Trust and believe in yourself

The journey of learning to trust and believe in myself has been a huge part of my life. 10 years ago, I would have rated my level of trust at say 5 out of 10. My reason being that I had a certain level of belief in my ability to get through life and to an extent, I trusted my intuition. However, I also found it hard to really let go and surrender and to let go of control.

Now after many life changing experiences, I would say it would be more a 7 or 8 , though like life, it has its ups and downs! The reason I feel it is so important to trust and believe in ourselves is that doing this frees us from staying in situations that are detrimental and unhealthy for us. It frees us to be ourselves and to follow a path that is genuinely right for us and feels good. It means living our lives with love rather than out of fear.

I used to work in the banking sector. I was a trained chartered accountant, I enjoyed working with my colleagues and it helped me to earn a good income. However, after working many years in in this environment, I realised that having money didn’t necessarily make me happy. Working long hours was part of the industry and after hard week at work, I often felt the need to reward myself, whether it be a nice dinner with friends or a nice purchase etc. After many cycles of this, it all started to feel a bit pointless.

I stayed in the industry because I felt it was giving me what I needed even though my heart was calling for something else. What I really wanted was security and to feel safe in life but I realised that all the money in the world would never make me feel safe and secure if I didn’t feel that way internally. I read lots of different books and materials which helped me to change my perspective. I needed to let go of my old beliefs about what security meant and to start to learn to trust myself and consequently to use and trust in my intuition.

Intuition has always been a part of my life but I used it unconsciously and for things that didn’t matter so much to me. So to learn to use it completely in my life where it guided my major decisions was a huge shift. I now know that the more that we develop and trust this aspect of ourselves, the more we can let go of control and be present in our lives. We can let go of worrying about the future because we know that the right opportunities will come at the right time. That everything will work out as it’s meant to and that we’ll be able to handle whatever comes our way.

The amazing thing is that we all have this internal guidance system and it is available to us all the time. However, it’s a muscle that needs to be exercised in order to get stronger. But over time as you begin to trust it, you will begin to trust in yourself as well. And though sometimes life brings us difficult situations, deep down we always know the right path forward even if we may not want to take it. The more the trust in ourselves builds, the more confident we will feel and believe in our abilities to live a great life, not needing to follow the path set by society or to please others.

Isn’t it time to live the life that you really want? To know and trust that everything is happening perfectly and all you need to do is be present and listen to your inner guidance system, that is, your intuition? Here are some tips to get you started:

• In order to hear your intuition, you need to make the time to listen to it. Take time daily to tune into yourself – even 5 minutes can make a huge difference. This means becoming aware of how you are feeling emotionally but also the sensations in your body. We have become so disconnected from our bodies over the years, not listening to what it has to say. But the body is always truthful and will tell you when something doesn’t feel right. Start to observe any discomfort in the body, see where it’s situated and ask yourself or meditate on what it may be trying to tell you.
• Become aware of your gut instincts or your first initial thoughts when it comes to a situation or decision. Often, we let our thoughts get in the way of what is actually the right decision for us. We know in our guts and our hearts what we want to do but then we end up convincing ourselves out of it because it doesn’t align with a preconceived idea/expectation or the mind creates fear around the situation. Overtime, you’ll start to recognise when you need to listen to your intuition and when it’s appropriate to use your mind for example, to rationalise or calculate something or to get you from A to B etc
• My first book about intuition was by Sonia Choquette and was called Trust Your Vibes. It’s a great read and has wonderful exercises to get you started on this journey. I recommend you give it a try!

Remember that you have the most amazing intelligence inside of you ready to help you guide your life. The more you learn to trust yourself the more you will believe in your ability to handle whatever comes your way and consequently, the more you can leave behind stress and fear. Live your life with love (rather than fear) and you will truly be having amazing experiences on this journey of life!