienced misery in some form or other.

If my intuition told me to stop talking and I didn’t, I would get rebuked. When my intuition told me to rest and I didn’t, I wouldn’t get another opportunity for a while. If my intuition told me to get up and I stayed where I was, it was almost impossible to leave later on or someone I’d been avoiding would walk in.

All of these experiences proved to me without a doubt that my intuition would never lead me astray.

The truth is quite the opposite: your intuition knows what’s best for you.

Three Takeaways to Trust your Intuition

Here is my advice to you to help you trust your intuition more:

One) Acknowledge that you have no control over anything except for your own actions, thoughts, and speech.

You are here do your part and behave in a manner that is normal to you. What happens outside of you is 100% out of your control. Fretting about it will only bring you misery. Do what you can, and trust that the rest will be taken care of.

Two) Your intuition will ask you to do things that are out of your comfort zone.

Without a doubt, it will. Here’s what to do: trust your intuition! You can only grow when you leave your comfort zone (Here’s a link to my story to show you some of the incredible things that can come your way when you let go of control and follow your irrational heart). As scary as leaving your comfort zone may be, imagine doing the same things for the rest of your life: the same foods, the same friends, the same arguments, the same job. No changes, nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary.

Soul-sucking right?

Three) Recognize and accept that your intuition will always guide you towards what is best for you.

You may think you have 20/20 vision but I assure you that your intuition is much more far-seeing than your mind and your intellect. So, ignore what the mind is saying (it’s always saying something) and listen to that feeling deep inside. When the time is right, everything will make sense.

Final words on trusting your intuition

Your intuition has always been with you and will always be with you.

In the world, there are very few things that are qualified to bring you back to your authentic self. Yoga is a practice that was designed with this goal in mind. Yoga and spirituality are deeply connected and through this ancient practice, you can gently bring the mind back to centre and holistically release what no longer serves you.

Start your practice today and reconnect with the most authentic version of you.