Always Go With Your Gut

(...even when it hurts... even when that means you get the answer you don't want to hear...)

Always go with your gut.

I’m sure you’ve heard that saying before… your gut, your intuition, your heart—whatever you call it… it doesn’t steer you wrong.

The key is listening, though.

Sometimes it’s hard to hear, with all the noise in our day to day lives. Sometimes, hearing that little voice seems impossible. And even once you hear it—how easy is it to second-guess? How easy is it to ignore that voice within and try to steer your own path? It’s so easy to tune it out, to try to “do the right thing” – even if the right thing isn’t really what you want… and especially if the “right thing” is never what you would do if you were really following your heart.

Right now, I’m in the middle of a bit of a mess where I’m having a hard time having faith. I have no idea what my next step is, and in this moment, I’m not handling it well. And normally I wait until it’s all sorted out before I type up a blog post. But right now… I’m just in a weird place, and I thought that instead of waiting around until I had all the answers figured out… I would put it out there in the raw for once.

So here I am… raw as ever.

On Tuesday in the Movement Montage class, I had a huge feeling of fear crop up. This is a type of fear I hadn’t experienced since becoming emotionally and physically healthy.

I actually ducked out of class for a few minutes to record what I was feeling in the moment. I transcribed it:

I think it’s natural for us to feel fear.
Fear is something that keeps us safe, something that is always there. It’s one of our built-in mechanisms to help keep us alive.
As someone who has done a lot of work and a lot of growth, and a lot of self-improvement stuff, I’ve done a lot of work to overcome feeling fear.
And, so, when that feeling starts to crop up again, I immediately try to suppress it.
And then, inevitably, I try to figure out… what’s making this so real? What’s making this so big? Why am I feeling this? I try to analyze it and dissect it to death.
Sometimes I just need to let the feelings be there.
I felt afraid earlier.
I feel afraid now.
I don’t want to fall for this guy.
Because a part of me is afraid that I can’t handle it.
And so, when I asked the sassy little girl inside of me what she would do in my position—she just kinda reaches out her hand and touches me and says, “It’s ok to be afraid. Just let it be there. The only way to push through it is to let it be there.”
I can handle it.
I can fall in love, if I let myself.
If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen no matter what. And if I try to fight it, that’s only going to make it dysfunctional.
And I want to be functional.
So… my challenge to myself is to allow my fear to be there, because I know that that’s what helps keep me safe and ok.
And I know that no matter what, I will be ok.
And I can just let this be.
I can just let it be there.

And now, I am very sad to report, that possibility has been taken off the table. (See the previous entry, where I mentioned being rejected…)

That isn’t the only “mess” in my life right now, of course. But for whatever reason, it’s the thing that makes me incredibly vulnerable and wide open to random people on the internet, when the other “messes” are actually not so close to my heart.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m willing to talk about this stuff here. I think because many of my close friends are going through something similar, with learning how to be functional and healthy and also… in love. Or at the very least—open to the possibility.

I haven’t bounced back yet. I don’t have the perfect words to say. I don’t even have that much perspective yet. My heart is still very much in pain.

I allowed myself to feel more than I have in years, and something that’s incredibly baffling to me is this:

Why is the pain so much more intense than the joy?

I don’t get it.

I really don’t…

I do understand why this man was brought into my life, though, and that has given me some enough perspective that I can at least appear to go on with my normal life.

He came into my life so that I could understand what I want. Not just know it, not just see it… but to actually experience it… to feel it. I think that’s pretty important, because up until this point, I’ve only experienced what I didn’t want.

So, it was just a taste… but it left a lasting impression.

That’s all I’ve got at the moment… but for the moment, it’s carrying me through.

What I am choosing to do from here, though, is to continue to be open. I am continuing to be vulnerable and real, and to show who I really am—in this blog as well as in my everyday life. I will keep listening to my voice within—my heart, my intuition. I will feel my faith again, and I will keep following my gut.

I thought about the alternative. I thought about how much easier it sometimes seems to live life all closed up—and I used to pride myself on being mysterious… and back then, my incongruent actions directly contradicted what my heart really longed for. But I lived in the alternative for so many years that at this point, it doesn’t even feel like a choice that’s on the table, for me to try wearing masks again, or to try being perfect again, or to try fooling everyone around me into thinking I’m a more amazing person than I really am.

The only thing that feels right, authentic, and true, is to continue living just how I am. Vulnerable, open, courageous, brave, and yes—sometimes, even messy.

Logic says that I shouldn't even post this. It's too open, too vulnerable, too... emotional.

I will never again apologize for being emotional. I am emotional.

And, I am also following my gut...