Una’s little world 10. You know best for you
by Una Hearne.
Here’s a universal law: What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. In all areas of life there is common sense stuff that works for most of us but- there are no absolutes and no guarantees.
You are the world expert on you, nobody knows you like you do. You are the only person qualified to make life/ relationship/ work/ health choices for you. You’re welcome/ I’m sorry!
Beware of ‘experts’ selling you answers, especially when there is no science behind them. In the ME/CFS world there are plenty of people on the internet selling their ‘cures’, as if they are proven. My own beloved personal development industry is full of this ‘7 steps to guaranteed success’ stuff. And don’t get me started on the diet world! By all means try stuff that appeals to you, but watch your budget, it can be very costly to buy into other people’s ideas.
Above all, trust your own wisdom. Whatever you call it, instinct, intuition, inner wisdom, gut feeling – trust it.
Your wisdom resides in your subconscious which stores vast amounts of information and communicates with you via your feelings – both emotional and physical sensations. Its primary job is to protect you and so it will tend to have a cautionary bias. Often showing up as our old friends anxiety or fear. This is where your conscious mind comes in, its job is to balance any negative bias with conscious thought.
Interestingly, when you have difficult decisions to make you can consult your subconscious on purpose. Find somewhere you can be undisturbed. Sit, lie, sprawl, stand on your head, find a position that is comfortable for you. Let yourself settle. Notice how each part of your body feels, one by one. This will help you come into the present moment. Now think about each of your options in turn. Imagine them as fully as you can. Notice the emotions and physical sensations that arise for each option. You can take notes if it helps. It will become apparent to you which option you really favour. The more practice you get with this, the more you learn to trust your own judgement.
Now an extra note for all of you who regret choices that didn’t work out so well. It is completely normal for things to work out differently to how you imagined. Sometimes vastly better (Yay!) and sometimes you crash and burn (Awww!). Here’s the thing, if you made the best decision you could at the time – in the state you were in and with the knowledge you had – then it was the right choice. You did good. High fives.
And remember, all experience has value. Even crash and burn contain valuable learning (like the time I learned that Tequila causes me to make poor choices romantically). Now you have new information and experience and you get to make the next choice (no more Tequila). And thus, wisdom grows.
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