Why Connecting To Your Inner Wisdom Is The Biggest Life Hack
I’m always banging on about inner wisdom. What do I even mean by that and why should you care? Read on because this blog post explains all.
Wait, what is inner wisdom?
Inner wisdom = the wisdom you hold in your body. Intuition, inner knowing, intuitive knowing, inner voice are other ways of talking about this. It boils down to this: it is the body, not the mind, that knows what we want and need. That jolt of excitement you get when you’re asked to collaborate on a project? That wave of calm you experience when your partner walks into the room. Those are very simple examples of the body speaking to you.
Our inner wisdom speaks differently to each of us and it’s a case of getting to know how your inner wisdom speaks, or even whispers, to you.
But how often do we listen to our inner wisdom? Or even give space for it to speak? In today’s world – not very often. Because perhaps what it tells us is inconvenient or doesn’t make sense on paper. So we push it down or try to ignore it.
But then we get tired of living in and from our busy minds. Tirelessly thinking everything over, planning A, B and C scenarios for everything, 3-am ruminating, worrying, just-in-casing to the nth degree… Perhaps there’s another (less tiring) way to do life?
There is.
And the key lies in nurturing your connecting with your inner wisdom. But to gain access to this inner wisdom, you need to find a way to pause and make the journey from the head to the body and heart.
How can you access your inner wisdom?
There is really no right or wrong answer to this. Basically, the theory is that you need to find a way to turn down the volume of the noise of the world and the busyness of your mind. You might do this with meditation, or through practices that get you into a meditative state such as walking or surfing. Journalling, especially free from writing is another way to access your true inner voice. Just write without structure or overthinking it and you may be surprised with what comes up.
These are all wonderful ways to connect to who you really are, what you really feel about stuff and what you actually want. It helps you separate yourself from what is external to you, which I often refer to as ‘noise’.
There is one other very powerful way to connect to your inner wisdom and, actually, it’s been under your nose all along… yep, it’s that word you keep hearing these days: breathwork. And, specifically, conscious connected breathwork.
What is conscious connected breathwork?
Conscious connected breathwork is a powerful and accessible way to gain access to your inner wisdom by helping you make this journey from head to body and heart via a connected, continuous breath pattern.
It helps you to connect thoughts in your mind with sensation and emotions in your body and heart and deeply feel whatever is alive in that moment. By bringing more air into the body than normal (about 3 times more), you are bringing in more life force energy that runs around the body and results in sensations and emotions depending on where this energy flows to. Whenever you have a thought in your mind, the invitation is to locate and feel this in your body.
Making and strengthening this connection takes time and effort and practice and that is what a breathwork facilitator, like me, is trained to do. And it’s called breathWORK for a reason. It’s not a lie back and passively receive kind of thing. You have to commit to being present and staying with it when it feels hard or uncomfortable.
How does conscious connected breathwork connect you to your inner wisdom?
Conscious connected breathwork enables you to move from beta (doing) state to alpha (being) and theta (creativity, intuition, memories) states. We live most of our waking hours in a beta state i.e. doing and in the mind. When we meditate, we can shift into an alpha state, which allows for relaxation. Then when we’re on the cusp of sleeping or waking, we are in a theta state, which is a incredible place where our best ideas, long-lost memories and intuitive hits thrive.
It puts you into a between awake and dream-like state, peeling back the layers to see what lies beyond your subconscious awareness. This means that limiting beliefs and negative thought patterns blocking your inner wisdom and personal growth can be revealed and released.
It also enables you to clear the emotional body of stuck emotions by allowing space for this energy in motion (e-motion) to move through you release. The less bogged down you are by stuck emotions (e.g. fear and anxiety), the more capacity you have to feel your inner wisdom when it speaks.
In short, conscious connected breathwork brings the wisdom of the body – that we cannot normally hear, feel or experience as we go about our day-to-day lives in our cerebral, doing state – to the surface.
I know you’re now probably thinking: cool story, Grace, but why the eff do I want to connect to my inner wisdom? Read on to find out.
What becomes possible when you learn how to listen to your inner wisdom?
In short, a lot!
Making decisions becomes a whole lot easier – you just know and trust yourself
You build confidence as you no longer need to turn to external sources so much for answers
You feel like you know yourself better which brings confidence and groundedness in who you are
You feel better able to know what is right for you and was isn't by how it feels in your body - red flags will send off alarm bells in your body
You feel less need to cave to external shoulds, pressures, expectations and more doing things your way (this has been game changing in motherhood particularly).
You can lean more into what is right for you.
You trust yourself more as you navigate the ups and downs of life, knowing that your body is a compass
You start the practise of feeling into things instead of thinking them over = game changing
But, wait, it gets even better…
All of this = you free up time, energy and headspace that you would normally be wasting on going round in circles decision making, trying to live up to others’ expectations, doubting yourself and having to live through red flag scenarios in life because “they made sense on paper”. What can you do with that time space and headspace you’ve freed up? Meet your needs and whatever lights you up.
Who wants more of that?
If so, then come and do some breathwork with me. I’m all about helping women – particularly other mothers – gain access to their inner wisdom to help them navigate the ups and downs of motherhood and life feeling confident, grounded and resilient. Intrigued? Then book a free 20-minute connection call to get started!
