Trusting yourself should be the most natural thing to do, but it’s not. Our world is structured, in such a way, that everything tells us, “Whatever you do, don’t trust yourself.”
If you cannot trust yourself, you are powerless to make good choices, which often leads to making choices based on pressure or opinions of others. Even if they are well-intentioned, no one ever knows what is best for you, but you. If you spend a lifetime dis-trusting yourself and seeking external guidance, eventually you end up with a life that doesn’t suit you or make you happy. If you do not trust yourself, you are also likely to repress self-expression, ultimately leading to chronic complacency or even depression.
As a crisis outreach counselor for seven years and a spiritual life coach for almost twenty, I have noticed patterns, and the one pattern that shows up every single time is that depressed, confused and overwhelmed people do not trust themselves, and, in fact, are often immobilized out of fear of making the wrong choice.
But, it is not just people in crisis, it is virtually everyone! In fact, many of the issues that we face today are a result of not trusting ourselves and could be easily resolved by the Power of Self-trust.
Self-trust Has Been Brainwashed Out of Us. But Why?
Most of the world’s child raising standards revolve around teaching children to obey authority – including institutions of religion, education, medical, government and even media. Children are punished for questioning authority and thinking for themselves, while being rewarded for memorization and following the rules. This precise “formula” teaches children not to trust themselves. If you cannot think for yourself and you look to authority figures for answers, how can you ever trust yourself?
Children who don’t trust themselves grow up to be adults who also blindly depend on external sources for information, guidance, rules, laws and regulations – most of these external sources have their own hidden agendas which do not support the individual.
We have given our power away because we do not know how to look within for the answers.
Misdirected Trust in Outside Sources?
Maybe humanity is in crisis, not because we have been mindlessly trusting institutions that have their own best interests at heart, but rather because we are not trusting ourselves! If we really trusted ourselves and we looked within for the answers, we would not give our power to any of these outside sources because we would be able to decipher the truth from the lies.
Trusting yourself activates an inner energetic switch that puts you in the driver’s seat, and allows you to be the conscious creator of your life.
I spent much of my life looking to others for the answers and not trusting myself, and as a result I racked up countless bad decisions, including failed marriages, great financial loss, and tons of issues that could have been easily avoided. But somehow, through it all, there was this inner-knowing that I had to find a way to trust myself despite what the world was telling me.
Knowing that this was the key, and despite evidence to the contrary, I made the conscious choice to trust myself above and beyond all else, and as I began to believe in myself, my choices improved and my life improved, and the more I believed in myself, the more I could trust myself. As I stepped fully into my power, clarity became the norm, and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. By believing in myself and trusting myself, even if I still made mistakes from time to time, I was granted access to a body of knowledge that continues to transform my life, and allows me to help others do the same.
There is an incredible power inside of you that can only be accessed through the power of self-trust.
You may not have anyone in your life saying, “Trust yourself,” but I am saying it to you now. This is the key that will allow you access to the control panel of your life. If you do not trust yourself, you are denied access. The mere act of trusting yourself activates your consciousness in such a way that your life becomes super-charged.
Yes, it might require a leap of faith. Like me, you might have a long list of reasons why you should never trust yourself – do it anyway, and keep doing it until you have a long list of reasons why you can trust yourself. The only way that you can ever trust yourself, is by trusting yourself.
What Does it Mean to Trust Yourself?
Your body and mind are priceless technology that will guide you every step of the way on your journey through life. Your body gives you energetic and emotional signals to show you which way to turn and even what to do. Your mind gives you inspiration, visions and ideas to pursue that are intended to guide you in the direction of your highest good. In order to trust yourself you must be in touch with this inner guidance system.
Your Inner Guidance System Holds the Answers
Your inner guidance system is a network of physical, intuitive and emotional information that speaks directly to you – through all your senses. Your senses feed you information so that you can make good conscious choices. You already trust your inner guidance system in many ways. For example, if you eat something that tastes rotten, you stop eating it. If you smell smoke, you check for fire. If you hear a cry, you look to see if someone needs help. If you touch a hot stove, you let go immediately.
