A Coaching Power Tool created by Juliana Barco
(Life Coach, ITALY)
When I was young, my mother gave me a Guffy, from Disney World, and I immediately fell in love with it; I took him with me everywhere I went, he would always be in my back pack, ready for consultation, listening, hugging and playing. When I grew up, he stayed with me, he became the reminder of good choices, he reminded to always trust my intuition, my inner wisdom and to always follow my heart. So every time I had to make a difficult choice I would go to him in my heart, reach out to him, and then the magic answer would just come to me, just like that! Growing up I understood that he had become the voice of my intuition.
But here’s the thing: in the process of growing up, becoming a woman, I also learned a lot of what my family had to say about life, and then I learned a lot about what my friends had to say about life, and slowly, all of this ideas became strong beliefs, inner ones, that stuck with me whether they were positive or negative. Here are the fake beliefs! This little strong ideas, sometimes without logic that stick with us, even though they do us wrong; they will hide behind our inner voice, because they have learned to talk just like it, sound just like it, and they have grown up to be super smart so they can confuse us and trick us into the idea of them being a voice coming from the heart.
Fake beliefs
Even though is very easy to point a finger at them, and recognize them is not quite so easy to deal with them; re-framing fake beliefs, changing the perspective and then using them in a positive way, it’s a full time job! These beliefs grew up with us, they are part of the foundation of who we are today. We learned them listening to our family, listening to what they had to say about us, about others or about life itself. How can we not believe what we have been listening to, since we were kids? How could we not strongly believe what life and our family have taught us? How can we see that maybe these beliefs that seem to hurt us and dis-empowered us might not be the truth, when that’s all that we know?
When you are aware that something doesn’t feel quite right, for example: when you’ve just accomplished something very important in your life, and still, you don’t feel like it’s good enough. When you keep pushing yourself harder and harder because you say you have to be the best, but once you are, it doesn’t feel like it. Well, all this disempowering feelings and thoughts are fake beliefs, and like the ones I just told you about, we can find so many, disguised behind ideas that might seem positive at the time, but that will throw us a curved ball as soon as we start reaching a goal or anything that is supposed to make us happy. They will immediately start to yell how we are not enough nor worthy, how we are not really capable of doing what we intend to do; they also come sometimes disguised like fear, or anger, and can become so negative, that they make of a completely natural and positive feeling, something disempowering and negative.
Intuition
It has nothing to do with being smart, intuition, or as I have learned to call it Inner wisdom, is something that belongs to us, something that nobody can change or take away. Is that voice, that awareness that talks to us every day, every moment and it never stops advising us.
It is only our inner wisdom what helps us get back on our feet after a harsh fall, it is that voice that keeps talking to us every moment of the day, telling us how and where to find the strength that we need to get through hard times and difficult choices. Is the most honest advice we will ever receive, intuition is what will show you the perspective you need to see in order to do what is best, the voice that will constantly remind you of who you really are, of what your heart truly desires. All of this, your inner wisdom does because it is one of the most direct ways to help you stay true to yourself, and so, it helps you reach true happiness.
Guffy, for me represents my inner wisdom, my intuition, the one that reveals the existence on an inner enemy –fake beliefs– and says what there is to be done. It has the self-preservation instinct, perceiving reality for what it truly is, and then chooses what will hurt our psyche less1. Intuition is that thought, or feeling, or little voice that has something to say, once the ego and the fake beliefs have been put aside; is the one that talks about good limits, the ones that do you right, it is always aware of what is what, being able to see through envy or treason or even the ill-filling of others. Those are some of the many reasons why we have learned in the process of life to stop listening to our own inner wisdom, because it can hurt us some times with its knowledge, so now that we are aware of this, I ask you, aren’t we all brave enough to let that voice speak, and tell us the truth about ourselves and about what surrounds us? And here is where we will perceive how strong we are, how powerful and how great we can be, always trusting our intuition and staying true to who we are.
How to work more with our intuition and let go the fake beliefs
To do list
- Review the beliefs that we have that act as a foundation of who we are, and recognize the ones that make our life too comfortable, too safe, the ones that makes us think of ourselves in a not fully positive way. Then start looking how to change your perspective. Gillaume Apollinaire once wrote: “we took them to the edge of the abysm and we ordered them to fly. They wouldn't move. “fly!” we said. But they wouldn't move. We pushed them into the abysm. Then they flew.”
- Understand that the intuition is also the awareness of what may hurt us, is the enemy of those fake beliefs, those that refer to values stuck in our conscience that drive us away from our true identity with the risk of paralyzing the development of our personality2. It is what will let us know when something is not right, and is hurting us, or pulling us behind, even though it will hurt us to recognize this. Remember that we might be going against some of our core values, but remember also, that you are doing this because it is more important to take care of yourself, than to live your life with the burden of fake beliefs that do you wrong.
- Learn to trust your intuition. It takes time and a constant attention every day every moment of it, until you can recognize and make contact with it so that every time it talks to you, you can listen to it. Learn to see your own brightness without running away from it, being able to understand and learn and take what we already know even though it might not always be what we expect.
- See the different choices that you have offered by your intuition: the two opposite sides of the scene, the one in between and the subsequent analysis of the possibilities. Remember that you always have a choice, and a brighter possibility
- Being spontaneous is not always a synonym of recklessness, not like you throw yourself in a situation just like that, but always remembering that good limits are always important. Being aware that once you put aside your ego you will hear what inside of you is to be said.
1”Woman that run with wolfs” by Clarissa Pinkola.
2 “ Jung Speaking” by C.G Jung, edited by William McGuire and R.F.C Hull