Right before flying out to Mexico this past week (see pic above of the view I had), I was craving to see my parents so I spent a couple of days in Ohio.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about intuition and one of the questions I get most often is how do I really know if I’m listening to my intuition or fear.

Well, one morning I was talking with my Dad, and the conversation led to something pretty interesting.

When I was a child I started to say to him….

I often felt like I needed to be something I wasn’t with you and Mom.

I felt the pressure of you wanting me to be the perfect student, to get straight A’s, to be a math wizard, to read lots of books. Meanwhile, math was hard for me; it wasn’t a subject I naturally excelled in.

Reading wasn’t fun for me, meaning I wasn’t one of those kids that just read book after book. Overall, school wasn’t exciting to me. It was a place where I enjoyed socializing but to then be tested on what I’d just learned was super stressful for me.

Then it felt like Mom wanted me to be a musician. I learned to play the harmonium (an Indian instrument that is a mix between a piano and an accordion) and I felt a lot of pressure to practice every day.

Because I didn’t like to practice, I would make up all kinds of excuses to explain why I couldn’t. But then I would feel bad when the teacher noticed I hadn’t progressed.

I just remember I wanted to feel free. Free of all the pressure.

I told my Dad I felt bound to what you and Mom desired for me, and in the process, I felt like neither of you saw who I was. There wasn’t any room for my desires or exploring what I wanted because I just felt like I had to adjust to what both of you wanted me to be. Through those expectations I struggled a lot.

I also know you deeply love me (as I teared up). I know that giving me the things you didn’t get and the desires you had for your life was your way of being a good parent. But in that process, being present to who I was and nurturing what was naturally in me was often overlooked.

And you probably had no idea, but I felt a bit crushed by all the expectations, and felt like I never quite met up to certain standards, and because of that I was in a lot of pain as a child.

My Dad got a little defensive (which he’s allowed), and said, “Don’t you think you’re overlooking all of the happy moments?”

I said in this moment as I feel this pain, “Yes I am.”

But as I expressed all of this to him I realized something…

I felt I needed to be a good daughter, a good girl, or to fulfill on a dream my parents had for themselves, and through those translations I became disconnected from my own intuition. I was adjusting to others versus listening to what I wanted.

As I allowed myself to feel the pain of that little girl in ways I hadn’t before, something shifted inside of me.

Through the tears, I could feel a deeper connection to myself. I felt like the clouds parted in my head, and I could feel my heart’s desires.

I said to my Dad, “Can you understand how those experiences felt painful for me as a child? Can you see how I could have translated that?”

It took him a bit, but he genuinely said “Yes, I do understand.”

That felt good.

I also recognized that simply accessing and expressing all of these locked up emotions, from my own childlike space, with my parents was enough. Even if my Dad didn’t totally get it. I had unlocked something inside of me and released a pain I didn’t realize I had, giving me a stronger line to my intuition.

You might be asking, how does releasing pain give you access to your intuition?

Well, when we have deep pain that we haven’t allowed ourselves to acknowledge, it sits in our subconscious. It’s our mind’s sole responsibility to support our survival, and it will go into overdrive to ensure you don’t feel that pain again. In that process our fears get louder and that voice from within gets softer.

When we allow that pain to come up and trust ourselves to navigate through that pain, the brain at the end of it registers that you’re still alive and okay; it doesn’t have to work so hard to protect in specific ways.

Therefore, it gives you access to your inner impulses and inner knowingness. Those inner impulses to be clear aren’t always going to lead you down the perfect path, but they will lead you down a path that’s yours.

Many of us have had experiences like this, where something in our childhood made us feel unseen or like we couldn’t trust ourselves or our intuition.

Identifying those moments and allowing yourself to feel the pain, which most of us have suppressed, is a powerful release to get you back in touch with your intuition.

Having access to that inner knowingness feels so good, right?

Tell me how this post resonated with you in the comments below. Was there something you discovered about yourself through my story? I would love to hear!

In Love,