Trusting Yourself, Trauma & Intuition

Trusting and believing in yourself is intrinsically linked to embracing and developing your intuition.

Your natural intuitive abilities are inherent within you and will strengthen and develop the more you begin to anchor in and trust in yourself.

For me it’s been exciting to see more and more people grow interested in understanding and developing their intuition and inner connection over the past 5 years.

However, I feel like there’s the potential for people to want to learn how to understand their intuitive and psychic nature to use as a commodity in an attempt to control situations and circumstances in their life or as a means to get what they (think) they want.

Intuition doesn’t really work that way because it’s so interwoven with other powerful and dynamic frameworks within you, such as your soul’s unique make up and the programmed beliefs and constructed narratives you hold within which can often stem from stress, disruption and trauma.

I know many of you would like for me to give you a ‘5 ways to develop your intuition’ but if I were to do that (which I once did) I wouldn’t be doing my job and I’d just be perpetuating harm and disconnection, which I don’t want to do.

So, let me first begin to explain what intuition is. 

Intuition is your ability to perceive and interpret information via the feedback system of your body and energy field. Our intuition communicates information via our senses. Through feeling, sensation and knowing. Or through inner sight and flash insight or by hearing clear words and repeated guidance.

Essentially, If you’re human, you’re intuitive. Full stop. (Even if you don’t believe you are!)

Sure, some people may be naturally more developed and stronger in their intuitive abilities than others but it’s only because they’ve had more practise either in this lifetime or over many other lifetimes. Or because they received encouragement and support (often as a child) to listen and pay attention to what the ‘little voice’ within them is saying.

What I know to be true is intuition is everyone’s birthright.

So.. if we begin with the foundational understanding that everyone is intuitive because we’re designed that way, than perhaps the question is more – what impacts and prevents us from NOT picking up the inner directives and intuitive whispers?

 

Here are few reasons why accessing & understanding our intuition can be challenging. 

Fear. We’re afraid of what our intuition might inform us of. 

Now, I’m not talking about seeing ghosts or knowing peoples thoughts. I’m talking about our intuition informing us that we’re in the wrong relationship. Or that our body is sick. Or that we’ve been traveling down an unfulfilling career path our identity and ego is deeply constructed around despite always having the subtle underlying knowing we’re not where we’re meant to be.

Once we know and acknowledge things like this we cannot un-know them which inevitably means at some point we have to do something about what it is we now know. And that can be messy, disruptive, scary and takes us into the unknown. (Which alternatively, when we embrace the unknown it makes us feel alive and energised and puts us in the position of being powerful conscious creators!)

But if we block our intuition we block the information it’s trying to communicate and so we can carry on as we are, always feeling a little (or a lot) disconnected, misaligned and seeking temporary solutions, answers and guidance outside of ourselves that’s seemingly more acceptable, neat, tidy and palatable yet doesn’t ever really feel right.

 

Trauma

Gabor Mate, the psychologist and medical doctor who’s specialises in trauma, addiction and healing defines trauma as being

 ‘not what happened to you; trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you.’  

There is a lot of evidence that links traumatic experiences to our neural and nervous systems development and function.

This gets interesting because from an energetic perspective misaligned beliefs and stories and unacknowledged pain that are the result of trauma are not invisible to the physical eye but exist as an energy form that conglomerates together within our body and energy field. The conglomerates of energy from the unprocessed experience and emotions can block your energy system and prevent a fluid flow of unseen intuitive information reaching you.

Often what happens when intuitive insight and information is trying to come up is you get anxious, confused and overwhelmed or triggered and reactive. Uncomfortable emotions arise and we push them back down.

Or, we do receive insight and guidance from our intuition about something we need to address but the thought of addressing it flares up our nervous system because to address whatever is occurring also brings the memory of pain linked to what we experienced previously that was scary, painful and isolating. When we continue on this loop it only further strengthens the limiting stories, programming and beliefs we hold about ourselves and we become stuck.

Let me also add – the trauma you may have experienced and the personal narratives and programming you hold are energy.

And as you know, all energy holds a vibrational quality. So, if you have unaddressed pain and trauma or inherited beliefs and frameworks within your body and field you will vibrational output frequency they vibrate and radiate at whether you’re aware of it or not. This is not bad or good. It just is! It’s part of the human experience and our soul’s evolution.

What I have observed is this.. 

1) Our natural intuitive abilities support and guide us to the degree we have addressed, respected, loved and healed our pain. When we heal and integrate something our energetic system flows more easily which is how intuitive data and insight flows to us.

2) Energy doesn’t lie. There is no point working hard at trying to superficially raise your vibes without doing the healing and inner work.You cannot override lower vibrational energy outputs with temporary higher vibes.  All you will manifest is disappointment and frustration or the sense of feeling blocked.

Note : It’s important to recognise when you have completed the healing work required on a certain issue and it’s time to take positive steps forward and move away from focusing on healing. You don’t want to get stuck in a permanent ‘healing loop rut’.

 

So what can you do….. 

• Explore your own personal rhythm and give yourself space and quiet time. When you consciously choose to slow down a little and attune to your own rhythm you will be able to connect with your inner being and soul more easily and receive the gentle and sometimes often simple guidance and insight it’s offering you. The more you move to your own rhythm and take action on the inner prompts you receive your alignment shifts which shifts your personal energy and vibrational frequency. Suddenly you’re taking your cues from your internal environment over your external environment. You’re responsive rather than reactive.  This changes everything!

• Love yourself enough to respect and fully begin to acknowledge your experiences. And not just from an intellectual level. Lean in and really allow yourself to feel any pain and trauma you still hold and extend compassion to yourself. Love and care for yourself how you needed to be loved and cared for when you were frightened, angry and hurting or alone. To do this in a really conscious way shifts you from a place of victim and dis-empowerment to having a proactive experience of yourself being powerful and empowered by the love, support and tenderness you’re giving to You and the standards and boundaries you will have to create so you can honour yourself.

 

 In summary………

What builds self trust and self confidence 

• Choosing to move to you own rhythm throughout the day and month.
• Moving into and embracing any pain, hurts, trauma you hold from the past and healing them.
• Consciously creating a little space and time where you do nothing but BE with your Self. (Not filling up every moment of your day.)
• Placing precedence on the internal guidance and prompts you receive over the external ‘shoulds’ and directives and seeing the results of this! (Start with trying out the small prompts and actions you get given to develop your self trust and self confidence.)

 

How to tune in to your intuition and develop it? 

Everything stated above! 🙂

• Specifically having and holding the intention to connect with your soul and its intuitive guidance.
• Intentionally shifting your focus from surface level / externally based environments & activities to becoming aware of what’s going on in your body and energy. What sensations and feelings are you receiving? Is there a soft but repeated message coming from within that’s trying to get your attention? Noticing what harmonises you and what triggers you?
  Noting where and when you energy and inner feelings and sensations elevate and when they drop or feel off and wonky?
• Creating a morning or evening ritual where you choose to sit with yourself.
• Using oracle or tarot cards while holding an intention or question.
• Regularly getting in to nature.
• Movement! Movement shifts energy in your body and can release stuck emotions. It also changes your brainwave state allowing guidance and messages to come up.

Big love to you!

Lauren x