A cheat sheet to following your gut
If you have been through any type of abuse, you probably have learned to be distrustful of others because of what they did to you. As survivors, we tend to not trust ourselves because of the abuse we have been through. Please know that this is very normal. I didn’t always trust myself either.
The biggest reason I didn’t trust myself was that I was the one who chose the toxic people I was dating or was friends with. I thought to myself, how can I trust myself when I choose these terrible people to be in my life?
I have always been an intuitive person my entire life but I self-sabotaged like crazy when I was in my early twenties. I used to hang out with dangerous people, in dangerous neighborhoods, and get myself into really dangerous situations. Also, I had this “I don’t care” attitude about everything. I didn’t care about the consequences of my actions back then.
I used to get bad vibes and bad feelings about people but I would ignore it. I would get that little voice in my head that would say “stay away from this person” or “don’t go inside of that house.” But I would just ignore it and pretend like I didn’t hear the voices. At that point, I didn’t want to hear it. I just wanted to live my life the way I wanted to live it and I didn’t care about any consequences.
At that time, I was so broken and angry that I didn’t care about myself. That is why I didn’t care about the consequences of my actions. It was easier to ignore my intuition because listening to it would require work. Once I started seeing a counselor and committed myself to my healing, I started listening to that little voice again.
As time went on, I realized that the little voice (call it intuition, God, whatever you’d like) was leading me and guiding me in a positive direction. Personally, I believe the little voice is God. I believe that God is always trying to guide us to the light. Once I started paying attention to what my gut was saying, that is how I started to learn to trust myself again.
Trusting yourself is a breakthrough as a trauma and abuse survivor. Try to listen to the little voice, it’s trying to guide you and steer you in the direction that you want to go. By listening to the little voice, my entire life changed. It also changed the way I felt about myself. I was now proud of myself for making different and difficult decisions and slowly began to learn to love myself for the first time in my life.
As women, we are blessed to have that natural woman's intuition. When I was in toxic relationships, I always “knew” when they were cheating because my gut told me so. I never knew how I knew, I just did. Remember that distrust in yourself is normal but as you begin to work through your healing remember to listen to that little voice. It's there to help and protect you. It's guiding you and leading you to a better path. Everything in life is a choice. You can choose to ignore and pretend like you don’t hear it or you can choose to listen and follow where it’s trying to lead you. You owe it to yourself to take the better path.
Written by: Jennifer Ramirez
&Rise Founder
