Are You Ignoring The Signal?

Why We Override Our Intuition, And Three Practical Prompts to Reclaim It

Every day, your intuition sends you signals in your body, in that quiet inner knowing... and every day, you're taught to override them in favor of someone else's framework, someone else's success story, someone else's voice.

In this episode, I break down why women in midlife have been conditioned to abandon their inner compass in favor of guru culture and comparison, why discernment is the skill of our time, and give you three clear, practical prompts to notice the override in real time and come back to yourself.

What We Explore in This Episode

• Why "woo-woo" has been used as a weapon to dismiss intuition and why that framing is exactly the problem
• The deep conditioning that trains us to trust external authority over our own inner knowing
• How the online world reinforces this override at scale (and why our nervous systems weren't built for a tribe of millions)
• Why discernment, not productivity or the perfect framework... is the real skill of this moment
• Three practical prompts to catch the override in the moment and rebuild trust with yourself
  
  

Resources & Links Mentioned

The Intuitive Decision Making Style Quiz

Learn About & Book Your 1:1 Intuitive Vision Session

Your Journey To Back to Self-Trust

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Intuitive Life Podcast. This is Elena Lipson, your coach and mentor and mystic and believer that intuition is our God-given gift to change the way we navigate life and make it our own completely, completely. So today I want to start with this. You know that feeling when something in your body says, nope, not for me, but your mind is already three steps ahead justifying the yes. It could be an opportunity, it could be a partnership, it could be an invitation, it could be almost anything that you know right away feels like, uh, no, not for me, but you're like, you know, justifying it. It's that small voice that whispers, this isn't right for you, and then immediately gets drowned out by a louder voice saying, but look, what everyone else is doing. This is this is the thing that we should be doing, right? This is what I want to talk to you about today. And yes, I'm a mystic, and I think woo is fabulous, but I also think that woo-woo has been used as a bit of a weapon. It's been co-opted to make intuition sound flaky, irrelevant, and unserious. So let's just set that aside and talk about the very real, practical, very urgent work of understanding why we override the signals of our bodies and inner knowing and are those those signals that are constantly being sent to us, and more importantly, why we need to stop overriding those signals. Because overriding your intuition isn't something that means you're not connected to your intuition, right? It's conditioning, it's decades of being taught, sometimes explicitly, but mostly implicitly, that someone else's knowledge, someone else's way of doing things, someone else's version of success matters more than that quiet knowing inside of you, because that quiet knowing inside of you is usually very different from the normal path that everyone else around you might be adapting to. And as women in midlife, we've been really good students of this lesson. So let's start with the why, because you can't really shift something you don't understand. Most of us were conditioned really early to trust external authority over internal knowing. Maybe it was a parent who needed you to be quiet and compliant because of their life, right? Not because you were wrong. Maybe it was a teacher who didn't like all the questions you asked. Maybe it was an overall culture that told you that your feelings, your the way of expressing yourself was just too much, too sensitive, and not practical or logical enough. And even for those of you who are logical and very practical, intuition didn't have to be the bad guy in it. It was also informing your logic and intuition or and sorry, your sort of organization, the way your mind works. But it became like this or that, black or white. But here's what I think is even more insidious than childhood conditioning. We've built an entire online ecosystem that reinforces the same pattern at scale. Like, think about it. Every day you're exposed to someone else's success story, someone else's morning routine, someone else's business model, relationship strategy, parenting philosophy. And it's not just one person, it's thousands. You're literally always mentally, as you're scrolling, comparing your inner knowing against an endless feed of other people's carefully curated highlight reels. And your nervous system is wired to do this. We evolved to watch the tribe, to learn from the group. That made sense when the tribe was like 30 people that you actually knew, where you can have conversations, you can discern, you can sort of look and be around this sort of group of people. But now the tribe is millions of strangers, and your brain just hasn't caught up to that yet. And we're also wired to think that someone else speaking, especially on the screen, creates authority, right? So what happens? You start to believe, even at a small percentage, that the answer lies out there, outside of you, in the guru's framework, in the influencer's method. Because look, they have thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of followers, they must know what they're doing in the program that promises to solve your problem if you just follow these seven steps exactly as prescribed, right? And somewhere along the way, that quiet knowing inside, the one that's always whispering, this doesn't feel right for me. It just gets quieter, it doesn't go away, but because you've learned not to listen to it, in I would say not all scenarios, because when I work with women and I talk with them, they do consider themselves intuitive. Like ask yourself, do you consider yourself intuitive? I would venture to say that on some level you do, and that on some areas of your life wheel, it's been very difficult to stay intuitive, to hear the intuition, not just hear it, but then to trust it, not just trust it, but then to act on it. Right. And this has really been the cost of the guru culture and the cost of comparison. And this is what happens when you outsource your own discernment. Now, again, this might not be in every slice of the pie of your life, but in some areas you might find it more difficult to trust yourself and take action. The women I work with, it's mostly either in relationships, conversations, or dealing with conflict, or in making business decisions because somewhere, somehow, they just feel like someone should just tell them what to do. Right. And right now, in this moment of AI and so many people like constantly scrolling. I I think I just read this morning actually that the average is now like between five and six hours a day online. That's like, and then I they I think it was like two and a half months in a year of being online. That's a freaking lot of time that we're consciously and subconsciously taking in other people's way of doing things and and basically like rules for life and business and love and all the things. So we need our discernment more than ever now. And honestly, I wish we could all just get offline, like just live our lives and retune and retune and retune and attune ourselves back to ourselves, back to something bigger than ourselves, back to divine guidance, back to nature, back to each other, back to ourselves. Because the noise is louder, because the stakes are higher, and the stakes are higher because you have lived long enough to know what happens when you abandon yourself. You have lived long enough to know what happens when you betray your inner knowing.

