How to Avoid the Pain of Ignoring Your Intuitive Warning Signs

Have you ever realized after the fact that you ignored your intuitive warning signs?

It happened to me again the other day, and I paid for it.

Here’s what I learned, in the hopes of helping you avoid this unfortunate experience in the future!

Intuitive Warning Signs are Usually Subtle

The problem is that your intuition doesn’t yell at you—at least, most of the time. Usually, it speaks in a soft voice, if it says words at all. Often it communicates in emotions, images, or hunches—a much more subtle way of attempting to get your attention.

That means if you’re not tuned in, you can miss it—and that can lead to negative consequences.

Here’s what happened to me.

I went to a new shop to purchase a new pair of glasses. I hadn’t been there before, but the technicians were friendly, I found a pair of frames I liked, the price was good, and everything was going well.

Then one of the technicians came over to measure what they call your “pupillary distance (PD)”—the distance between your two pupils. This helps them to be sure your lenses are designed correctly so you can see well through them.

I typically get my glasses at the eye doctor’s office, but as I said, this was a new place. The technician came over while I was standing up (I’ve always sat down before for this measurement), kind of half-heartedly put the measuring machine up to my eyes (they’re like a thick pair of goggles), then flitted off, saying she had gotten her measurement.

I knew it wasn’t accurate. I felt the “wrongness” of it in the back of my mind. She hadn’t pressed the goggles firmly back against my head, and we’d both been moving a little while she’d taken the measurement.

This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be done. My intuition nudged me to say something, but my “rational” mind vetoed that suggestion. I was no eye technician. The technician was. Surely she knew what she was doing.

In other words, my rational mind told my intuitive mind to just check its ego and hush, everything would be fine.

When the glasses came in a few weeks later, sure enough—the vision was off. I asked the technician to measure the PD again. Sure enough, the measurement was off. They adjusted it and sent the glasses away again to correct the lenses.

Of course, that meant I had to go without my new glasses for another two weeks.

Sigh.

I grumbled at myself. I knew there was a problem, yet I didn’t speak up. I’ve done this before—failed to trust my intuition. Maybe you have, too.

Why do we do this, and how can we fix it?

Why Do We Ignore Our Intuitive Warning Signs?

There are many reasons why we may ignore our intuitive warning signs. Here are just a few:

We’re distracted.

Intuitive warning signs are subtle, which means we have to be paying attention to our inner world to notice them.

We don’t trust ourselves.

This was the case for me in this situation—I was sure the eye technician knew more than me, which is true in one sense. She was trained in how to use the measurement device. I wasn’t.

But I have had glasses since I was in third grade. I have had my PD measured umpteen times. I had experience in this process. So I should have spoken up.

We don’t want to bother somebody else.

This was also partly true in my case. I didn’t want to offend the technician by implying that she didn’t take the measurement correctly (even though she didn’t). But in holding my tongue, I ended up causing myself a lot more inconvenience than I would have caused her by asking her to simply take the measurement again.

We’re not used to it.

We operate most of the time from our rational minds. We think something logically, then follow through. We aren’t as practiced in operating on our intuitive hunches.

It’s one thing to have an appointment, get in the car, and drive to that appointment. We do that sort of thing all the time. It’s completely different to have a feeling or a hunch that we need to drive across town and actually act on that hunch. That’s a more unusual activity.

In other words, we’re simply not as practiced at following through on those intuitive warning signs. We’re like toddlers still learning to walk.

We’re afraid to take a leap of faith.

Trusting your intuition always requires taking a leap of faith, and most of us aren’t used to that. Again, this involves trusting yourself, but also trusting the universe, or god, or whatever it is that you believe in. Trusting that force has your back, and if you take that leap of faith, everything will be okay.

How to Practice Acting on Your Intuitive Warning Signs

I have long been a student of intuition, but this experience taught me that I still have a lot to learn. If you, like me, could use more practice, try these tips:

• Practice paying attention. Take ten minutes a day to tune into your intuition. What is it telling you? Write it down.
• Practice acting on a hunch. At least once a week, act on one of your hunches. It may tell you to go somewhere, call someone, or do something different with your day. Whatever it is, make it a point to act on that hunch at least once a week.
• Practice noticing patterns. What are you seeing a lot of these days? Or thinking about a lot? Maybe you’re noticing certain articles online that all fall under one theme, or you’re seeing images all over that make you think of someone or something. Take at least one day a week to ask yourself what patterns have appeared in your life lately.

How do you practice noticing and acting on your intuitive warning signs?