Why your greatest strength lies in honoring both your sensitivity and your smarts.
As children, we start out living in our imagination. We live authentically; automatically knowing who we are.
Then as we get older, we can lose our way. Other people tell us what we should or shouldn’t do, and we lose sight of that magical intuition.
We no longer feel connected to our heart and soul, and wander down different paths trying to find ourselves. This happened to me, particularly because I worked in corporate finance.
I got more and more into my head, as I was trained to analyze every last detail and to not miss a thing. Because if anything was missed; surely bosses, auditors or anyone else involved would criticize my decisions.
So it took allot of years to work my way out of being highly analytical and sometimes out of analysis paralysis, and it started by going to healing arts school. I even had a teacher that said “get out of your head and into your heart”.
But I didn’t understand it at first. Everyone else seemed to know exactly how to tap into their intuition, but it was a struggle for me.
And yet as a born empath (sensitive to feelings, energy and animals) there was definitely a powerful intuition lying underneath the surface. I had to break through the habit of making sure I “dotted every i and crossed every t” so I could find it again.
In fact sometimes when we’ve been trained to be analytical, we can have a fear of listening to our intuition. (We’ve been taught to have a logical reason for everything.)
Also, if we feel we’ve made “mistakes” in the past by listening to our heart, we often resist change again. Yet the truth is that every experience is a lesson and the way that we really learn in life.
Eventually by working with other people, I “fell back into” my intuition, and re-learned how to tap into my heart. But I did find myself sometimes having a battle between the two.
It’s good to have some discernment and reason, but we can also feel out of alignment when we don’t follow our heart. Yet animal empaths have the power to use both tools.
So: What if we balance the two? What if our intuition provides the emotional guidance system we crave, along with rational decision-making that we possess?
The truth is, both tools are part of our superpower. Also, life is about re-balancing and finding our “sweet spot”.
We have so much at our disposal to help guide us in life: Our intuition that connects us to divine thought, and our mind that uses our genuine intelligence (not artificial) based on wisdom and experience.
When we put both together, it’s a win-win. Because it’s okay to have some structure in life; whether it’s planning, money or time-management, and to build self-trust by eliminating doubt within ourselves.
Going to extremes in either case may not be helpful. If we constantly jump at every feeling without some thought, we might find ourselves in a difficult situation (especially if we’re picking up on other people’s feelings – which we sometimes do as empaths).
And that’s indeed part of the balance: Knowing when it’s our thought or emotion, and sifting through what’s true and wise. Because when we have that balance, it helps us to find the path that’s right for us.