Most of us unconditionally trust these everyday aspects of inner guidance, but higher levels of inner guidance are where we usually stop trusting ourselves. We don’t trust our sixth sense which is intuition nor do we trust our emotional senses. If you desire to take back your power, and reclaim your freedom to make conscious choices, these two elements of inner guidance are most essential.
When you understand how your inner guidance speaks through your emotional senses and your sixth sense, information can be as clear as knowing when to take your hand off a hot stove.
Emotional Guidance Technology
An integral aspect of your inner guidance system is the technology of emotions. Your emotions were given to you to experience life but emotions are also a system of inner guidance.
If you want to trust yourself, you must get in touch with your emotions, and you must feel. If you push down your emotions, you cut off your natural guidance, and as a result you cannot trust yourself.
If you have unhealed emotional issues, those issues can be easily triggered by everyday life – better known as emotional reactions. Emotional reactions are designed to protect you and keep you on guard, but emotional reactions are not good intuitive guides because they are tied to events and traumas in the past. Therefore, releasing pent-up and unhealed emotions is essential.
A high quality emotional guidance system is anchored firmly in the now, pulsating clear emotions that provide guidance that can direct your actions, aligning you with your purpose, path and passion.
Your Body Speaks
If you want to hear your inner guidance, you must get in your body where that guidance is available.
Our bodies always tell us when we are in the wrong job or an unhealthy relationship. Every bodily issue is a communication from your body – attempting to tell you something. When you don’t pay attention over a long period of time, small challenges in the body often turn into disease.
In order to get in your body, you must stop criticizing your body or judging your body in any way. You must love your body and listen to your body. The more you care for your body, the healthier your body will become and the more information and guidance it will provide.
You already know what to do to care for your body so I’m not going to tell you. If you are unsure, ask your body – this is the point.
The entire body is important but if you just started focusing on two areas, for most people it would be the heart and the gut.
Don’t Be Afraid to “Make Mistakes”
We often don’t trust ourselves because we are afraid of making mistakes, but it is a catch twenty-two because as long as you are afraid of making mistakes, you will not be able to trust yourself. And, in fact, the fear of making mistakes causes us to make more mistakes because we are not trusting ourselves – it is a vicious cycle, but one that you can overcome.
The point is to even trust your mistakes because you never know where a mistake might take you. There is higher guidance and a higher plan in everything we do, including the mistakes we make.
Let Go of What “The World Will Say”
It is impossible to trust yourself, if you are worried about “what the world will say,” be that family, friends or society.
How can you trust what you are perceiving, when you are filtering your perceptions through the minds of others? As long as you care more about the opinions of others than your own opinions, your inner guidance will go unnoticed by you.
If you alter your behavior in order to please others, or you want to be seen positively in their eyes, you have cut yourself off from your intrinsic wisdom and personalized guidance that comes from deep within.
In order to trust yourself, you must let go of the need to please others.
Forgo Comparison
You must drop comparison and stop comparing yourself to anyone at any time. Comparison keeps you trapped in the limitations of the collective. As long as you compare yourself to anyone, you cannot be in full control of your life. This includes competing with others for success and also pointing out that you are not the only one experiencing something. Every time you say, “other people do it, so I am not the only one, or others have it worse,” you are giving yourself an excuse not to listen to your inner guidance – and to stay stuck.
Eradicate Worry
Chronic worrying keeps you from accessing inner knowledge and trusting that knowledge, therefore, you must calm your mind and body of worry. Instead of focusing on what you do not want, focus your attention on what you do want. The opposite of worry is conscious creation.
Stop Getting Ahead of Yourself
If you are constantly busy and running from one activity to another, you are likely moving faster than the speed of life. How can you trust yourself if you are moving too fast and getting ahead of yourself? Slow down! Be here now. Pay attention to what you are doing, and feeling.
