Trust Your Intuition: The Answers are Within You
After people have been abused and traumatized, it is normal that they don’t trust other people. Oftentimes, the perpetrators who abused you were not honest or trustworthy. Rather, they have broken your trust. Not just once or twice, but repeatedly.
It is common for trauma survivors to not trust themselves. One legitimate reason is due to being brainwashed, tricked, and habitually lied to by the perpetrator.
It may have been your mother, father, siblings, spouse, intimate partner, friend, boss, therapist, doctor, or someone else. In addition, it may have left you scarred with a trauma bond to the person who deeply hurt you.
A significant part of the trauma recovery is to reconnect to ourselves; body, mind, and soul. To come home to our inner child. To self-parent ourselves. To pay attention to our body when it gives us signs that something feels wrong or someone seems “off.”
These subtle cues can have you feeling anxious, unsafe, physically ill, or experiencing an inner knowing that you are in potential danger. You may feel triggered, have chills running up your spine, feel nauseous, have a migraine, or experience various types of discomfort, including muscular pain, a stomachache, or a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response. By all means, trust yourself if something or someone doesn’t feel right.
Trust Your Gut Instincts
The answers you seek are within you. When you ignore your gut instincts and you look outside of yourself for solutions, you are giving your power away.
The truth of your soul is a whisper. It knows what is good for you. Pay attention to the cues and signs of your soul who is guiding you. Understand that you can learn to trust yourself.
Do not let the loud voice of fear or uncertainty to drown out your wise and powerful self. Get still. Perhaps, spend time in nature to seek solitude and discernment. Follow your inner guidance with trust. Your intuition is essentially a beautiful companion that you have for your entire life. Its mission is to protect you. Your gut instincts will never steer you wrong.
Some people seem to hear their intuition loud and clear. For others, it can be silent. But don’t worry—you do have one. Hearing your intuition is a skill you can develop with practice.
Trusting your gut instincts is the ultimate act of trusting yourself. It requires some serious self-love.
What is “self-love”? It’s what it sounds like: fully LOVING your amazing self; inside and out. Just like you would love your child, partner, pet, or anyone you love unconditionally: without judgement and without limits. To completely, divinely love with full acceptance.
Self-love can feel foreign to most of us, especially those who’ve suffered abuse and trauma. We live in a world completely starved of it. We may have grown up in a dysfunctional home with an abusive parent, siblings, or other toxic people. Or we have suffered unhealthy relationships with a narcissist and flying monkeys.
Self-love is formed by showing up as your authentic self in all aspects of your life. Stay true to you. Essentially, by staying true to yourself, it can help to quiet the noise of fear and uncertainty.
With self-love, you know that no matter what happens, you’ve got your own back. You stand up for yourself. You stand up for your core values, your beliefs, and your healthy boundaries.
Intuition can be possible when you are present in the moment. To be in your present moment, it involves that you’re in tune to your subconscious reality. To listen to the soft voice within you.
Also, to trust a Higher Power who is protecting you and guiding you each step of the way. For some people, it can be God, Source, the universe, or something totally different.
What I love is when I receive confirmations about something important. For example, in 2016 when I wanted to write my fourth book, I asked God to confirm it by showing me three red cardinals. While it may have forced me to leave my comfort zone, it significantly deepened and strengthened my own faith. This was a big prayer for me. I really needed clear answers. Asking to see three red cardinals at the same time was a huge step forward in faith. Despite my uncertainty, I stayed true to myself. I kept my faith in the Lord. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt, if I would see three red cardinals, it would mean that prayer is real. That prayer is powerful. And that God is always faithful.
Within one month of praying to see three red cardinals, I had the most miraculous experience. It was a profound, supernatural phenomena.
One morning, as I was doing my gentle stretches on my bed, I had a perfect view outside my window. As I lifted my leg high in the air, a red cardinal flew into my backyard. Then a second red cardinal soared into my yard.
At this point, my attention was fully captivated by the two red cardinals. When I jumped out of my bed to peer outside my window, a third red cardinal flew into my backyard.
In awe, I admired the beautiful red cardinals meandering near my window. Suddenly, all three cardinals flew into alignment. One. Two. Three. And just like that, the three red cardinals were flapping their wings in unison right in front of me. Had I not visually seen this with my own eyes, I may not have believed it. The moral of this story is that when we step out in faith to trust a Higher Source, to trust ourselves, our intuition, and to pay attention to the divine signs around us, anything is possible, including to receive powerful confirmations to keep moving forward.
For those who are curious about which book that God confirmed with red cardinals for me to step out in faith to write, it was my book, Sacred Wandering: Growing Your Faith in the Dark.
Sacred Wandering: Growing Your Faith In The Dark: Arcuri, Dana L: 9780991076857: Books - Amazon
Are you wrestling with trusting your intuition? Your gut instincts will continue to grow stronger and clearer when you practice listening to it.
As a matter of fact, you can thank your intuition for bringing you here to my website. Or my YouTube channel. And my Twitter page. It is not an accident that we’ve crossed paths for such a time as this. I don't believe in coincidences. I do believe in divine appointments, synchronicity, and our intuition guiding us.
If you feel stuck in your life, like your intuition wants you to do something intimidating and scary that you don’t feel capable—first of all, know that it’s okay. Dear Friend, you are not alone.
It’s often difficult and painful to act on your intuition, especially during early stages of your trauma recovery. Despite your inner critic, I encourage you to keep returning back to self-love, self-compassion, and to look for divine signs. Have faith that there is no situation you can’t overcome.
You are strong enough to do anything that your intuition calls you to do. Today, I challenge you to take a leap of faith. To let your gut instincts to guide you. When you sense a gentle nudging or prompting to do something, take heed.
May you have discernment and wisdom to trust the process. Most importantly, may you learn to trust your own self and to continue your beautiful healing journey to become who you are destined to be.