Acting on Divine Guidance

I’m often asked “How do I know that I’m really acting on intuitive guidance? How do I know I’m not just making it up?” Until we become familiar with the still, inner voice of our intuition, I believe that the “proof” is to be found in the experience of taking action on the guidance we receive.

Our Spirit Guides will never point us towards a next step that we truly don’t enjoy. Intuitive guidance doesn’t send us towards suffering! But, having said that, we have to actually take action before we can truly appreciate the quality of the information we’ve been given.

Here’s a personal example. My Spirit Guides have been pointing me towards Toastmasters for a while now. Toastmasters is an organization that supports its members in developing their public speaking skills. The thing is, I loathe public speaking. At least, I used to loathe public speaking, which seems strange for a former opera singer, right? While I was comfortable getting on stage and singing music that someone else had written, putting my own words out there in front of people used to terrify me. And I certainly teach a lot of classes – but on the phone, which is far less intimidating to me. So was I happy about receiving guidance to go and join Toastmasters? Heck, no! But I went, because I just can’t ignore intuitive guidance.

I arrived to my first meeting early – only to found out that it had started an hour earlier than I thought, so I was actually terribly late! I caught about the last ten minutes of that meeting. At the end of those whopping ten minutes, the Chapter President asked for volunteers to speak at the next meeting. And wouldn’t you know it, but my little hand just shot up in the air as if of its own volition! So there I was, scheduled to speak with exactly ten minutes worth of prior experience under my belt.

My first speech was yesterday. It was a blast. I had an absolutely fabulous time speaking. Yes, I was nervous. Oddly enough, I was not terrified. I had an amazing experience – completely different from any prior experience I’ve had in public speaking. I learned so much about myself! What made me comfortable was that I was now speaking from a place of authenticity. So much of what I’ve been doing in the past year or so – blogging, teaching classes, and even just talking with my clients – has been about uncovering my authentic self-expression. Go figure – now public speaking is fun. I can’t wait to go and teach some live workshops to promote my book.

Act on the guidance you receive! Even if you are not sure that it is guidance at first – take a leap of faith. Don’t prejudge, because what may sound difficult or scary may turn into a wonderful experience. If you truly have a miserable time in the moment of action itself, you know that it was not guided. But you won’t know until you actually take action. So try it once. Let the quality of the action inform you of whether it was truly Divinely guided action – or just your mind, coming up with its own ideas. In time, you will learn to recognize the difference.

Divine guidance may challenge us, may take us out of our comfort zone, and may take us towards something we think we will not enjoy. But in the moment of acting on Divine guidance, we will feel pretty good! There’s no way to know until we take action. So if there’s been something lurking in the back of your head, something you’ve been considering but haven’t had the nerve to act on – do it. The experience may surprise you, and open up new worlds of possibility.

Blessings,
Andrea Hess