How often, while walking the path of spiritual development, do you hear phrases like “listen to yourself,” “find the answer within yourself,” “only you know the answer.”
But does everyone know what it means to listen to themselves? Does everyone know how to hear their inner voice?
Think about what you rely on when making decisions in your life. How do you know that this information is yours?
How do you choose a particular coach, course, meditation, or book?
If you live only through your mind and rely on information that your brain considers correct and logical, as well as the good advice of others (by its same standards), then read how I found the most accurate guide for following my own path, and perhaps my experience will be useful to you.
Raised in “think” mode, not feel mode
If someone had asked me, “How do you listen to yourself?” about 5 years ago, I would have asked, “Where is that? And how am I supposed to hear it?” They don’t teach this at school or university. And no one in my family ever told me about it either.
As a child, I heard: “Think about what you’re doing, think about what you’re saying, think about how to solve the problem,” and a thousand other “think” commands.
I grew up with an ingrained understanding that the process of thinking with the brain *is* the process of listening to yourself. I completely lacked the skill of hearing my inner voice.
Living with this understanding, I was tossed around by the enormous amount of information my brain was processing. I relied on what my mind considered reasonable, correct, and logical.
A friend would say something smart, I’d watch an educational program on TV, or I’d read a clever book.
In the modern world, there are countless such “reasonable” sources of information. But the problem is that today, the TV or a friend might say one thing, and tomorrow something else.
I didn’t understand where the real truth was, the one you could trust. Where could I get information that I could believe in, and that I knew for sure wouldn’t change tomorrow?
Listening only to my brain led me to illness
My painful flailing after what my brain considered “reasonable” led me to illness. But, as I am now certain, nothing in life happens for no reason.
My illness brought me to a person who, for the first time in my life, voiced phrases like: “But what do you love? What do you want? You need to listen to yourself.”
At that time, I couldn’t answer them. Everything that came to mind was hedged with qualifiers: “I think,” “maybe,” “probably,” “it seems to me.”
I am not an exception; many people mistake the voice of the mind for the voice of their truth, their soul. They rely on logical conclusions, believing only in what they can touch and feel—the material, the tangible.
See also: How thoughts affect your health. 4 ways to eliminate the flow of mental negativity
What it means to listen to your inner voice. How it was for me
That evening, as I was trying to fall asleep, I realized that listening to myself was the very resolution of my inner turmoil.
And then my soul began to sing: “Hooray! Finally! She got it.” And for the first time, I noticed this feeling: a spreading pleasant warmth in my chest, a sense of coziness, a quiet joy within.
And then I understood that this feeling is my guiding compass. When I feel it, it means my truth is sounding or happening, my personal truth, and it’s okay if others have a different one.
But only mine is the most valuable, the most real, and the most beneficial for me.
Mastering the skill of “hearing myself” was the first step in my spiritual development, without which I wouldn’t have been able to move forward.
The second, equally important step, was learning to trust this feeling and follow it. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight.
The temptation is very strong to listen to the mind again and find someone it considers smarter and more knowledgeable. But it’s a matter of practice.
See also: How to make a choice and change your life for the better
Perhaps the physical way a person hears themselves may differ from my description.
Some feel it as warmth, joy, others as an inner feeling, as if they always knew it, a certainty that this is exactly how it is.
If you set yourself the goal of understanding what it means to hear your inner response, where it is felt in the body, what you feel at that moment, you will definitely learn. It’s simply impossible to confuse your inner voice with anything else.