“Your intuition is always one step ahead of you; I get still and I listen and what I hear is usually not logical, but I decide to take action off of what I’m hearing deep within.  And as time goes, things start to work out.  And so be still and listen to the depths within you because it’s speaking,” JB Copeland.  I pulled some cards today and one of them was, “Let me be still today and listen to the truth in silence,”  so let’s hear what the silence has to say.  There’s a lot of noise out there—constant voices, stimulation, entertainment, distraction, fear—and it’s easy to get swept up in it.  People misinterpret the value of silence as doing nothing.  What do we gain from sitting and doing nothing?  Well, let’s ask a different question: What do we get when we run around being busy, expending energy with no focus?  Are we seeing results?  So what is the bigger waste of time?  Expending energy on things that never come to fruition?  Or taking time to figure out where to put that energy? Some may argue that neither is a waste of time because in either case we are learning something, which may be true.  Trying and learning a different way to do something is different than telling ourselves we are helping anything playing a video game or scrolling social media for hours.  Listening is a skill, and hearing even more of a skill.    

The only way to know what our intuition tells us is to listen to it and to practice hearing it and following through (trusting it).  The brain truly is not designed to cope with constant stimulation and addition of information.  We simply can’t keep up and integrate anything because we can’t distinguish what’s important or even tell what’s real—we do not have enough context or information to do that especially with the speed information comes at us now.  In order to reconnect with that intuition, we need to remove the external noise and we need to be comfortable sitting with what our minds tell us.  It takes some practice to get comfortable sitting with ourselves, with nothing pummeling our brains, nothing dripping dopamine into our system, no switching from topic to topic…just sitting.  As Copeland states, there are times what we hear doesn’t make sense, and that is when we need to explore.  It takes time to figure out what the brain is actually telling us and I’m not saying that we need to follow every whim that flows through our minds, but we need to be able to trace it back and integrate it into the bigger picture.  The mind works in patterns and those patterns are often influenced by what we are most exposed to (reading, television, social media, news, email, conversations, etc.).  We can change those patterns.  We can learn to dive deep into our knowing even if it doesn’t make sense and we can trust it as long as it makes sense to us.

Those patterns and repetitive thoughts that speak to us repeatedly, constantly calling to us, those are the things we need to listen to or at least explore in more depth.  This is more than trying a viral recipe we see somewhere, this is the thought that constantly tells us we need to do something, the thing that always piques our interest.  There are things that connect with who we are, that resonate with us innately that we will never be able to explore.  Those are the things we are gifted and meant to follow—and develop and share.  There are times we find the answers with the help of others, with connection and finding complementary talents, ideas, and beliefs. In order to find what is complementary to us, we need to know what our ideas, talents, and beliefs are first—that means putting aside all distraction and doing the work to be who we are meant to be.  It can be overwhelming to connect with that inner knowing because there are times we won’t feel ready for the information we receive.  We have to learn to override that and do it anyway, especially when we’ve done the work of hearing our soul.  When we KNOW it, take the chance and trust it, even if it doesn’t make sense to ourselves.  Intuition is meant to guide us, not derail us, and the only way we know the difference is in silence.  So, always remember there is real value in silence, because silence is the key to everything within.