By the way, stress is an indicator that you are not listening to your inner guidance.
Be Conscious
We are always told to be present, but “be present” to what exactly? There are uncountable things to be present to at any given moment. Instead of trying to be present, be conscious. Be conscious of your thoughts, emotions, and body sensations. The more conscious you are, the more you can access inner guidance.
Listen to Your Physical Energy
Your natural physical energy will always be an incredible guide. When we are going in a positive direction for ourselves, we always have an abundance of energy, even if something is challenging. If, however, we are going in the wrong direction, we often lack energy.
Follow Your Emotional Energy
Happiness is positive emotional energy – if you follow your joy, you will be following your inner guidance. Dread, stress and overwhelm are emotions that tell you that you are going the wrong way. Follow your joy and you will always be guided.
Quiet Your Mind
If you are trying to figure out solutions, the answers will not come to a mind that is not open or available to receiving information or inspiration. Answers come through a quiet mind. You cannot expect to access inner guidance when your mind is going a mile a minute or your mental energy is split.
Stop Depending on Spiritual Arts
There is nothing wrong with numerology, astrology or psychics, as long as you don’t give anyone or anything more power than you give yourself. We are talking about trusting yourself and your own guidance more than anything or anyone, including angels, guides and masters.
Teach Your Children
If you are a parent, teacher or care-giver, teach your children how to trust themselves.
What If I Am Just Making It Up?
Maybe you ask, “How do I know that I am receiving inner guidance and I am not making it up?” There is a very thin line between intuition and conscious creation. It is no accident that the third eye of intuition is also called the eye of imagination.
When we receive an intuitive hit or vision, we are seeing one possible outcome or path. Your intuition is not telling you that this is the only path, or this is what you should do. Your intuition is simply showing you one possibility, based on your current trajectory, which is likely determined by your beliefs.
Nothing is set in stone until you believe it is. This is where your power lies. Not to decipher if something is true or not, but rather to determine if what you intuitively perceive supports you or not. If it does support you, then consciously give power to it, by choosing to believe it, but, if it doesn’t, let it go.
The question is not, “Is my inner guidance correct?”
The question is, “Does this path support me and does it feel good?”
So, yes, make it up – make it all up. This is how you consciously create your life through the power of imagination and the belief that you apply to your imagination. This is the pinnacle of trusting yourself.
You may not realize it right now, but everything is Make Believe – this means that your beliefs make up your reality, so why not consciously “make believe” a reality that is full of joy, peace, fun and abundance.
Trust the Process
We humans are very quick to jump to conclusions. As soon as something seems to be going astray we stop trusting the process. The thing is, life is tricky – often it seems like circumstances are taking us away from our destination when actually life is creating a more direct route. I know that it is difficult to trust the process when the process seems to be taking you in the “wrong direction,” but trust it anyway. If you release control, just a little bit, you might discover that just because things seem to be bat-crazy doesn’t mean they really are.
Here’s the Catch…
As much as you trust yourself, you must also trust the Universe. There is an All Knowing Power that is at work in all moments and at all times. This grand and infinite power runs the whole show – it orchestrates the rising of the sun, the birth of the stars, and even the perfect rhythm of your body – pumping your blood and controlling all the trillions of cells to do what they are supposed to do. If you only trust yourself without trusting the Universe, you miss the point, and if you only trust the Universe without trusting yourself, you cut off your power as conscious creator of your life.
In order to be a successful adventurer through the dimensions of creation, you must learn to really trust yourself and listen to your inner guidance, and you must also trust this Infinite Power to take you wherever you want to go.
In this beautiful co-creative dance with the Universe anything and everything is possible… Dream Big!
Free Mediation – Please join me in a short, but powerful, mediation designed to help you connect with your inner guidance. Go tohttp://www.nanice.com/meditatenow
With Grace and Gratitude
Nanice Ellis