Trusting Our Intuition

 Were you encouraged to trust yourself as a child?

Or were you taught to listen to your parents, no matter what?

I was taught to obey and to discount my own feelings. What I thought, what I wanted, and what I felt didn’t seem to matter. I learned to look outside myself for direction rather than trust what was happening inside me.

Over time, I lost sight of my intuition.

I didn’t stop trying to control things as an adult, but I can see now that much of that control came from fear rather than faith in myself.

Then, during my first month of recovery, something wonderful happened.

I found a therapist who was intuitive, was also in recovery, and taught inner-child work.

I was fascinated by her intuition. I brought my questions to her, trusting that she knew the right answers.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was looking at someone who possessed a gift I had never learned to recognize in myself.

I knew she had intuition.

I didn’t yet understand that I had it, too.

As I continued working with her, I began exploring my own inner knowing. To my delight, I discovered that I had a strong intuition of my own.

It was an exciting realization.

But discovering my intuition and learning to trust it were two different things.

That second part took years.

There were lessons to learn.

There were opportunities to listen to myself and decide whether I would trust what I sensed or return to the familiar habit of looking outside myself for reassurance.

Sometimes I trusted my intuition.

Sometimes I doubted it.

Sometimes I needed to experience the consequences of ignoring it before I understood what it had been trying to tell me.

Little by little, I began to recognize the difference between intuition and fear.

Fear often demanded certainty. It wanted me to anticipate every possible outcome and find a way to protect myself from anything that might go wrong.

Intuition felt different. It was quieter. It didn’t always give me a complete answer or explain what would happen next.

Sometimes it was simply a sense of knowing, a feeling that something deserved my attention, or an inner nudge to pause and listen.

I have come to believe that intuition is a gift but not a guarantee that we will always be right. We can be influenced by fear, old wounds, and our own assumptions. Learning to trust ourselves also means being willing to pause, reflect, and remain open to new information.

Trusting my intuition doesn’t mean I will never make a mistake.

It means I no longer have to automatically dismiss myself.

When I think about that little girl who was taught to discount her feelings, my heart softens.

How could she learn to trust herself when she was repeatedly taught that she was wrong and parents were right?

But as an adult, I had the opportunity to teach her something different.

Her feelings matter.

Her voice matters.

She is allowed to have her own thoughts and opinions.

She is allowed to listen to that quiet knowing inside her.

And she is allowed to change her mind when she learns something new.

I wish I had understood all of this many years ago. But perhaps the journey of learning to trust ourselves unfolds when we are ready to recognize what we were missing.

I am grateful that recovery opened that door for me.

I am grateful for the therapist who helped me begin exploring a gift I didn’t know I possessed.

And maybe the most important part of this journey is learning to trust the person we are becoming.

One decision at a time.

One quiet moment of listening to ourselves at a time.

After all these years, I am still amazed at the wisdom that was within me all along.