Ep #32: Should I Say Yes or Should I Say No? (Tapping Into Intuition)

Episode Summary

Jenna shows you how to differentiate between conditioned thoughts and feelings and following your intuition.

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Show Notes

Do you ever wish you could just figure out what to say yes to and what to say no to? Are you trying to make a decision but finding yourself getting hung up on all the different options? You have an inner guidance system that understands where you need to go, you’re just not hearing it. So this week, I’m helping you start to tap into your intuition.

I used to get angry hearing people talk about intuition because I just didn’t have it. But once I learned to discern the difference between the sensations that occurred when being driven by the conditioned part of my brain versus the ones that came from being tapped into my most grounded knowing, everything changed. And I want the same for you.

Join me this week as I show you how to stop misunderstanding your intuition and share some examples of where doing this has shown up in my own life. Find out how a lack of alignment leads to uncertainty, poor decisions, and missed opportunities, and some steps you can take to improve your ability to tap into your intuition so you can step into being a powerful, confident decision-maker and start trusting yourself completely.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• The benefits of taking quick, decisive action.

• What’s really going on when you don’t hear or trust your intuition.

• Why it is OK if you don’t understand your intuition right away.

• What has been getting in the way of your most aligned, inspired decisions … and what to do about it.

• Some questions for you to consider about your alignment.  

• Why it can be difficult to know the greater wisdom you are meant to have.

• How to decipher if what you’re hearing is intuition or something else so you can trust it more.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Full Episode Transcript:

Do you wish you could figure out what to say yes to and what to say no to? Are you trying to make some kind of decision, but you're hung up on all the different options? Or maybe you just say screw it, and you make haphazard choices because you can't stand how uncomfortable your uncertainty feels. I've been there.

But I’ve got to tell you something, even though it used to make me want to roll my eyes whenever I heard it. You have an inner guidance system, let's call it intuition, that understands where you need to go. It's just that you're not hearing it. So, let's talk about how to tap into that resource, and how to decipher if what you're feeling is really intuition or something else, so that you can trust it more.

You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach, and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.

Hey, friends, so glad you're here once again, putting in that focus and time to get clear on your uncommon way. And really dial in that exact business that's moving through you and out into the world. Today's episode is going to help you speed up that discovery process. Actually, it's more like jumping the queue because intuition helps you skip steps.

But first, I just want to give a shout out to Malsharpie, who was kind enough to take a second and leave a review. They say they just found this podcast, and it's so helpful. And they're going to go back and listen to all the episodes. It is so fun. Because in my mind, whenever I talk, I feel like I'm talking to people who've been with me over the last six months. But I can see by how the downloads are growing, that new people, they are coming on board all the time. And I guess Malsharpie’s proof.

Which means, Yeay, more women living out the unique uncommon lives of their choosing. And more of us willing to go deep and do the vulnerable work of creating or realigning businesses into something that's a true expression of who we are, and what we're here to bring to the world. Not just some mask we put on or some formula we follow that's a reflection of rigid business and marketing have-tos from the past.

We’re following the call. The call that's always been there for women like us, but was never possible to realize as it is now. And I believe that because it's possible, and because now's the time, the call is really loud. It's like that voice inside won't shut up until you do the damn thing. So, we're doing it even if it's scary to play big.

And I get shivers, literally, I don't know about you. But when I think about how many of us are doing this now, compared to a decade ago or two decades ago, and what the world will be like as more and more women are living and serving this way. We are here to be game changers. And I am so grateful to be in communication with women like you.

And to those of you who are in the Clarity Collective, of course, I am so grateful to be your coach and to witness you amplify right in front of me. And also, witness the universe playing itself out through you. I'm kind of tearing up. I'm just so proud of you for being audacious enough to believe that the feeling you had when you were a little girl, that you were here to do something big and something different was actually spot on.

If it's your first time here, I want to give you a special welcome and forewarn you that it's probably not a coincidence you're being invited to go deeper with your business, and the thrill you experience in your business and from your business than you ever have before. Because it's a thrilling ride once you give yourself full permission to break all the rules and create your own.

I say the more the merrier. The world desperately needs more ‘for purpose’ businesses and the impact we bring. So, if you've got someone you know who you believe is just a powerhouse waiting to happen, maybe has just scratched the surface really. It doesn't even matter what income level she's at because that can be all of us; that can be us at 50,000, at six figures, at seven figures; then share this podcast with her.

Okay. In an ideal world, I think we can all agree we would all be in full recognition of our gifts and our power to create, and in full belief that there are an abundance of people who want what we have to give, and in full trust that our own intuition is leading us exactly where we need to go.

But we live in this world. We live in this world inhabiting bodies with human brains that have picked up all sorts of conditioning and societal patterning. And we're taught to be up in our heads and to be realistic and compare and contrast the pros and cons of each possibility, even though we're almost never looking at two clear-cut options. And actually, our brains easily go into complete gridlock when considering complex real life scenarios.

