Do You Even Hear Yourself Right Now?!

#intuiton #innerVoice #selfcare #journaling #mediation

Being a part of today’s society makes it easy to get bogged down with every day routines and forget about ourselves. At least, it is for me. “But how can I forget myself crazy? I’m right here”, I hear you asking as you read my first sentence. Let me explain: listening to our bodies and intuition is something I feel many of us take for granted. So much so, that it completely goes over our heads when we have stopped listening.

Our spirit/intuition tells us SOOO much when we open ourselves up to listen.

I have had too many experiences where something or someone rubbed me the wrong way and did not take heed. No matter what the situation was, all those circumstances have one thing in common: I did not listen, and so I felt. Many times, the universe, our intuition (whatever you want to call it) has a way of warning us when things are not for us. I have noticed that if situation/person is not for me, then I feel uncomfortable. Everything could be perfectly fine on the surface, but something just does not feel right. It’s almost as if your senses are screaming at you, trying to get you back on track.

The practice of ignoring your inner voice, dulls that voice. Think of your intuition as a muscle or your inner child. After some time away from working on that muscle, it will begin to deteriorate. Whether you notice or not, that muscle has gotten smaller and weaker. Like a child, your intuition will stop trying to talk to you if you never listen. Ignoring the part of yourself that values your well-being is sending a message to that inner child. When we stay in situations and engage in behaviors that are bad for our well-being, we are sending the message that “I do not care about me.” The practice of listening to your gut and placing value in what feels right improves our intuition’s ability to serve us.

I called it a “practice” for a reason. If you currently feel out of touch of with yourself or something just does not feel right it could be because you have been looking outward for answers to internal needs. Practice asking yourself what makes you happy, what pisses you the F***k off, what makes your spirit sing and what you need to do live your best life. I am guilty of going through the motions and not looking within for the vision of my life, but now that I value my time more, I am looking for better ways to spend it.

Listening to yourself is the key to happiness. For a while, I kind of just went through the motions and did what was expected of me. Sure, I was fine, but I was not happy. I had all the things I thought I wanted, but I later realized that I barely knew me. For years, I had not been listening to my inner voice and it continued until I had no choice. My emotions were all over the place, everything was a drag, my relationships were a mess and I just felt out of control. Now I listen to the voice that tells me “hey take a day off”, “hang out with a friend today, I need it”, “this is not what I want for myself”, “I love when….”. We have expectations of what things will be like, but nothing tells us more about how to be happy than reflecting on how we feel from moment to moment.

Tuning in to our inner voices empowers us to think and speak in ways that serve us. This was a huge one for me, because I became unsatisfied with my now. I was tolerating mediocrity in areas of my life that had potential for greatness. At that time, my inner voice said “this is good enough”, “well this is better than..”, “I am not qualified for.., “I do not deserve…” and “what if I fail”? Notice that I listed a slew of negative self-talk. I did this to show you that in telling myself those things, I manifested that into my life. Most things I did, I did well, naturally, and I was satisfied with that for a while. I was satisfied with mediocrity until I realized that I only tolerated that because I feared my greatness. I was afraid to apply myself fully because of the attention it would bring me. In sharing my stories and knowledge of personal development, I open myself up a lot of things: learning about myself, learning to challenge myself in healthy ways and most importantly, learning how to work through my fears and explore my passions. Now, because I listen to the things I tell myself, I can discern the truth. I can correct myself when I think I have tried my hardest when really, I did the bare minimum, I can walk into my purpose because I know fear means I am walking towards a challenge. I use the power of “I am.” To challenge myself. I am enough. I am able to start a ground-breaking business. I am encouraging healthy self-development in young people in the black community. I am who I am.

Ways that I practice listening: Once I realized that I am actually a terrible listener, especially when it came to myself. I began a journey of finding ways to hear my own voice. I realized that I have a lot of great things to say and that I cannot expect others to listen to me if I did not listen to myself. That I was not satisfied with my listening skills and wanted to change that. I thought back to a time when I was more in tune with myself and returned to Journaling. Being a poor oral communicator and someone who was “shy”, I wrote a lot. It was how I got my thoughts out. It was how I released negative energy. It gave me a voice where my physical one was not strong enough yet. Returning to journaling helped me to realize how much I had been holding in. The opportunity to transfer my thoughts to paper again helped me to regain sight of goals, tune in to my future and created a safe space for me to speak my mind.

I also got comfortable with mediation. At first, I thought mediation was such a wild idea. My mind naturally goes a mile a minute, and so the idea of stopping my thoughts or even simply observing them seemed absurd. After some time, and patience, I began meditating almost daily. When I say “mediation”. I simply mean, taking a deliberate breath. It is something we do all the time. When someone makes you angry and you just take a deep breath, that’s mediation. I like to take at least one minute a day to simply focus on my breathing and observe my thoughts. It has helped me because observing my thoughts allows me to take note of the things that weigh me down, brings me back to each moment and allows me become less judgmental of myself. I am able to notice my thoughts, positive or negative and allowing them to exist, before deciding whether or not they serve me. Journaling and mediation are just two of my favorite ways to tune in, but there are many other practices that can yield the same results. Comment some of your favorite ways to tune in or some challenges that you have faced when trying to hear your own voice.