We are often faced with tough decisions. The kind that feel life altering so we want to get it right. Do I stay with this mob or is it time to find something else? Is it time to leave this relationship? To sell my home? To hire this employee or start my own business? These are all big decisions and one we like to take our time to sit with, think over or pray about. There is something in us that may know the direction to go, but fear sneaks in and we start to question everything. Prayer then seems to be the hope for an answer outside of our own egos. I mean God wouldn’t lead us astray, right?
There’s a two fold issue in this approach. One lies in the way we pray. I love and honor prayer, but the way we do it can be counterproductive. What we do too often, and I did this myself for years, is to sit down and ask God for guidance, a sign to lead us in the right direction. We don’t expect a direct response, I mean you’re taught you don’t have conversations with God in that way, so we step forward, fingers crossed, hoping for the sign to arise. And many times, or most every time, looking for the signs that validate either our ambition or our fears. So, when we see something, hear something or a conversation flourishes we question, was that a sign or did I just make that up because…..well you can fill in the blank. Yes, this is just another way for us to excuse our intuition for imagination and validate our lack of self trust. Hence the two fold issue.
Instead, what if we allow our intuition to be our guide? For instance, in January of 2019, I sold my business based on intuition. Over the course of two years, I’d been paying attention to what had been changing in my business, so I had some insight into what might potentially happen and, instead of sitting in prayer and waiting, I navigated. One day I received a text message out of the blue in which a peer and close friend said they were interested in buying my business. I didn’t wait to think, but texted back and I said, I think you caught me on a good day.
I had no real intentions of selling my business and, instead of praying and waiting, I sat in a moment of clarity and presence. I said, all right, God, is this what I’m supposed to do? The answer was immediate. Yes. I asked the question in four different ways. Yes. I just allowed the response to come in. This is intuition. This is allowing wisdom to come through. My business was sold within 45 days. It was beautiful, it was easy. This happened in January of 2019, and by 2020 the pandemic hit, and that entire industry was decimated. Oh my, am I grateful I trusted the “yes”.
We have an opportunity, you see. We can say we are praying and then act when we get the answer or we can sit back, say it’s larger than prayer, and wait for the universe to give signs. The thing that gets in the way is fear and the inability to trust. We can question our intuition all day long, but if I trust myself, my intuition and the universe to show me the steps to take and then I follow the steps, everything will come out beautifully.
Ego is the element of fear and the inability to trust. Ego is the thing that gets in the way of intuition. Usually, we think of ego as thinking more of ourselves than we are, but it actually gives you less of yourself. It is covering insecurity. It tries to disguise fear. We don’t trust ourselves. We don’t trust the higher knowing. We don’t trust the wisdom.
A client once told me she didn’t realize she was keeping God so small. That’s a big deal because prayer is a conversation. When we keep God small we aren’t open or aware enough to hear the expansiveness of God, we aren’t able to understand the true form of God.
God is the expansiveness of the universe incarnate. We can keep Him small, but that’s not where wisdom and truth lie.