So, we're left with a situation where there's some direction we're considering. But instead of moving forward and creating momentum, you're either sitting in complete uncertainty, or you're taking hesitant, halfhearted action, or you're barreling ahead overdoing it, but there's no real punch behind it.

You're wondering, do I pursue that group of people or another? Is this really a strategy I should pursue or is it shiny object syndrome? Should I drop that client? Should I make that investment? So many questions. And you wish, you can just say, “Here's what my intuition says, and I always trust it.”

But the truth is, you don't trust your intuition fully. Or, you may not even feel like you have intuition, or it's really intermittent. You're like, “I got nothing. If I knew, I'd already be doing it.” Because taking action isn't really your problem, right?

You're great at achieving all the goals and mile markers when you know exactly what to do. But when there's infinite possibility, and you're also yearning to give up that fast and furious pace, and move into a calmer, more grounded and more inspired way of doing your work in the world, that's when you're like, “Okay, how do I drop into this greater wisdom that I'm supposedly meant to have?”

Because you don't want to just throw caution to the wind, there's a thing or two at stake here. “I might lose money. I might lose clients. I might lose time. Both in the opportunity cost of what I could be doing instead, but also in what it takes to build back or back out of some problem I create. I don't want to expend all that energy for nothing. I could end up looking like an idiot.

Everyone will be like, ‘What was she thinking? She got a little fool of herself, didn't she?’ I could be reinforcing a pattern of self-sabotage. I spend too much. I get shiny object syndrome. I take on more than I can handle and end up overdoing it. And worst of all, I could feel like an idiot. Incompetent, maybe even delusional, but definitely not cut out for business.”

Phew, right? Take a breath. I want to share something with you. And hear me, that this is coming from a woman who used to get angry when hearing people talk about intuition. Because it was just so unfair that I didn't have it. And instead, just had this brain that was always thinking and analyzing and considering and reflecting and filling up mountains of journals and talking my partner's ear off.

I want to share with you how you too can step into being a powerful and confident decision maker as a CEO and as a woman. Someone who knows she can trust herself. Rather than worrying she's fooling herself. Who knows what to say ‘yes’ to and what to say ‘no’ to.

I have a client who I started working with, and it was just a couple of months ago. She was used to making really quick and kind of haphazard decisions, because there's so much going on in her business. And she felt that need to really act quickly. But then, afterwards, she beats herself up because she second guesses her decision.

And so, every day she was waking up with anxiety and feeling like she was stuck in the muck. That sense of being was reinforcing her story that she really wasn't a strategic big-picture thinker, and would never be able to grow her company to the nationwide household name that she wants to.

What she most wanted to focus on, she said, was if she could improve her decision making. If she could make really thoughtful decisions and know why she made them, and have her back about it, then this would all be worth it.

The other day, she came on her call and was like, “I feel a shift.” She was stepping away and breathing and centering herself. She was connecting with her clarity. And then, the ‘why’ behind her decision comes to her. and she feels confident in her ‘why’. So, she has her back with every decision she's making. And she is making some big ones.

But she's just like, yes to this. No to this. She feels deliberate. She said, “Everything seems a little slower, more clear, less rushed. And I just didn't know how terrible I felt until I was no longer feeling it.” She even gave a name to it, “dread.”

She'd been trying to grow a business from the place of dread. But now that she's so clear, she can recognize it. And when it starts to happen again, she can shift herself out of it. The way she had been living is not uncommon; it's tragically common.

So, if you resonate with that, and I know I've been there before, I hope this helps you see how possible it is for you to shift too. Because really, it's quite simple. All that has to happen is you need to learn how to discern the difference between the sensation that happens when you're being driven by a primitive and or conditioned part of your brain, and the sensations that come from you being tapped into your most grounded knowing.

This is a felt sense. You can logic it away as best you can with your brain. But brain awareness comes after knowingness. That's why I always say that true clarity is the simplest, least complicated thing in the world. You just know.

All of the ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ dissolve, or all the reacting and rebelling against the way things are. Sometimes we're doing what the world wants. And sometimes we're making sure not to do what the world wants, right? But either way, we're letting ourselves be driven by an outside influence.

But when we turn inwards, you just start to flow in that interplay between desire and creation, and what is and what can be. And to get there, believe me, I wish I can just say your intuition is just a muscle that you need to strengthen, start relying on it, and it'll start speaking to you more clearly. That would be a lot easier to teach.

And actually, it's true, in a sense, but it's not the whole story. Because what gets left out is that, unfortunately, the sensations that are generated by your primitive brain, especially if they're unmanaged and dialed up to 10, feel more intense than your intuition.

