My Inner Knowing
Written by: Kirsten Frey; Transitions Life Coaching
Intuition. It has always been with me and yet it was not something I was attuned to or tapped into regularly. Especially earlier in my life. Occasionally, I would get a flash of insight or a message that I just “knew” I had to follow. In my career as a police officer, this was helpful and kept me safe more than a few times. It was like my secret superpower. It was easy to listen and follow it when it made sense…like when I sensed I was facing potential danger, but not always when it didn’t. Or when it seemed contradictory to what I thought I wanted.
A perfect example of this was my relationship with my first husband. We dated off an on for the better part of a decade before we got married. Throughout our time together there were times that I “knew” on some level that this relationship wasn’t right for me. But I didn’t want to accept this knowledge. I loved him, we made plans for our life together, we had bought a house together. In my mind, I felt like this was my chance to create what had been missing from my life growing up…feeling loved, connected, respected and supported. A part of something bigger than myself. A true family.
This is what I wanted. I just had to try harder.
So I did. And we got married.
A year and a half later we got divorced. It was hard. I was heart-broken. I had a new baby and had to sell our home and find a new one for my son and I. I had to change my career path within the police department. I couldn’t work shift work as a single Mom and had no family nearby to help. Did I mention it was hard? I stressed and I suffered. And the thing is, I created all of it! I allowed my “ego-mind”, my thinking mind, to override the messages I had received from my higher self.
I share this, not as a “woe is me” story but as a real-life example of what happened because I chose to not listen to my ‘knowing’. And this is what is so brilliant about that…we can always choose!
Since then, through many life experiences, I have learned to tap into and trust the messages. What’s the difference between ‘knowing’ and thinking? My thinking voice is quite loud, always chattering and constantly on the go. I refer it fondly as my ego-mind or “monkey-mind”. I don’t fight against it or get irritated with it anymore because I understand that it serves a purpose. It’s trying to keep me safe and avoid pain.
My ‘knowing’ voice, on the other hand, is subtle and shows up in a variety of ways. It’s quiet and rises like a whisper from somewhere deep inside. Like a feather on the wind. There is a calmness around it, a certainty. I know the truth of something without knowing how I know. It often arises in this fashion in my quiet moments, like when I’m meditating or sitting quietly outside. When I’m busy or out in the world it shows up as a sensation of light pressure in my solar plexus. I guess you could call it a gut-check. Other times it shows up as a thought that just “pops” into my head totally unrelated to whatever I was thinking about. And recently I’ve noticed I’ll get a couple of brief contractions in my right ear. I’ve learned to trust these signs and signals even if I don’t know why they are happening in the moment.
When I allow myself to be guided by my inner knowing that’s when things just seem to fall into place. No ‘efforting’ on my part, just synchronicity. Ease. Flow. And it’s in those moments that things play out even better than I ever could have imagined. I’m still practicing. It’s not my natural way of being…yet. I still get caught up in the monkey-mind and overthink and doubt and worry at times. But now I know that when I feel stress and worry it’s time to thank the monkeys and then tune into my inner knowing. I like playing with it. It feels magical and fun! And it’s always my choice.
