Don't Squeeze the Mistrust Away — Listen to Your Inner Voice

“[S]he squeezed the mistrust away into a corner of her mind, and blocked it up there.”  From Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend
 
How many times have you been in a situation and sensed within yourself that something wasn't quite right? Your inner voice is there in the background, whispering to you gently but firmly. You get a noticeable gut feeling you can’t deny. Or perhaps you find your intuition speaking to you as if trying to convey a subtle warning. 

How many times have you dismissed that feeling and carried on anyways? And then afterwards, you find yourself saying, “I should have listened to that inner voice,” or "I should have followed my intuition," or "I should have gone with my gut."

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The subtlety of that inner twinge doesn’t make it any less accurate. 

Far too often when we experience that sense of concern, mistrust, or foreboding, we squeeze it away into a corner of our mind, thinking we can hide it away and ignore it. To a certain extent, we may indeed be able to push it aside. However, we often pay a price for doing so.
 
The subtlety of that inner twinge, regardless of the form it takes, doesn't make it any less accurate. Even if you can't fully explain where it's coming from, it's there for a reason. Perhaps you're sensing that something is off with the picture being presented before you. Perhaps things aren't adding up, or the pieces don’t seem to fit together the way they ought to. On a deep level, something within you is recognizing that something isn’t quite right, and the need for caution as you go forward.
 
Whatever you choose to call it — your inner voice, a gut feeling, your intuition — there's both a purity and a potency about that power within you. It recognizes when there's potential harm or danger in your path and aims to protect you from it. On the surface, everything may appear fine and the nature of the harm might not be readily apparent. The great thing about that power within you is that it’s able to detect what lies beneath the surface. But there’s a catch.
 

Remaining sensitive to that inner voice and detecting it with greater clarity.

When we repeatedly ignore those inner warning signals and the sense of mistrust we're experiencing, we lessen our sensitivity to it. Over time, we can lose touch with it to the point that it's barely detectable. 

Fortunately, the opposite also holds true:  the more you pay attention to that inner voice and respond to it, the more sensitized you become to it. Even though it remains subtle, you're able to detect it with greater clarity. As the habit of responding to it becomes more entrenched, it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore it.
 

Increasing your sensitivity to those inner signals.

Do you struggle to hear your inner voice? Do you find yourself routinely ignoring or overriding your gut feelings? Do you feel you’re not as in touch with your intuition as you would like to be? Here’s the good news: you can increase your sensitivity to those inner signals. This doesn’t require anything extreme or laborious, but it does require a conscious effort. 

Journal writing, deep breathing, and meditating are all excellent ways of tuning out the noise and static around you, so you can tune in to what’s going on inside of you. These practices are effective because they require that you slow down. The process of slowing down allows you to relax and quiet your mind, leading to actual changes in your mental state, which in turn leads to changes in your emotional state. 

Those changes don’t provide an immediate magic solution, but they nurture a mental and emotional environment that’s conducive for detecting what’s going on inside you with less noise and interference. With that increased sensitivity and clarity, you’ll gradually become much more attuned to all those inner signals you’re receiving. And as you strengthen your connection to the protective power of those inner signals, you'll be far less inclined to block them out, push them aside, squeeze them away.

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