We are taught what to think — through rote memorization, consistent repetition, or simple indoctrination — rather than how to think. We are taught to sever ourselves from our intuition, and to always defer to a perceived expert or authority figure. But what happens when that person doesn’t have your best interest in mind, has a conflict of interest, or a financial incentive when offering their advice? We can easily be led down a path that doesn’t serve us.

It is our intuition that seeks to save us from misguided or nefarious guidance. However, when we are unable to tap into this innate knowledge because of past traumas we have failed to reconcile, we can be easily misled.

To some degree, we have all unfortunately experienced trauma, whether through verbal or sexual abuse, the loss of a loved one, a near-death experience, or another scarring event in our lives. If we haven’t done the internal work to heal ourselves from the pain of our past experiences, we become susceptible to the programming from our “education”, our media choice, our social circle, our upbringing, or our religious belief system.

Our unhealed trauma tells us that we aren’t worthy of making decisions for ourselves, so instead of searching for answers within ourselves we find it easier to listen to the voices of authority. Yet, their power only comes from what we allow. We find it easier to listen, than to turn inward, to do the self-work necessary to extoll the demons of our past, and heal the things that bother us the most, which cause us to search for guidance outside of ourselves.

It is not until we can heal from our past traumatic experiences, that we can confidently turn inward to reconnect with our intuitive voice and use it as a guide to discern whether the advice we are constantly being given is there to serve us, or them.