Self-Improvement
6 Ways to Determine Whether You Are Hearing Your Ego or Your Intuition
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” – Steve Jobs
Our intuition is known to guide us in the right way. Geniuses of all times have talked about their intuition guiding them and helping them to use their sixth sense. Inventors, gurus, artists, masters; all of them give credit to their intuition for their discoveries and masterpieces. But if it’s so easy to listen to our intuition, why are we not able to listen to it and guide ourselves?
Here I would like to introduce you to your enemy: EGO. It’s a clever, selfish attitude that resides in the back of our head coming out only to take control of our lives. To be safe and to protect itself from pain, change and vulnerability, it pretends to be our intuition. This trick often confuses us and makes us believe that we are listening to our intuition.
Read the points given below to know who is speaking to you: intuition or ego!
1. It’s not the loudest voice in our heads OR (Intuition whispers)
When our mind is disturbed or tired or confused, every thought and emotion swirls inside it. Most likely, we listen to the one that overpowers all other thoughts. But, we should try to calm our minds and listen to the low whisper inside our head that we usually tend to ignore. Because that is our intuition speaking. Because meditation helps to clears our mind, it is advised to practice it regularly. Many-a-times, intuition connects to us through our feelings too.
Must-Read After: You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
2. It never pressures, threatens or forces to do anything we don’t want to OR (No pressure on you)
At any moment, if you feel like you don’t want to do something or you question your actions, it’s your intuition telling you that it’s not for you. Intuition will never force you into anything that you don’t want to do. Only your ego will push you forward on the path where you don’t want to go. It instils the feeling of fear in our mind to encourage us. Remember, intuition knows your potential and will motivate you accordingly. It won’t force you into anything.
3. It is always there and always guiding us, whether we know it or not OR (inside you)
If you feel that you cannot listen to your intuition, no need to worry about making wrong decisions. It will always guide your mind in its unique ways. Your choices, your decisions, their outcomes are all intuitive whether you recognize it or not. However, if you can listen to your intuition, you will feel the connection with your higher self. But that changes nothing in your life.
4. Like a muscle, it must be exercised in order to strengthen
Listening to intuition is like knowing somebody. The more you try to follow it, the more you know about it. Everybody’s intuition communicates in different ways. Some listen voices, some see visions, some get signs from the universe, some just know and some even find signals in their own words.
5. It is not a magic 8 ball into a life of no pain or change
If you think that being able to tap into your intuition is the final key to your happy life, you are wrong. It’s what you ego thinks. Intuition just lets you live your life as a human without regrets and leads you down the path of evolution and expansion.
6. It often is not telling us what to do but rather how to be
Intuition helps us adopt the most expanded perspective of our current situation rather than telling us to keep moving and changing. That is what our ego wants because it fears to be known. It will never let your mind settle because that is when we can see it for what it actually is.
The Top 3 Inspiration Books You Must Read:
- Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone
- As a Man Thinketh
- Have a Little Faith: A True Story
