Developing Self Trust through Intuition

When I decided to leave my corporate career and start Humaya, I had no idea where it would take me. I had no idea how I was going to make this company happen — I didn’t know how to build an app, how I’d get the content to fill it, or how I would afford any of it. I didn’t know if I was throwing away a practical and lucrative career for no reason. In fact, the only thing I did know was that I had no choice but to go for it. 

In the weeks before leaving my job, I was seeing signs all over the place. Everywhere I looked I would see things like, “LET GO! Stop wasting your time.” It felt like the Universe was screaming at me to stop draining my energy at my job and instead direct my focus into this idea of Humaya. I was so afraid of change, but I could feel an undeniable pull towards a new life. I knew deep down my time would be so much better spent pursuing what my heart really wanted.

When I called the final meeting with my boss, it was like an out-of-body experience. I watched myself firmly give my two-weeks notice, driven by pure adrenaline. I signed the papers, caught my breath in the restroom, and drove to the beach. Crying and laughing. Terrified and exhilarated at the same time.

It was one of the first times I had so blindly trusted my intuition. I felt like I was jumping off a cliff into the complete unknown.

Of course, tons of fear came up. But as I leaned into my new path, I found help in ways I never could have predicted — financially, creatively, spiritually, and through the right people and opportunities finding me. It felt like my soul had pre-arranged plans for me that I never could have predicted, and they brought me more joy, beauty, and growth than I knew was possible.

“I’ve often said that starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down.” - Reid Hoffman

I know many of us experience these intuitive hints to pursue something new, but we feel safer pushing them aside. We might sense the seeds of possibility in truly going for what we want, but we doubt our capability or worthiness to even try. We may not recognize these dreams or ideas as coming from our intuition, and we instead dismiss them as silly or unrealistic.

This is something I’m so familiar with. But after 30+ years of doubting myself, I began to realize that every one of us has the power to develop self-trust through connection with our intuition. We can strengthen our connection to this inner wisdom and begin to rely on its guidance, using it as a tool to lead us in the right direction.

It begins by learning to distinguish intuition from mental chatter. Unlike our daily thoughts, intuition comes in like flashes of inspiration, excitement, or deep knowing that feels expansive in the body. It feels big and bold and exciting, like a pull towards something new (rather than an avoiding or pushing away).

Another way to distinguish intuition is that these sparks of insight have nothing to do with our ego’s desires. They don’t subscribe to our fears or worries about the future, and they’re completely uninvolved with our desires for money or power or instant gratification. Instead, our intuition shows us what our true self really wants: what is best for us and those around us.

When we form a clear connection with our intuition, we find that it always leads us down the path of least resistance. Following it leads us to experience more ease, joy, and deep soul fulfillment. What’s more, our intuition is like our superpower. Whether we’re an entrepreneur or simply striving to be the best we can be in this life, our intuition is key to unlocking our potential. Ultimately, it is how we find and fulfill our purpose. It is how we attune to our creativity, our next brilliant idea, our next right step.

This is because when we really pay attention — sensitizing ourselves to the more subtle aspects of reality — we begin to see that there is so much information being offered to us. Scientists have shown that our brains are hit with 40 million bits of information per second. However, our brains can only process about 40 bits of that information per second. This means we pick up only a miniscule fraction of the reality around us. Can we even fathom how much information is right outside of our awareness, simply waiting to be known?

As we calibrate ourselves through practices like Yoga Nidra and meditation, we can start to access new information. We can tune our consciousness like a radio dial, aligning ourselves with the unknown. In the months before leaving my job, I had committed to a daily Yoga Nidra practice. During that time, I started to receive incredible insights and visions — one of which was the idea for Huma Rising. The clarity I was gaining made it so much easier to trust myself in one of the scariest decisions of my life.

Now, I look to these intuitive hits to lead me in the right direction with Huma Rising. I listen for ideas that give me full-body excitement, and I gut-check often as I execute on them. I spend lots of time visioning and asking questions of my subconscious, and I maintain my daily meditation practice to stay connected and receptive. As I do this, more clues, more solutions, and more of the right people and circumstances come into my life.

While being an entrepreneur is the most challenging journey I’ve ever been on, I am so grateful to my intuition for leading me down this path. I never thought I would trust myself enough to start my own business, and yet it’s been the most empowering and meaningful thing I’ve ever done. Each of us has this ability to unlock our purpose and expand into our full potential. We can learn to truly trust ourselves and step into the lives of our dreams. May we all empower ourselves and our dreams by opening up to our inner wisdom.

by Marina Harmon