Recently I had a very tough decision to make and I really had to go deep with in myself to understand what would be best for me. It wasn’t easy and I really tried to hone in on what my gut or intuition was telling me. Oftentimes when faced with difficult decisions, I like to get the thoughts and perspectives of many people. But sometimes when I do that I get overwhelmed by the variety of responses I’m hearing, and I can’t get into the space to trust myself. There are so many pressures – societal, familial, friends, etc. that are put on us, that sometimes it’s hard to see that we have our own very individual path and that only we can truly know what’s right for us. I would ask people “just make the decision for me”. But of course they couldn’t do that. And yet, I was getting more and more stressed and couldn’t determine what my intuition was saying.

A friend of mine who is also an executive coach, encouraged me to just step into a place of peace and look at the decision as though nothing is permanent and no matter the choice I made good things would happen, and that I should try to do so calmly and in a very relaxed state. Somehow getting to that place of peace was only possible by removing some of the attachment to it and letting myself think that nothing is permanent. I believe that focus shifted something in my mind to allow space for what my intuition was revealing. I was feeling that one decision was the “right thing” to do versus the other that I wasn’t ready to give up, even though it may be a less conventional path.

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. – Steve Jobs

By getting to that free state, I was also able to see some other options for evaluating the two choices. For example, I was able to consider the two options as to which one or some variation might be available again in the future. Or which was most likely to enhance my life right now.

Ultimately I came to a decision. And now I feel free and peaceful and ready to accept new experiences as they come. But what I learned is that trusting intuition is very powerful and takes way more courage than going with the flow. I sometimes think of intuition as magical phenomenon – but I need to remember that it is formed out of past experiences and knowledge. With this experience, I built a level of confidence in myself that will hopefully come to light in the next decision I have to make, and the next, and the next… 🙂