3 Reasons You Might be Afraid of Your Intuition

Last week I was chatting with a friend who was having a hard time in her relationship.  

 “I know, I am ignoring my intuition.  I get an impulse and I dig my heels in and do the opposite.  I feel like I’m afraid of my intuition, is that a thing?”

It reminded me of something that so many of my clients go through.  It’s something I go through all the time.

What happens when our intuition shows up and we feel afraid of it?  So I wanted to dig into this today.  Here are three reasons why you might be afraid of your intuition:

When we experience this there are a few reasons why we might be feeling some fear about trusting ourselves.

The first is that we were taught not to trust ourselves from the time we were young.  

Most of life has conditioned us to outsource our wisdom to people with more experience.  Teachers, pastors, and parents are who we learn to trust first.  We go to school or church, or even at home someone tells us how to get dressed, tie our shoes, count to ten, and we are indoctrinated into a system that teaches us to trust others more than ourselves.

Now, I’m not hating on traditional education but it is only in the past year or two that mindfulness has been taught in schools, giving children a much needed sense of agency and a better understanding of listening to self.

We grow up not really having an understanding of why it’s important to listen to our own intuition because society doesn’t value it.  So when you get an intuitive impulse, you might feel afraid because it may feel like challenging authority.  

Trauma can also be a culprit.

If you experienced trauma in your childhood, in particular, you might have a harder time developing your sense of reality.  If someone was making you doubt yourself constantly as you were growing up, it can be very challenging as an adult to trust your impulses because you’re afraid of being wrong again, or you’re afraid of the consequence of being wrong.

Similarly, if you experienced trauma as an adult, you may have a strong distrust of your intuition because you feel that it led you wrong.  When you start to notice it coming up, you may feel triggered because that sensation reminds you of the bad thing that happened.

This kind of distrust can be hard to break through, but it is UNDERSTANDABLE.  If you find yourself in this place, don’t force it.  Offer yourself compassion in those moments.  There’s no need to be open to intuition if you aren’t ready for it yet.

Being awake to our intuition means having to do something about it.

Ignorance is easy. Being awake is hard. 

Once you pay attention to your intuition, especially if you’ve been ignoring it for a while it can come in more like a flood than a trickle, which is very overwhelming. Our intuition is always asking us to be true to ourselves.

Sometimes that means leaving behind people, places, or work that you have loved for a long time.  Sometimes people you are close with can’t go along with you, or don’t understand you the same way they once did.  No one wants to lose anything and intuition challenges us by pushing us out of our comfort zone.

It’s a bit of a Pandora’s box.  Once you crack the lid, nothing is the same.  It unravels possibilities.

So you might find yourself doing things to block your intuition like constantly having the radio on, or the TV blaring in the background, filling every waking moment with activity, or even abusing substances like alcohol or marijuana to help you tune out and relax.

These aren’t really sustainable options.

The key is learning how to tune in when you need it and tune out when you need a break.  If you can get to a place where you have a good relationship with your intuition it can become like a super power, keeping you on track.  When confusion comes up or when you’re faced with a decision you don’t know how to make, you can tune in and know right away what to do.

You might be saying, Sheila, this sounds really overwhelming.  How can I start to take baby steps to trust my intuition without getting totally overwhelmed?


I’m so glad you asked!  My High Priestess Embodiment Workshop opens next Monday, June 29th.  This course is designed as a beginners guide to intuition and will help you recognize the signals that your body sends you when your intuition is trying to get your attention, how to tune in to the message, and how to stop second guessing yourself.  If you want to stop being afraid and start to trust your intuition, you can sign up here

© Sheila Masterson 2020 All Rights Reserved