I’m often asked what to do if in hindsight I realize I missed or ignored my inner guidance.  So today, I’m going to share my thoughts and suggested action steps when you feel this may have happened to you.

Love Yourself as you Learn…

The first key when it comes to learning to tap into and trust your intuition is to acknowledge that like anything you are learning, and that means it takes time. You may stumble, trip and maybe even fall, that is all part of the learning process just as it is with anything you are learning. So, love yourself, love the process for learning and acknowledge that you are doing your best at all times, based on where you are in your life experience.

Tune-up Your Intuition with Practice

Some may say that “Practice Makes Perfect”, but in my opinion, perfect makes for judgement and berating oneself and that is counter productive. To tune-up your intuition you will want to practice, on a regular basis, but make is something simple, so you aren’t overwhelmed and notice as you improve.

Here’s one practice I recommend for getting started.

Pick something you know is going to happen but have no control over when. For example, you place an order for something online and without looking at the possible date of delivery, you say “I wonder what day this will be delivered” (be specific instead of saying “this” name the item). Then  make note of the day of the week or date that you hear, think or sense. Do not second guess it and always take the first thing that comes to you. If you know what day the package is going to arrive, you can also say, “I wonder what time (item name) will be delivered today” and then immediately make note of the time you hear, think or sense.

You can also pick something that you can get an insight about that changes regularly, such as the number of new emails in you inbox or when the phone rings (assuming it doesn’t tell you the name or number), you can say, I wonder who is calling me? Again, listen for the answer and make note of the first answer you receive.

Accept that sometimes the answer is not what you think it should be, always ask for what is in your highest good.

Here are two stories that I hope will give you insights as to what I mean by this.

Story 1

In 2005, I called my broker to have him move money into my bank account to pay my mortgage. His answer, “What Money”, you don’t have any money left in your account. After I freaked out, knowing that I owed over $150,000 in credit card debit and had a mortgage and 2nd mortgage on my home for a total amount of $170,000, I went into meditation and asked for guidance as to what to do that would be in my highest good.

I was guided to put my home up for sale by owner immediately. I set the asking price, based on my intuition at $225,000. The Realtor who sold the house to me 4 years earlier, called me when he saw the listing and basically told me that I was asking too much money for the house and based on current market value he wouldn’t even list it for more than $208,000. I thanked him and said I wasn’t interested.

I was then guided to remove myself from a legal claim I was involved in and received some of my money that had been put up to retain the lawyer to pay that months mortgage payment and bills. Within 2 weeks I received a job offer for a temporary job. The job only lasted about a month, but gave me enough money to stay afloat as I continued to listen to the guidance I was receiving.

I was then guided to raise the asking price of the house to $235,000 and to hire a Realtor. It took a while to find a Realtor that would even take the listing, but I was eventually guided to one that did.

Over the next 8 months, I was guided to take a month long trip to Australia, that was totally paid for and was then guided to check on the value of a piece of vacant land that I owned. I thought the land might be worth $20,000 at the most but figured that would help me to get through for a few more months. It turned out that I managed to sell that property for $68,000 cash. Again, my intuition was guiding me along the way and I truly had no idea that I could get that much money for the property.

I continued to listen to my intuition and raised the price to $245,000 and later to $277,000, while continuing to look for work. Nine months after that initial call to my broker I received a “cash offer” for the house for $265,000. I also had a possible job lined up in Georgia. A week after the house sold, while I was awaiting guidance regarding the job in Georgia, hurricane Wilma happened. I had just become a licensed claims adjuster and was trained specifically for this type of disaster. I received a call and job offer within 24 hours of the storm striking, moved the closing up on my house, finished the packing and went to Florida. I earned over $40,000 in 6 weeks and the job in Georgia was held for me until the claims adjusting was done and I headed to Georgia.

Logic would never have allowed me to raise the price of the house over a 8 month period of time. Logic also wouldn’t have allowed me to put off the decision about taking the job in Georgia, etc. Faith and Trust was key to having this end so beautifully.

Story 2

I met a person who I was considering doing business with and mentioned it to a friend. The person immediately warned me against working with this particular gentleman and had two other people call me that had bad experiences working with the man in question. My guidance though seemed to indicate that it was “In my highest good” to work with him. Remember sometimes highest good isn’t necessarily what you are expecting or wanting to happen. I truly wanted the business endeavor to be highly successful and profitable. So, after the 3rd warning, I was about to walk away thinking that it was odd that my guidance was to work with him, yet why was I getting all of this negative input.

I find that sometimes it is important to use a method of discernment that I have no control over to get my answer. By that I mean that my Monkey Mind has taken over. So, here’s what I did. I hadn’t seen any butterflies for the previous 2 weeks when I was taking my morning walks, so I asked to see a butterfly on my walk the following morning, if I was to work with this person and if it was not in my highest good, I would not see a butterfly.

The following morning, I found myself looking for butterflies and ended up seeing a couple of small white ones. I immediately reminded myself that looking for them was not supposed to be part of the process and dismissed those as my attempt to control the answer. Then I sat down on a park bench to meditate. Suddenly in the middle of my meditation I heard, open your eyes. As I did I saw a beautiful Monarch Butterfly that was less than 2 inches from my nose. I immediately knew the answer was a “yes”, it was in my highest good to work with the gentlemen.

Did it turn out the way I wanted? Successful? Profitable? No, not at all. So one might wonder was it really my intuition and in my highest good. I am very clear that it was both. The business lessons I learned from the gentleman and the connections that I made were worth the price of admission. It wasn’t the way I wanted it, but it was definitely a positive, learning experience. I’ve applied many of those lessons to my own business with great success.

To Summarize

Remember what you expect is not always what is in your highest good. If you truly didn’t listen to your inner guidance, don’t beat yourself up, instead recognize it and use that as a lesson learned and move on to bigger and better things. Remember you won’t always get it right every time, but you will get better and better with each attempt. This is no different than learning to walk, run, play the piano or anything else that you are learning to do. The important thing to remember is honor where you are at in the process and continue to build your intuitive muscle.