It is very good, wise and extremely timely advice for great leaders - to let go of control and trust your inner voice instead. Unfortunately, not all of us know really how (if we did, we would probably have done it long ago and become experts in intuitive, authentic and vulnerable leadership and life by now). For me sometimes it is "Just stop eating crap and go for salad, just stop overeating, over-working, overspending, overreacting …"- kind of advice - to really follow and implement it, more then "just do it" attitude is needed.
I have been on the journey from my smart, logical left-brain towards my creative and intuitive side since 2012. Here are some steps to start with, that I discovered as useful:
Here are some steps to start with, that I discovered as useful (skim through them first, so you can decide if it is worth for your to read through the rest of this post, I know, I am very impatient too):
Realize it is a learning process, a major shift “from control to trust” for your operation system - it will take time, conscious effort, support and many hick-ups on the way.
Contemplate when and for what reason your younger self choose control over intuition and creative expression, so you can let go of it because it is probably useless by now - “What saved the child will strangle the adult” (sorry, can’t remember where I have read that brilliant quote) - and realize that the boogie monsters of your childhood are gone from your reality, and now it is time to usher them out of your head too.
Focus - choose one area of your life where you want to let your intuition guide you more and some concrete steps. Making it tangible - how it will look like, what behaviors and tricks will you experiment with this week and document your learnings.
And last but not least for now - feed your brain some theory about intuition and inner wisdom, power of the heart, creativity, etc… For me it is very helpful to have some role models - intuitive and highly sensitive people who do trust their intuition in life and business, read about how others experience their intuitive hunches, urges, inspirations and talk about my experiences with others...
Back to the lengthy explanations... We all know that a whole foods diet is a much better choice than sugary, fatty crap. But somehow all that knowledge is absolutely useless and goes out of the window and we find ourselves with a pint of ice-cream or a bag of cookies (or chips, if you are on a salty side) after another emotional turmoil. And the same goes for the control versus intuition battle. We can't just drop it by sheer will power - because the leadership development, modern science and ancient wisdom say so.
There is a reason that some of us became rational "control freaks"- and a very good, legitimate reason -why we choose control over intuition, logic over emotions, head over heart. At some point in our lives it wasn’t safe to do otherwise. For me there was no safe space to listen to my gut and trust my intuition, as a child I scanned the situation and perceived that there is no one who is in charge and it is better I toughen up and take care of myself and everyone else. My much much younger Self chose what she considered to be the best at that time. And your inner child also had a very good reason to control things - for the little one it was a question of survival (in most cases not physical, but social and emotional survival and safety), it was an unconscious choice. And you can’t rip that safety net out of the little hands of your inner child, you can never out-muscle that subconscious giant, you can only out-love, out-heal and out-nurture it back to consciousness… So you can use that wisdom and power to guide yourself and others... and you will find yourself eating salad more often, and your ice-cream&Co more guilt-free, and for surely you will have much more fun living YOUR life.
So now the best thing to do is, to nurture your intuitive and emotional part back to its inherent power, aliveness and vibrancy. It is a process that rarely happens over night. I wish there was a switch from control to intuition and I could choose as I wish… I haven't discovered that magic switch so far, not in myself nor in people I worked with. I only know how to train our intuitive and emotional inelegance muscles and strengthen them over time, so they become more balanced and I can use both when I need them.
As a result of going through that process I gained back the parts of myself that were long forgotten or I never knew have existed, I came in touch with real power and confidence, and magic. And it is still a long way back home…. back to a wonderful balance, of head and heart, of Intuition&Intellect, of trust and control.
As you follow this path, intuition, gut feeling that is still perceived as something very illusive, intangible, "uncontrollable" will become a very clear, reliable, wise companion. Therefore, when you ever come across the wisdom “Just let go of control and follow your gut” and would like to follow it, you might want to play with these steps. Here they are once again:
Realize it is a learning process, a major shift “from control to trust” for your operation system - it will take time, conscious effort, support and many hick-ups on the way.
Contemplate when and for what reason your younger self choose control over intuition, so you can let go of it because it is probably useless by now - “What saved the child will strangle the adult” (sorry, can't remember where I have read that brilliant quote) - and realize that the boogie monsters of your childhood are gone by now from your reality, and now it is time to usher them out of your head too.
Focus - choose one area of your life where you want to let your intuition guide you more and some concrete steps. Making it tangible - how it will look like, what behaviors and tricks will you experiment with this week.
And last but not least for now - feed your brain some theory about intuition and inner wisdom, power of the heart, creativity, etc… For me it is very helpful to think about some role models - intuitive and highly sensitive people who do trust their intuition in life and business, read about how others experience their intuitive hunches, urges, inspirations and talk about my experiences with others...
Good luck and remember to have some fun along the way! #intuition#innerguidance #lettinggo #intuitiveleadership
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