I remember the first time I interviewed a coach. I said yes, but then was sick to my stomach. It was like every cell in my body was screaming, “Don't do it!” So, I wrote her back and told her my experience, and I said I had changed my mind. Instantly, I felt a flood of very delicious, feel good chemicals in my bloodstream. I interpreted that as having been saved by an intuitive hit.

But I can see so clearly now, in hindsight, that that was not an intuitive hit. That was pure shame, driven by the fact that I had just agreed to pay more money than I thought I deserved to spend on myself and could realistically recoup. And the great feeling afterwards, that was relief.

My inner visionary was screaming for me to get support, but I was in such an activated state that I bulldozed right over it. And spent two more years trying to prove myself worthy by doing it all on my own, before I finally went and hired my first coach. I don't blame myself for that. I just didn't know what I didn't know. And I didn't have an objective viewpoint because I didn't have a coach, right? Oh, the irony.

But seriously, it's of zero use for us to blame past versions of ourselves for not having the tools and wisdom that we have today. But our brains, they can so cleverly pull the wool over our eyes.

So, here's another personal example. Okay, I really believed, for decades, that I had no clue about what I wanted to dedicate myself to. When in reality, it had been showing up for me over and over throughout my life. But the feeling of stuckness and confusion was so real in my body.

And every time I'd start down one path, my body would start to build up discomfort as shit got more real. Until my brain would latch on to a new idea. And then, I'd get a flood of relief because oh, thank God, I'd come across a really good idea this time. Until once again, that would lose its luster. Thanks to my body, I'd start to feel less excited about it, or have misgivings that may or may not have been intuitive hits, until I dropped that idea and feel a flood of relief again.

So, my well-meaning brain, which was trying to help me avoid failure and being cast out from the tribe and the obvious crippling self-recrimination that I’d feel, my well-meaning brain just kept me right where it wanted me by using all the tools available to it.

When you're in the throes of those strong sensations, you wind up playing small, at best. Or with some really unfortunate self-sabotage, at worst. That deep down there's always a tug-of-war going on inside of you. Because the part of you that's longing to evolve and fulfill your potential, it doesn't just go away. It keeps making its presence known in subtle and not so subtle ways.

So simply put, if you want to tap into your intuition, you've got to neutralize or relax the part of your brain that's keen on managing you like a marionette. Which requires, and we're going into step one now, doing your best to gain visibility on that part of you so that it doesn't surprise you, right? So that you can watch for it and get ahead of it.

If you're in the Clarity Accelerator, you can do this by heading to Module 3 for that first Mindset Training there. And that accompanying worksheet called, “Get to the Bottom of What's Really Going On.” That section is really the compilation of what I learned from the years of working with mindset coaches, and years of learning from the minds of my clients. So, don't underestimate it just because it's been compiled like this for you.

That is what the Clarity Accelerator is all about; packing a huge punch in a short time with just a handful of modules. And once you have visibility and understanding, you'll be able to observe it and really feel the energy of it. “Oh, okay. This is my fear response. Got it.”

Like that client I mentioned before with the dread, remember? “Oh, okay. There's that dread feeling happening again. Hmm, what's being triggered? What's going on?” There's a detachment, and you become the watcher rather than the subject. And then, you can dial that shit back down. You can relax your nervous system. You can recenter yourself. So, that's step one, you gain visibility, and then dial down all that activation.

And that paves the way for step two, moving towards choice neutrality. Choice neutrality is when you create equanimity about all the possible choices you're considering. Where you believe that you're going to be okay, no matter what, and that things are going to work out for you. It's linked to sufficiency.

So, if you haven't listened to my podcast episode on business sufficiency, then definitely do that. It really explains why, and I've seen this over and over having walked hundreds of women through this. It explains why when you elevate a woman’s self-concept, the way she thinks about herself and sees herself, suddenly, she finds it much easier to connect with her intuition. Because choice neutrality is more available to her.

When you're thinking that you're a person who may or may not succeed, it's challenging to find choice neutrality. If you're a person who doesn't trust herself, then no decision will ever seem trustworthy. I'll say that again: If you're a person who doesn't trust yourself, then no decision will ever seem trustworthy.

But when you're thinking that you're a person who always figures things out, and always turns things to your advantage, and quickly pivots and ends up better than before, then choice neutrality becomes your normal operating frequency. And of course, all those great thoughts likely lead to great results and a reinforced belief that they're all true.

Don't worry, you don't need to have created this mega-self-concept in order to tap into your intuition. You just need to, step one, get into a less activated state. And step two, see your options a little more neutrally.

And then this is a big one. step three, open yourself to and expect to hear from your intuition. So, to dial down into that, once you've gotten into a less activated state and created more neutrality, then you need to open yourself to and expect to hear from your intuition. And you trust that you will hear from it if you just keep listening.

