When We Don't Listen to Our Inner Voice

Last week found my husband irritated with himself.  When our credit card bill arrived, we discovered that we incurred additional financial cost when we transferred part of a home equity balance to a low-interest credit card. 

In hindsight, hubbie said he had a "feeling" before we transferred the balance that the low 3.99% interest would not apply to the entire bill, but decided to ignore the feeling.  In this case, ignoring the inner voice cost us money.  Now we must stop using this card and incur further cost by transferring this balance yet again.

Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users illustrates the concept of having a "feeling" and not knowing why or what to do with it in My Favorite Graphs.  Scroll down to "Which One Wins?"  I love this picture!  It illustrates why reason may not always be the right choice.

The same week of my husband's irritation, I allowed ego interference to override my intuitive sense of what to blog about.  Ego said nobody cares about what I want to write on; ego said I must rigidly stick to my blog theme, etc. etc.  I allowed ego to bully the deeper part of myself.  My mad censor won that round. 

Years ago I used a journalling technique to create a written conversation between these two parts of myself when I would feel conflicted.  I learned that my true voice would win out if I kept the conversation going; the ego would eventually run out of steam.  Terry Starbucker, of Ramblings from a Glass Half Full, demonstrates this technique with humor with his "Harry" and "Mopey" characters in Murphy's Law vs. Half-Fullism and More Conversations with Mopey and Harry . . .

If you could use a little reinforcement in honoring that inner voice, check out Kirsten Harrell's 5-part series of posts - "Whispers from the Soul (intuition)" - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.  Part 5 is due to be posted next week. 

And if you haven't read my Platinum Trumpet Award series on True Guidance vs. False Guidance, here you go - Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Just curious, would you care to share what happened to you when you didn't listen to your inner voice?

Comments

[Terry Starbucker]

Hi Debbie, thanks for the links! Mopey would tell you that his is the voice I should listen to, but Harry usually does a pretty fine job of drowning him out.... most of the time! You are so right that this is a necessary exercise every now and then so we don't lose touch of our "proper" voice. Well done and all the best.

[Kirsten Harrell, Psy.D.]

Hi Debbie,
Thanks so much for the link love. I have had some difficult lessons when I didn't listen to my intuition. I have learned over the years that listening to my intuition serves my higher purpose - always. Sometimes it takes great courage to follow our intuition. With time and practice though I think we can learn to trust that intuitive voice and it becomes less scary to follow. Even with that... there are times when ego or fear win out. We are human afterall. ;)

[Deb Call]

I like your statement, Kristan, that litening to our intuition always serves our higher purpose. That sounds obvious, but it isn't! Thanks for the reinforcement.