We are not ready till we feel safe.
We are used to prepping first and acting after. At school, we get grades; at jobs, we get promotions. But how do we know when we are ready to do something on our own?
How did we know that we were ready to walk back then when we were babies? There are no metrics for that! It happened when we felt sure, tried, and failed until we made it OK.
Then at what point do we lose that sense of action to dare ourselves to do something? Now more than ever, society feels insecure about making decisions and taking action; why if data is all there at a click of distance?
Well, is nothing to do with external data available here and there; it is about information making sense inside our heads. It is about decisions matching our feelings. It is about instinct.
Survival instinct is being there forever. It saved us from predators and now protects us from stress. The problem is that we are not paying attention to our alert signs nor doing much to keep ourselves safe. We don’t even know what the current enemy is! Most of the time that monster lives in ourself.
One of the first triggers to anxiety is that discrepancy between what we do and what we think. Used to do what we are told, this might cause an internal conflict of feelings. Forced to meet a predefined social path may also make us feel an impostor while pretending to be and do something we are not deeply convinced of.
Stop right now. Stop reading. Listen, to yourself, nothing, and no one else. Do you hear yourself? What is that voice telling you? Breathe, and keep listening. How do you feel?
Listening to your inner self is the first step to aligning with your instincts. First, you need to know what that voice has to tell you. You may have forgotten all your youth dreams. Rooted fears, demotivating family concerns, problematic habits, deep avoided emotions.
Once you have heard what your inner self has to say, you can identify the reason for your reactions and unconscious behaviors as signs of self-misunderstanding, so make some agreements and take the first step towards restoring that instinct.
No matter how much we read, study, learn, and get complex data to make bold decisions and take powerful actions. In the end, we choose whatever option it feels good. That is why keeping that alliance with our instincts is better than trying to fight against them.
Trusting our instincts is not only about making peace with our heads once and for all; it is also about keeping recurrent introspection for emotional assertiveness and conscious behavior agreements. How it felt that decision, and Why that reaction. And above all, learning about ourselves as if we were a living study case. Instincts can paralyze us if we are unsure what to do or how to act. Fear, anxiety, and depression can emerge from a lack of self-awareness, confidence, or misunderstanding of what our inner self has to say.
A robust and restored set of instincts will improve our decisions, actions, and overall well-being.
Caffe Gabavi (Numen) 