Do you ever listen to your intuition? I was looking at social media, scrolling away on my Facebook Feed, when I heard someone sharing, “If you have a story that the world needs to hear…the TEDx stage is an amazing place to do it.” At this moment, my entire body lit up with chills and shakes… I had an absolute, full body, undeniable response of yes. “You are doing this. Apply, and this will happen. You’ll be on that stage in six months”. I couldn’t deny the energy pouring through me. My first thought was kind of like…are you kidding? I had a full-fledged panic attack in public speaking class in school…you want me to do what? if I had listened to the odds that only 1 in 100,000 per year get onto a Stage… I would not have had the joy of watching this intuition come true. In exactly six months, I was on a TEDx stage. Only Because I have honed the skills to be in my body and listen to my intuition…I knew and trusted what I had to do.

I wish I had known how to do that a long time ago. It takes most of us a lifetime to truly learn to listen to our instincts and intuition. So many people lose their lives or livelihoods by not listening. I almost lost my life a few times by not listening to my own intuition and body warnings. How many times can you remember saying to yourself or a friend,…If only I had listened to my instincts, I should have listened. I had a hunch… heard a voice and felt a feeling, but I just didn’t believe it. And then remember..how you suffered the consequences.

You are not the only one.

Over the years, I have heard hundreds of people in my coaching practice asking why they didn’t trust their body hunches or listen to their inner voices. We must learn to listen to our body signals and intuition as if our life depended on it because it does. Our intuition is here to guide us in the vital turning points in our lives… its function is to rotate us enough towards ourselves that we can follow our most profound dreams and avoid our nightmares. So, I developed a four-step system to embody our intuition, which I call L.E.A.D.

L is for listen

In 2019, You.gov surveyed over 4000 people to see how many liked listening to their voice recorded. Only 23 percent said they were very comfortable hearing their voice.

Imagine if we don’t even like the sound of listening to our voice; how willing are we to listen to ourselves? Sadly, it’s pervasive to listen to what someone outside us tells us to do rather than trust our inner information. We live in a culture that teaches us to look outside for wisdom. We are rarely taught in schools to sit still and look within. Like it or not, we are taught that what we need to soothe or protect is outside us. We must be trained to look within and listen to our intuition. Sometimes, the people around us don’t even want us to know… what we do know… so we learn to do what is asked of us. Our wounds from childhood can create patterns, teaching us to abandon ourselves to the needs of others.

So many great Leaders suffer under their accolades because they are not listening to a tiny voice…

When we are willing to listen to ourselves, step out of our everyday lives, slow down and listen to that tiny voice inside, we can take care of ourselves and create what we truly desire. Write down one message, intuition, or inner voice that you need to dialogue with …one you have not taken seriously, and listen.

E is for embody

Embody is the second step, which is most commonly missed or misunderstood. Without being in our bodies, moving, feeling, breathing, and releasing, disconnecting from ourselves repeats. Being embodied will not necessarily happen from yoga, exercise, massage, chiropractic and healthy diets alone. What I recommend from experience is that conscious movement and breath practices connect us to what is left buried within. Embodiment became my sanctuary after surviving multiple violent crimes and assaults. Embodiment is a journey of feeling, moving, breathing and releasing. In 2021, Dr Bessel Vanderkolk wrote in “The Body Keeps the Score” that conscious movement and dance practices are among the most effective tools to heal trauma. We can then release the anger, fear and grief stored in our bodies, opening new neural pathways to joy, safety and freedom. Most of us have never associated movement and breath …basic things we do daily..as essential healing tools.

Once we reclaim the space within us from the old trauma, we begin to live in our present body rather than the past or what we, trauma-aware practitioners, call our “pain” body. These two steps… Listening and Embody, are foundational to genuinely getting unstuck with your inner world.

The following two steps will be the game changers that become obvious in your outer world life.

A is for action

We might already see the steps we need to take…the complex changes and choices we need to make, but we are so often frozen in trauma and wounded core beliefs, which leave us unable to change. We can only honestly become the Actor or Actress empowered in our story when We do these first two steps of Listening and Embodying… this frees up our self-trust internally, allowing us to break free from unhealthy patterns or situations in our lives, whether that is staying in a relationship, a job, a way of behaving around our friends and family, our actions with money, and our lack of actions towards our dreams and our goals.

The startling facts are that most of us have experienced minor or extensive trauma or someone in our lineage has…which means we carry intergenerational trauma. Trauma disconnects us from knowing what we know—feeling what we feel—and even expressing what we need. We have internalised learned helplessness and have had to bury our inner knowing to survive whatever the prevailing outer circumstance or situation seems to require of us for our physical, mental or emotional survival.

Without listening and embodying, we remain stuck in a fight-or-flight-or-freeze response, and no matter how hard we try to take action for change, we somehow find ourselves right back in the same cycle. As you become more comfortable taking action. We can finally become the directors of our lives. The more we do this, the more we no longer want to act under someone else’s script or dream.

D is for director

Being the director of your life doesn’t mean just “adulting well.” You might be thinking – I’m doing ok in my life. I’m paying my bills; I like my life. I’m productive and performing well at work. I am content in my relationships.

Directing your life is a daily commitment to your inner wisdom. As you embrace these steps, ask yourself: How am I going to lead my one precious life today? This is not just a call to action. It’s an invitation to become the architect of your joy. In weaving these steps into your daily life, you transform your journey into an epic adventure.

We move beyond the roles we thought we could play into our soul’s authority. We are genuinely free. We are living and leading our lives from our joy. Embracing your Intuition means empowering your narrative. When you embrace these four steps fully, it makes it possible for you to lead the way again.