Intuition is your soul giving you instructions.

It’s easiest to not take heed of those guides inside—to shove them down, cover them up, or pour toxic beliefs over top of them so they are barely audible.

But we do have an inner knowing, and often it is trying to tell us a truth.

Just pause for a moment and listen—let yourself hear it.

The soul comes through us as intuition, and it’s one of the truest forms of instruction. It is softer than the other critical voices we have inside of us (those based in fear), which is why it is often missed. This is because intuition is meant to support a gentle journey to growth, not a violent one. Softness, though, can be incredibly firm and powerful.

Our soul does not speak the language of fear. The soul whispers in clear notes, rooted in our highest goodness, with guidance from the base of all-knowing love. That’s how you will know it is speaking to you. Intuition is not harsh, degrading, or insulting. It whispers in a language that encourages you onward.

You can trust in its gentleness, and by all means it will also be persistent. Your soul’s knowing will niggle at you and nag. It will be that pain and constriction in your neck you’re always trying to ignore. Often, we do ignore our inner knowing until it manifests as exhaustion or depression or…well, you can probably end that sentence in your own way. We each know the loss of self that happens when we ignore our truth.

When we are feeling deep confusion, usually it is because we are not listening to the soul’s desire for expression. There is a dissonance with our own truth and our actions, and thus our mind and heart feel blurry and vague—maybe even depressed.

Sometimes we mistake fear and self-doubt for intuition or our soul speaking. This happens when we let inner doubt of failure, of losing face, of being not good enough or invaluable, rule. It happens as we listen more to our inner critic and less to our inner muse.

Stop! Listen inward to the stories that lift you. Find your direction and alignment with intuition there.

Wouldn’t it be nice if knowing the difference between fear or intuition was always that easy? It is, though—we just need to remember how.

As youngsters, we were acutely aware of our soul desires; they were basic and raw. We communicated them in that way too. As we got older, we learned to edit them and ourselves. We held back, we stuffed feelings, and we learned to trample our experience and our intuitive knowing.

We were taught that speaking up for ourselves, asking for support, claiming our path, listening to our inner wisdom and living it was odd (or that we were for doing so and shamed). However, that couldn’t be more incorrect. All those expressions are a marker of someone who is doing their work and more bravely embracing their journey.

When I was offering lay counseling at a non-profit organization, I had a string of clients who would ask me, “How do I tell if it’s fear or if it’s intuition?” I worked with them on teasing out what fear felt like in the body and what intuition felt like. We did this so that they would be able to tell by the feeling (interior markers) that they experienced what kind of reaction they were having (fear or intuition). Predominantly, when they were making a choice from fear, they felt constricted and tight; often they also felt small. When they were making a choice from intuition (some called it their gut), they felt taller, more solid in their body, and clearer.

Often when we are making decisions from fear, we experience anxiety. Connecting to our soul-knowing intuition, and moving into action from there, brings grounded clarity and inner peace.

I brought this question about fear and intuition to my clinical supervisor at the counseling centre. We sat down together to review client cases, and I shared with him the question clients were posing. I asked him what he thought. He said that intuition is a person’s previous lived experiences combined with the knowledge they have of the situation at hand—a logical answer, however, not in line with what I had seen or experienced in myself or with clients.

It was then that I became clear: I was not going to work with clients in a strict counseling setting any longer. His answer was clinical, and logical, but denied the existence of a deeper soul and inner wisdom. I did not bring his explanation to clients when they came to me with this query. Instead, I let them explore what their authentic connection with both intuition and fear was.

Science doesn’t explain everything. For many of us, there is a feeling and an inner language that when payed attention to is rooted in a higher knowing. I believe that is intuition—soul wisdom—and it is here to support us to live more in our truth today.

Take note for a while. Build awareness of what happens when you follow that clear, expansive, and gentle instruction. See where it leads you.

The more you notice your intuition and give it space to be heard and seen, the stronger your muscle of inner knowing will bloom.