Listening To Our Intuition

Having intuition is a great thing but having intuition doesn’t mean you don’t experience disappointments at times.  

Today I received some feedback from a prospective client that they were going with another company for their programme. Oh, how hard was that. I felt the pangs of disappointment and even a little frustration.  I, just like everyone else wants to be successful in everything that I do. I knew I could do that job easily, but I didn’t get it.   

Just after getting that message, I had to make a conscious decision about which mental path I was going to take.  I wanted to call up my best friend and ruminate on the unfairness of it all.  Why didn’t I get that contract?  We would have probably come up with all the reasons why they were wrong. Why someone else was to blame and in doing so, maybe I would feel better.  

That’s what most of us do and there is a time in our personal and spiritual development when that works for us, but if we are to reach higher heights, we need to begin to be far more honest with ourselves.  

There was that quiet voice deep within me that was saying, “but you knew you wouldn’t get this contract.” I couldn’t say no to this inner voice.  I have this sense that I’ve been watching within myself for a while now.  It’s not something I would usually want to share with others. For some people, it would sound far too woo–woo.  But intuition speaks to all of us, all of the time. 

When an opportunity comes up and I’m asked to do something, there are one of two inner senses or feelings that I experience.  One will be that I have the motivation to write the programme and I can sit down and get going.  The other is that somehow, I just don’t get going.  And deep within I know what the message of this inertia is saying. Many of us interpret it as procrastination, but it’s different to that. It’s almost like trying to work against the grain of who you are, when you try to ignore it and try to plough on.   Somehow you know the message is telling you that this contract, action, person, or direction is not for you at this time. Who wants to hear that, when you can imagine the possibilities of success if you get it? 

However, even on hearing that message, I still must go through the process, because there is something that I need to learn or discover for myself.  And having to go through the process also brings up the issue of the embarrassment of not having been successful even if it is just to my family members.  I feel that they may think I’m a failure.   

But I go back to the messages of intuition that gave me the outcome at the beginning.  That still small voice that cannot be ignored in its eternal patience. 

After forcing myself to face the inner truth, I’m left with going back to the purpose of this experience, which I have figured out.  That’s for another post.  But here we focus on learning to listen to our intuition and the messages it always brings to us.  

It’s true that when one door closes, another better one is about to open.  The problem with us human beings is that we get frustrated when we don’t see the door immediately swing open. And at other times, its because there has been a gaping cavern of a door already open, but we’ve not wanted to see or place enough importance on it.   

The truth is, if this programme were right for me and the client, I would have gotten it. That can be a hard pill to take at times for all of us.  Who likes failure or disappointment?  Facing the reality of failure is seldom discussed in the world of business and certainly not from a spiritual journey context, but I am, who I am. Failure is a part of the business journey.  It’s part of the learning and growth process.  It’s only in the result of our failures that we can reflect on how we can improve ourselves, our intuitive listening (in my case on this one) and grow.  

Listening to that quiet inner voice takes practice.  At times you feel that inner movement or knowing and you think it’s your imagination, or you don’t want to acknowledge what you think you’re being told.  It takes practice to begin to learn to understand the messages and to trust it.  But putting in that practice always brings tremendous dividends and it’s worth it.  

I’m off to focus on that gaping open door that I’ve been ignoring.  Until next time…