How to Listen to Your Inner Calling (Part 2)

I know what it's like to be disconnected from my voice. 

I was disconnected from it for many, many, many years. Like so many of the people I've seen, all of us have been disconnected from our voices. But the thing is, we were all born with it. We were all born with this connection to what we knew inside ourselves. But somewhere along the way, through growing up, particularly in adolescence, we lose something of ourselves as we become adults. And that's a normal part of development, but as part of that transition process, we lose connection to the truest part of ourselves in the midst of having to fulfill all our societal obligations. 

For example, SATs; grades; the pressure to keep up; the pressure to let go of any dreams that you have that might feel impractical; all of that leads to us feeling disconnected to very important parts of ourselves. 

Society isn't necessarily set up for us to be connected to our truest selves. We have to be the ones to stay connected to it, no matter what comes our way. Society is actually always trying to disconnect us from ourselves, because that's how it gains power over us. When we're not connected to what we know inside ourselves, we lose our power, and our power is given to the societal structures. Societal structures are things like the workplace ,or school, things that start to define our performance, define our value as people. Slowly over time, as we live in these systems, we begin to adopt those values and forget what's truly important to us. 

If someone came to me and said, “Dr. Victoria, why do we care about listening to our intuition? Why do we care about listening to our inner knowing, or being connected to our inner voice? Who cares?” It actually is extremely important. This is one of the most important things in life, is actually being connected to your voice. Especially right now, when the world is very chaotic, where there's a lot of disconnection, disagreement, there is a lot of which way is up and which way is down. 

I'm an immigrant, and a child of immigrants, and right now in our society, you know, they’re saying immigration is bad. What's true, right? So you have to know, inside yourself, what's true and be really connected to that, because it's grounding and it can give you a North compass in life, and all the things we talked about in the last episode. Which, if you didn't listen to please go listen to it, because I just really want to drive home the point of how important it is to listen to your intuition and your inner knowing. It's actually one of the most important things that you can do for yourself. 

It's actually something that's not really valued in Western society, right? We're always told to value logic, data, science. These are all great things. These are important, don't get me wrong. But in addition, we also want to add honoring our intuition and what we know inside ourselves, taking all of that as a whole. 

How do you listen to yourself? 

The first step is to realize that your intuition and your inner knowing are different from your thoughts. Thoughts are something different. I'm not talking about thoughts right now. I'm talking about something deeper, that is beneath underlying thoughts. It's your intuition. It is the voice of your presence. 

J. Krishnamurti has a quote where he says, “Intuition is the whisper of your soul.” That's a great quote, because intuition often presents itself as whispers. It's a very, very, very quiet voice inside yourself, that's often buried underneath expectations that others may have of you or that you may have of yourself. All the societal conditioning we receive; maybe the conditioning you receive from your family, like, don't be in touch with your emotions; all the thoughts you might have, and all the anxieties, like, oh my gosh, all these things I have to do today, I'm anxious about this. I'm worried about that. There's so many layers of things going on in our minds, right? 

But underneath all of that is this very still small voice, which is the voice of your highest self. It speaks the truth. This is your voice, and I really want you to be connected to that. The first part is realizing that it's different from your thoughts. 

I'm going to tell you a story of how I got to know my inner voice and how I realized how real it was. 

And it has to do with a time in my 20s when I was extremely depressed. Very, very, very, very, very depressed. I had actually lost everything in my life to live for. I had lost my marriage, I had lost my future, I had lost my past. I had lost who I thought I was. I had lost everything. And I would just lay in bed at night severely depressed. All I could do was think about all the things I'd lost and how much I wanted to die, to be honest with you, just suicidal thoughts, all night. So it was a really difficult time in my life. But one night, as I was laying there in my bed in the dark, something happened. I saw, it was thin, like a spider's web, so beautiful, and I heard this voice inside me. I heard it. It came to me, this voice, and it said, “You are not alone. I'm here with you. There's nothing you have to do other than follow me, follow this life.”

And I was like, wow, I didn't think this thought, right? It wasn't mine. It came to me, but it was a part of me that I recognized. It had actually been there my whole life. I just didn't hear it or take it seriously until it told me to live. That was a really powerful moment in my life when I realized the difference between my thoughts, and all the other stuff I carry with me every day, and my inner voice. 

