"How do I know when a message is coming from my wounded self or from my guidance?"

This is a common question that I hear from many people.

Brianne, one of my clients, told me the following story:

"I was in the process of investing a large sum of money with someone whom I thought was an honest man. Just as I was ready to transfer the money, I got a feeling of extreme dread, which I SO wish I had listened to. I ignored the feeling, telling myself that I was being silly, and transferred the money. I ended up losing all the money. I didn't know at that time that the feeling was coming from my guidance instead of from my wounded self."

It is very important to learn to distinguish between the fear and anxiety that comes from our own thoughts and the feeling of dread that comes from our guidance letting us know about real and present danger.

The feelings are actually quite different.

Fear and anxiety are often the result of something you are telling yourself that is not true. The anxiety may be extreme, as in panic attacks, but it always starts with a thought about something bad happening. The mind is quite capable of making up all kinds of disasters, which leads to the feeling of anxiety and even terror. But just because the feeling is severe does not mean that the thought is accurate. In fact, the fear and anxiety are letting you know that you are off track in your thinking - that you are telling yourself a lie.

"Brianne," I asked, "was the feeling of dread different than your everyday anxiety?"

"Yes. It was a deeper solid dark feeling, not at all like when I get anxious. It was a feeling of something being really WRONG. When I'm anxious, I can usually trace the anxiety to something I just thought, but this feeling came up all by itself, without my thinking anything. It wasn't like the panicky feeling that I get when I'm thinking about bad things happening. The panicky feeling makes me feel kind of scattered and off kilter, while this feeling was...like solid and dark. I don't know exactly how to describe it. It wasn't fluttering around like my anxiety. It was like a dark heavy rock in the pit of my stomach.

"After I lost the money, I realized that this feeling was my guidance. After that, I started listening to it. I had a situation after that when I got the same feeling and listened to it. My mother was having an expensive piece of furniture refinished. When the man came to pick it up, I got the same feeling. I told my mother that this was a bad man who was going to steal her furniture. She didn't believe me, but she got his license plate and had him sign a contract. It turned out I was completely right. She was able to get the furniture back only because of the license plate. So now I am very grateful for that feeling, but I sure wish I had trusted it before investing the money."

Our guidance is always here to warn us of real and present danger, and it is up to us to be open to learning and to trust our feelings. 

It is very important to learn to distinguish the difference between the frequency of anxiety and fear from the wounded self, and the frequency of the dread that comes directly from guidance. Anxiety is our guidance's way of letting us know that we are off track in our thinking and behavior, and dread is our guidance's way of letting us know that something is truly dangerous.

If you start to really attend to your feelings - Step One of Inner Bonding - you will learn the difference between your wounded self scaring you and your guidance giving you important information.

Learn to connect with your spiritual guidance with Unlocking Your Inner Wisdom, A 30-Day at-home Experience with Dr. Margaret Paul.