Quiet Your Fears so You Can Hear Your Intuition

Several years ago I sat having coffee with one of my closest friends.

She’s the type of friend you feel proud to have in your stratosphere. She’s kind, generous, loving, inspiring, and successful. She has this unique superpower to take any perceived problem and find a way to solve it. In her spare time, she dreams up things and manifests them.

All of this is remarkable, but even more so when you realize she grew up with the odds stacked against her.

This particular day she shared with me how even as a little girl, she knew she was destined for more as an adult. She had visions for her future, and here she was decades later, doing exactly what she imagined.

I asked her how, as a little girl, with no one around her to show her or be an example of what was possible, she knew there was more out there for her anyway.

She thought, and thought, and wasn’t sure of the answer.

We went back to this conversation a couple of more times, and no real answer ever surfaced for her. One day she asked what I thought the answer was. I told her how I think it comes down to this simple truth: Sometimes you have to reach for more, even if you don’t know what you’re reaching for.

Maybe as a young girl she didn’t know what she was hoping for, but something inside her told there was more, and sometimes that’s enough. It can be scary to take the leap and extend yourself when you’re not sure what it is waiting ahead, but staying still is often the scarier choice.

The problem is so often we are listening to our fears instead of our inner knowing—our intuition.

When we let our fears lead the way, we never go anywhere new. Our fears have a funny way of acting like they are protecting us—and sometimes they are—when most of the time they are restricting us.

Our fears will concoct grand stories of all the terrible things that can go wrong. Even worse? Our fears will tell us things like we are not good enough, talented enough or deserving enough. Our fears will convince us to not even try. And so we don’t. We stay in the comfort of what is familiar, even if it’s the last place we want to be.

Leaning on our intuition however, can yield much different results. Our intuition is like our inner GPS; even if we think we don’t know the way, we somehow actually do. Our intuition guides in a loving way, just hoping we will listen because it knows what’s waiting ahead is better than we can even imagine. Our intuition is encouraging and supportive and sounds like a good friend that cheers us on to keep going, that we’ve got this.

I told my friend all this. I told her how she probably started by reaching for just a little bit more, and when she achieved that, she reached again. Each time she followed the nudge to reach, and it worked, it encouraged her to keep at it.

In essence, she was strengthening her intuition, and drowning out the fears.

Sometimes we think the answers we so desperately seek are out there, somewhere beyond us. Sometimes they are. But more often than not, the answers we need are within. The best part of that is we don’t have to wait for some grand moment to seek the answers. They are readily available, simply waiting on us to listen.

If you’re looking for answers, aren’t sure what’s next or wondering if you’re on the right path, make it a point to quiet your mind and ignore the fears—even momentarily. Ask your intuition to lead the way.

And then? Be brave enough to reach for more, even if you don’t know exactly what that is yet.

Your future self is thanking you.

Angie Salvatore received her M.F.A in Creative Non-Fiction and is a full-time writing professor. She is the creator of Universe Letters—an inspirational blog and jewelry line.  As a certified Mindfulness teacher and Reiki Master, Angie is passionate about inspiring as many people as possible through her jewelry, speaking engagements, meditation and journaling workshops, and her writing. Her jewelry is meant to inspire women to live their most mindful, meaningful lives. She believes words are powerful and life changing.

To read Angie’s writing, head over to her blog (universeletters.com), which focuses on infusing more mindfulness and positivity in your day-to-day life. Her writing has also been featured on The Huffington Post, Positively Positive, Tiny Buddha, Mind Body Green, Sivana Spirit, The Change Blog, Rebelle Society, Elephant Journal and Having Time. For your daily dose of inspiration, you can follow her (Universe Letters) on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.