When we were young life experiences were new and exciting. We explored, we touched, we felt, and we learned. We learned from the experience of life itself. The gift that guided us, kept us safe at times, and kept us in touch with our true self was our intuition. But as we grew and learned that all changed. It changed the moment someone said we were wrong or that what we were told we were seeing wasn’t actually what our intuition told us. We began to second guess ourselves and our intuition gave way to things that were very subjective.
As we grew older our beliefs were shaped, beliefs about everything imaginably, about life, the world, about people, ourselves, and our own abilities. Some of the initial threads became limiting beliefs about what we could not do, what we couldn’t achieve. These limiting beliefs were just threads but over time they grew larger and eventually became shackles. We became a prisoner of our own limiting beliefs. We eventually found a comfort zone where the temperature was just right. Challenges turn up the heat and when we turn up the heat, we do everything possible to get back into our comfort zone.
The sad part about this is that our comfort zone is where human potential dies. The dream lives inside but it becomes a far-off fantasy so far from reality that it eventually too dies as we age. We begin to say things like someday I’ll start that project or someday I’ll try that. Someday never comes and as time passes, we resort to I shoulda, coulda, woulda!
Growth lies outside the circle of our comfort zone, where the heat is turned up, where we are uncomfortable and uncertain. As humans we are comfortable when we are certain and stepping outside into the unknown is filled with what if’s and uncertainty.
Stepping outside of our comfort zone is where we rise and sometimes fall, succeed, and sometimes fail but, there is no success without failure. When the greatest leaders say failure is not an option, they mean we are going to succeed despite all the failures we may encounter along the way. They mean that the only option is to keep trying, to try something new if what we are doing is not working.
Failure itself is uncomfortable, it makes us second guess ourselves and the decisions we have made but failure is the councilor that can makes us look within ourselves and allow us to ask the questions that can bring us back to the very center of who we are, our I am, the place where the gift of our intuition exists and emerges when we need it the most. It is there, it always was. It just gets covered in the masks that we wear daily, the mask that we feel necessary to wear to function in our society and to protect ourselves the walls that we put up around us, and the persona we build is created in our minds to protect us from vulnerability. It is not cool to be vulnerable in our world, we are taught to be strong, decisive, and put together. But within the runaway computer inside our heads, there is a constant struggle, the struggle between who we really are and who we want the world to see.
The journey back to our intuitive self, where the greatest things in our lives can happen, begins in a moment, an instant when we see what we are missing. Sometimes others may see it before we do and in that aha moment, in that very instant our lives can change.
The power of thought ignited by feelings can allow us to see the world differently. One positive thought has the power to ignite a cascade of thoughts that can have a positive effect on you as an individual and in turn effect more people than you will ever know.
I believe trust and intuition go hand in hand. It’s the leap of faith we take when we get back to trusting the process that takes place behind the scenes in our minds. The wheels that are turning below the surface can play a major role in our decision-making processes. Have you ever made a decision just because it felt right? I bet you have and not all the time, but I would venture to say a large percentage of the time, you’ve been right. Is a hunch really just a hunch? Why did you take the fork in the road to the left instead of the right? Why did you trust the stranger? It is that sense of reasoning buried deep below the surface that allows you to act uninhibited by the cloud of opinions and subjective evidence. You become present in the moment bringing you back to the very center of who you are, your “I am” acting with the intuition you were born with.
Vulnerability opens the window back to your I am, your intuitive self. Taking off the mask exposes who we really are. It takes you outside of your comfort zone, turning up the heat. It is in this place that you will ask yourself better questions, trust yourself and as a result become present in the moment. Some people would call this being mindful.
We all have ability that is untapped. Each of us have so much more to give, to learn, and to offer than you could ever imagine. The way back there is to take a step out of your comfort zone. It is in those moments of vulnerability that your decisions are made, and your destiny is shaped. Trust in yourself and build on each small victory. You get to define who you are everything else is a subjective opinion from outside source.
Each small victory will begin to change your state. It will expand your comfort zone and eventually those things that once seemed impossible become easy.