Do your feelings guide you on your life path, or take you off course?

Actually, they do both!

The key is to learn to know and recognize the difference between real feelings and misleading feelings; between being guided on your life path, or taken off course.

Let’s start with being taken off course…

There is a lot of misleading information out there about using your feelings to guide you in making decisions. You often hear, “Well, how do you feel about that?” or “Let your feelings guide you.” This can be great advice OR it can be the worst advice… you must look beyond face value.

There are times when feelings are not a good guidance system; often they’re run by your ego.

Consider these common “feelings: ”I don’t feel like getting out of bed today. I don’t feel like attending that workshop I signed up for. I don’t feel like working today. I don’t feel like having a salad for dinner, but I DO feel like deep fried chicken and a big bucket of fries. I don’t feel like going to the gym, but I DO feel like laying on the couch instead.

These feelings are clearly sending poor messages… or are they?

Let’s dive deeper…

Consider the example of not wanting to get out of bed. You may be tired, but the truth is that you need to get your ass out of bed.

OR

Maybe your truth is that it’s in your highest good to actually stay in bed and honour your body because you’re truly burnt-out and need some down-time.

Can you FEEL the difference?

It’s not always obvious. And sometimes the lines can get fuzzy and you may blur the lines with your thinking, feeling, rationalizing, justifying, and guilting… and then come down hard on yourself.

If the latter feeling is your truth and you get your ass out of bed, you’ve completely dismissed and ignored your feelings all together. You got out of bed because your guidance system was based on what others think; what you “should” be doing (ie. going to work despite being sick or run-down).

Overriding YOU and what is most important to you and your well-being, is a surefire way to keep you off course from living what’s in your highest good.

To learn to listen to your true, guided feelings takes work. It means learning to recognize and know what’s true for you; to be tuned into YOU.

It’s getting clarity so you can know exactly what to do in each and every moment.. to be guided to live your highest path.

When I was studying as an acupressure therapist, we had a saying, “your body is always talking to you, are you listening?”

So just how do you learn to listen and to know when your feelings are a good guidance, and when they are veering you off course?

My mom used to say, “I have a gut feeling.” Call it intuition, a little nudge, a knowing that’s coming from that deeper part of you that is guiding and supporting you. These feelings never steer you wrong.

Sometimes it’s obvious, but other times it’s not so clear. So you need to learn to tell the difference between your ego and your essence. As you practice, you can begin to sense if it’s a fleeting feeling (your ego) OR a knowing feeling (essence) from the quieter, deeper, guiding part of you.

Let me share an example with you. At the end of January, I had a strong feeling to pull my retreat out of my 3-month High Powered Living program. Why? I had no idea at the time. It didn’t make sense. Every intellectual thought I had told me to hold a retreat for my group. But the feeling I had was undeniable, so I knew I had to listen. (I’m sure my mom was looking down saying, “Way to use your gut, Janine”.)

Fast forward one month and the Covid-19 pandemic hit… and it all made sense.

Knowing the difference between your real feelings and misleading feelings guides you with greater ease through life.

And who doesn’t want a cheat sheet?