Now, that alone might send some of you back into a more activated state. “But what if my intuition isn't there? What if I’m misreading it?” etc. Just go back to step one, get into a less activated state. Because this is where the work begins, that we first mentioned in the beginning.

Which we could call step four, exercising and growing your intuition muscle, or attuning your receiver. That's why if I had told you to begin there, you wouldn't be set up for success. You need to create the conditions that let you hear it, and then listen for it and actually take action on what it says. You’ve got to actually do the scary thing and take action. Because if you never actually follow your intuition, it'll get quieter and quieter.

That's what was going on with me when I was younger and thought I didn't have intuition. It's just that I so often dismissed its words and advice. I poo-pooed it and talked myself out of it every time. So, it stopped bothering as much. Or, she stopped bothering, because I think of my intuition as guidance from my higher self.

It's amazing, because I look back on my life and I see exactly when I stopped listening to it, and then when I started again. And taking quick, decisive action like this, you might fail sometimes. Especially when you're first starting out, you might misread your intuition. It's okay. It's okay not to get this 100% right from day one.

Why? Because you're a person who always figures things out and turns things to your advantage, and quickly pivots and ends up better than before, of course. And don't worry, the universe will keep giving you opportunities to dial into your self-trust and intuition; for good or bad.

It's like the woman who keeps attracting unavailable partner until she finally decides, “No more.” So, if you misunderstand your intuition this time, you'll get more chances to figure it out.

Now, exactly what intuition will feel like for you in the body, the exact imprint of intuition, it shows up differently for different people. I used to think everyone experienced it the way I do, but no. You might feel it as an instant gut hit.

Or, more like the settling of falling leaves, with one that emerges as right and sort of feels like a magnet. Or, something has a charge or there's a tingling energy. But it always feels expansive, grounded and supportive. Never diminishing, never reacting from fear, never resigned and dialing it in.

I remember a coach saying that she taped a picture of herself as a sweet little girl up onto her computer monitor, just as a reminder of how she'd like to talk to herself.

You would never say something to a little girl like, “Do you really think you're capable of that? Don't you think you should just set your sights on something more realistic? Yeah, that was okay, but you definitely could have done better. And that, alone, doesn't mean you'll be successful with the next thing; they're two different animals.” That was so good, right? Instant perspective.

Sometimes the things we tell ourselves that don't really sound that bad, we're not saying, “You stupid, fat, ugly bitch,” right? We're saying something like, “You probably should rethink that. There you go again,” or something like that. That doesn't seem as cutting, and yet, you would never say that to the little girl that was really trying to succeed.

So, your intuition won't sound like that either. It doesn't feel like that. Even if the words sound nicer, it won't slip in nice words with a heavy energetic. Because you can feel the difference on an energetic level, too, if you're attuned to that. The energetic signature doesn't feel exactly like that euphoria or relief. But it does feel very light and very clear.

If you're in the Clarity Accelerator and you want to get even more specific on your intuitive process, you should follow the Human Design Business Roadmap in Module 4. That'll give you a great starting point and then you can fine tune from there.

Now, here's a little bonus step five. It's not really a step because it's just something that inevitably happens. But as you follow your internal truth more and more, what you're doing is moving into alignment with who you're here to be. And that frequency facilitates the communication and communion between you and your higher self, or your intuition.

What alignment looks like on the material plane, its fingerprint, is the trust, right? That willingness, the mindfulness, the curiosity, the self-belief and self-care, i.e., it's all the things that are creating step one, and step two, detaching and dialing down, and choice neutrality. And vice versa, as you practice steps one and two, you start to shift into alignment.

Your lack of alignment leads to uncertainty, to poor decisions, and missed opportunities. Your alignment leads to you clearing the channel for your highest knowing.

So, my friend, here are some questions for you to consider today. Are you willing to call out what's deep inside? Are you willing to follow the guidance you receive? Why? A. What do you risk by staying disconnected, staying in the status quo? The brain loves to tell you what you risk by making a change, so ask it. What am I risking by staying here, another day, another month, another year? And B. Why is it worth it? Who will you be on the other side? What will it feel like to be that woman?

I've seen woman after woman go from having such difficulty in this area; really disconnected, and knowing they were undercutting what was possible for them because of their tortured relationship with clarity and decisions. To assured, confident, tapped-in leaders who can just be like, “Nah, I'm good. I'm going this direction,” with this small smile.

While the person next to them is clearly questioning the moves they're making. Knowing that someday that same person will be like, “How did she know that was the right move? How was she so ahead of the curve?”

That is how I know it's possible for you, too. Not just possible, but inevitable if you continue doing this work. And if you speed up this work by joining us in the Clarity Accelerator.

Okay, my friends, remember, on a certain level you know who you are. And each day, you're stepping further into what you're here to create.

Hey, if you're a coach who wants true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this. Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.

Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First Strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.

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