By Victoria Joanna  BBA, CNP, RNCP http://www.victoriajoanna.com/

No matter what you call it, we all have it.  Intuition, our inner guide, the wise voice, gut feeling, sixth sense.  It’s an internal compass that tells us when we are on track and when we have to reconsider our direction.

Yet even with this gift of inner guidance many of us find ourselves in financial situations, romantic relationships, friendships, or careers that are not making us happy.   If we’re born with a compass, why do we get off track?  Shouldn’t we innately know how to use it?

What fun would life be if it came with a set of instructions right?  It took me almost 30 years to discover that I have an inner compass, let alone learn how to use it.  But I promise, once we learn to tap into it, our life is never the same.   

So how do we access our inner compass?  It’s through our emotions.  Simple enough, yet many of us have never been taught how to properly process and feel our feelings.   Sure, we can describe them through words – angry, sad, irritated, happy, depressed etc., but we have challenges when we are asked to describe the physical sensation of anger, sadness, shame, happiness, joy, or hope, particularly the negative emotions, because they are uncomfortable.

We’ve been taught to numb our feelings.   When we feel discomfort we do our best to ignore it – we have a drink to “relax” or “take the edge of”, watch hours of television in the evenings to “unwind”, eat sugary or fattening foods because they “make us feel good”, engage in a little “retail therapy” and distract ourselves with blackberries, iPhones, Facebook and Twitter to the point where we never have to be present with ourselves, our thoughts or our uncomfortable feelings.

Going back to childhood, if we experienced any sort of pain our parents tended to want to take it away.  Our parents may have helped us deal with pain with distractions such as ice-cream cones, TV shows, changing the subject or even minimizing our reaction to our hurting.   Over time we learn the best thing to do when we are upset is to move on.  How many of us were encouraged to sit with the feeling, to describe what is going on in our bodies, to get to know the sensations and try to figure out what is making us feel that way?

Have you ever thought about the way you feel when you are sad, lonely, angry or scared?  Think about the butterflies in your stomach, the tightness in your chest, the lump in your throat.   Not a great feeling right?  Who can blame us for wanting it to be over as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately our compass cannot speak to us with words, even our thoughts are often confused with “that crazy voice in the back of my head”.    So it sends us physical signals through our emotions.  The key is paying attention.

How do we read our compass?  We stay present and experience our emotions as they happen.  Be patient as this takes time.  We’ve spent a lifetime ignoring our feelings so these automatic reactions and habits don’t transform over night.  After some practice, listening to our bodies in every situation will become as natural as breathing.  We will no longer have to question if we are on the right track, we’ll know it.  Every time.

Reading your compass.

The next time you find yourself getting home a little tired, irritated, angry or upset…. BEFORE you reach for your usual “fix” (ice cream, cookies, remote control, glass of wine, credit card, etc), do the following:

Sit in a quiet place and notice your mood.  Attempt to name the emotion.

Think about how it feels in your body.  Where do you feel it? What does it feel like?

Let yourself feel the physical sensations of the emotion and notice your reaction to it.  Is it uncomfortable?  Is it difficult to sit with?  You may notice that as you initially pay attention the emotion gets bigger and then eventually subsides.  That is the key, to feel the emotion, let the energy move through you and out of you.

The other important part is to look for what that emotion might be trying to tell you.  If you are upset, scared or irritated, what could that be related to in your life?  Does your body want to tell you something?  Is there some challenge/person you have been ignoring that you know you need to deal with?  Is there something you are currently doing which you know is wrong for you but you’re not sure how to stop? 

The answers may not be obvious right away, especially if you are just starting to learn how to interpret these physical messages.  Continue to pay attention.