I’ve been working with clients on their personal and relationship struggles for decades, and I’ve found many people are constantly confused about the difference between insecurity and intuition. Let’s unpack these two different inner voices and discuss how to distinguish between them. When you hear yourself say things to yourself such as, “I’m not good enough for my partner, so they’re going to find someone better than me,” or “They’re having an affair because I’m not good enough for them,” this is coming from your programmed, ego-wounded self making things up, as if it knows truth. But this aspect of us has no access to truth. We access truth when we are operating from our higher brain—our prefrontal cortex, which is the calmer and more rational part. When operating from this brain region, we are open to learning with our higher mind. Our ego-programmed brain, on the other hand, thinks it knows everything already, and so it doesn’t seek truth. Often this leads to us responding based on internalized lies, and it is these lies that create insecurity. We know that a particular thought pattern or emotional experience is coming from our wounded ego by how we feel inside. Fear and insecurity within is the way our inner self—our inner child—is letting us know that we are telling ourselves a lie. If you have an intuition that your partner is pulling away or is having an affair, for example, this is important to pay attention to. Your intuition is letting you in on important information about what might be going on with your partner and what might be going on between you. Intuition allows you to operate from truth, so rather than attacking your partner from fear, you can approach your partner with an open heart and a desire to learn—which is what creates a safe space for your partner to come clean. Many of us were taught as we were growing up not to trust our feelings—our intuition. It was much easier for parents, teachers, and religious leaders to control us if we trusted them instead of ourselves. My controlling mother, for example, taught me from a very young age not to trust what I know. If I told her I wasn’t cold, she told me I was and that I had to put on a sweater. If I didn’t like an uncle because his energy was icky and seductive, she told me I didn’t know anything and to kiss him anyway, teaching me to distrust what I felt and experienced. Even when I behaved responsibly, she yelled at me for being irresponsible. It took me many years of inner work to regain trust in myself. Now I know there is a place in all of us that is tuned into truth and that we can be guided by that truth when we listen to it. The more you listen to your inner voice of truth, while not listening to the voice of lies, the more you know that you can trust your inner knowing.