And the inner voice has so much life and strength and courage to it, and wisdom, far beyond what we ourselves might have access to, interestingly enough, right? But it's inside of you. It's there. It's really important for you to be connected to it and realize it's not your thoughts. It's something different. 

To hear this voice, what you've got to do is step two. You've got to get still.

Cultivate more stillness in your life. We've been talking about that in past episodes, right? Thinking of your inner life like a garden and tending to it, tending to stillness in your life. It's so challenging with all the social media and all that technology, and all the data and everything that we have at our fingertips, right, all the things we can consume and listen to. It's hard to get a moment of stillness, and yet stillness is what you need in order to hear yourself. 

Because that's what you're doing. You're hearing and listening for what your inner voice has to say. So get still. I would say you can go in nature, go on a walk by yourself, spend time in your backyard, like I am. However you can cultivate a moment of stillness in your life. It doesn't have to be a half an hour or anything, guys, it could just be like a minute, right? 

The next step after getting still is you ask a question.

Now you might be like, What do you mean, ask a question? What I mean is ask a question. So, like, ask your higher self a question. It could be anything. Like, things that are troubling you in your heart. With clients, I often say, you know, like, what's troubling you, what's something that you've been wanting to know, what would be really helpful to help get off your chest. Is this person mad at me? Here's this complicated situation, what should I do? 

After you’ve asked the question, it’s time to listen for the answer.

We as a culture and society are so obsessed with thinking our ways to answers. But here in this step, what I'm asking you to do is listen. Listening is like receiving. Like, learn how to receive, learn how to be receptive and to hear yourself. And so you're sitting in silence, you're asking a question, and then you're just gonna listen for the answer within yourself. And it's not a thought. When you get thoughts, just let them pass by, right? Just let them pass but then listen for the answer, and it will come. It will emerge within you. What do you hear? What do you hear? Your inner whisper saying to you, it's something you're going to receive. It's not something you're going to think. Listen for it. 

So many patients I've worked with over the years, they are shocked when they realize, Oh my gosh, I actually did hear something inside myself, and they didn't think it. It's something that they received. In so many moments, we've been so shocked by the wisdom that their inner voice has to say, and most people say, oh, I feel calm just hearing this answer within me. I just know it deep in my bones. It's just the truth. So many people have said that to me over the years. So listen and trust that the answer will come inside you, okay? And that's it. 

You don't need a long time to do it, like I was telling you earlier. You just need, like, a minute, or two minutes. If you did this once a day, for like two minutes, just listening to yourself, really listening, it would completely change your life and transform it. It really, really would. 

So let's practice together.

So take a deep breath in, and take a deep breath out and let yourself feel nice and peaceful, nice and relaxed, just letting all the stress go. And now ask a question that you've been having in your heart. Just ask it. You can say it out loud. It helps to really be specific with the question you have. 

I'm gonna ask a question. Just an example is, “Should I go to Africa? My parents say, don't go.” So I'm going to ask this question: “Should I go to Africa?” 

And now we're all just going to listen to listen for the answer. Just listen. Listen for it. I'll just give us a minute. Did you hear anything? What'd you hear? 

I heard, “Yes, you should go to Africa because it's really important to you, and something you've been thinking about for a long time.” When I heard that, it just felt really peaceful. Like I just knew, Yeah. That's what I've got to do at some point in my life.

Check in with how you felt when you heard the voice. And maybe you didn't hear it, and that's okay. It takes practice. It's like riding a bicycle. It's something that you can definitely hear. It's definitely inside you, but it just takes practice over time. And don't worry, we'll keep practicing together. That's the message for today. 

I want to leave you with a blessing:

May you remember that the voice within you is real, and it is wise. May it guide you and lead you in all the steps you take, and may you trust that even the smallest whisper inside you can change everything. You're not alone. You never have been and the way forward is already within you. 

Listen to the full episode of the Inner Calling podcast “Essentials: How to Listen to Your Inner Calling Part 2” to learn more about this here, & get the workbook to go along with it in our Resource Library!