unknown 6:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

And the number of people trying to tell you what you should do has multiplied exponentially. So why does this matter? Because I believe, I know, discernment with intuition is the real skill of our time. Not productivity, not hacking, not optimization of our whatever, not the perfect strategy or framework, discernment. The ability to sense and know what's true for you, what's aligned with you, what's actually going to serve you versus what is just noise and distraction. We're living in this age of unprecedented access to information, unprecedented options, unprecedented noise. And even though we have so many more options, more people that I speak to feel stuck and overwhelmed than ever. Right. And I've been coaching for decades. And this is like it's it's like a freaking disease of overwhelm. And in this environment, the people who will thrive, the women who will build lives that reflect their inner value system, real businesses based on the priorities and what's most important in their lives, real relationships that actually feel good because they're honest, not conflict-free, not perfect, but honest and real. This is going to happen for the ones who can cut through all of it and just listen to themselves more than they don't, because we're not perfect, right? Your intuition, that woo-woo factor is not something to just, you know, brush off your shoulder. It's not just woo. That framing is exactly the problem, right? Because calling it woo is how it gets dismissed, how it gets pushed to the margins so that someone else's framework, solution, whatever, can take the center seat. Your intuition is your nervous system processing information faster than your conscious mind can articulate. Your nervous system, your central nervous system, was the first thing that your body created. It's been with you the longest in your since the womb. Okay. It's your accumulated wisdom showing up as felt sense in your body. It's the part of you that knows you better than anyone else ever will. It's you. And when you override it repeatedly, you send a message to yourself. I can't trust me. I don't trust me. I trust the expert. I trust the algorithm. I trust what's working for other people. I trust the person with the bigger following. I trust everyone except myself. Now it's not like you're actually saying this to yourself, but by overriding your inner signal is actually what's happening. And it's freaking exhausting and it's really disorienting because you can literally hop onto social media at any time of day and you'll get guidance. You'll get, did you know that in order to, you know, live the life you want, you have to do this. Did you know that you're gonna be wrinkled and miserable and alone if you don't use this product? Like, shut the fuck up already. And it makes you more vulnerable to being led astray, not less. I'm not saying that you are, but it's always there, even if it starts to be like a little worm in your mind. So, this work that I'm so passionate about, this work of learning to listen to your intuition again, of noticing when you're overriding it, of coming back to it and then taking aligned action towards that guidance, it's not like a selfish act. It's actually the most generous, most responsible thing you can do because you can't lead your life with clarity if you're not listening to your own inner compass. Okay. So here's where it gets practical because knowing all of this intellectually doesn't change anything if you don't know how to actually work with it in real time. So I'm giving you three prompts, three things you can check in with when you're in a moment of decision. When you're about to say yes to something or no, when you're about to buy into a framework or someone else's idea for you, or follow someone else's advice. Prompt number one, what am I feeling in my body right now? And it's such a quick check-in, but it brings you into the moment instead of like either future casting into someone else's vision for you or leaning on the past fears or things that didn't work out to tell you what to do. You want to get present right now. So the prompt is, what am I feeling in my body right now? Not your thoughts, your body, the sensations in your belly, in your throat, in your in your eyes, in your hands, right? It's there, it's always there. It's just a matter of tuning in. Because your intuition doesn't live in your head, it lives in your nervous system, your gut, your heart space. So pause, breathe, and notice. Are you lit up? Are you excited? Are you feeling open and expansive? Or are you feeling tight and contracted and hesitant? Now, this isn't the same as being like a little scared because you're excited. Those are great. This is a real like contraction versus expansion kind of feeling in your body that once you get more literate with your body, you'll you'll be able to feel it really quickly. It's one of the first things I do with my clients is we start to learn the language of your body and start to really discern what kind of signals you're receiving that you might have just brushed off, right? And this isn't about judging the feeling, it's about acknowledging it. Because if your body is saying no and your mind is saying yes, you have information. That's all. It's important information. It doesn't mean that it's automatically a yes, let's do this. It's just giving you information. But most of us have been have been trained to override that body signal in favor of the logical argument. I bet you can sit down and write at least three times. You've done that. I know I can. The framework that makes sense on paper, the thing everyone else is doing, but your body is smarter than your logical brain in so many ways. I can't remember the exact quote, but I think it was Einstein who said we become a master to the logical brain, but intuition is really where the magic is. I totally chopped that saying up, but it's it's there. You can look it up. Because your body knows things your mind hasn't caught up to yet. So the first prompt is just pause and check. What does my body know? Prompt number two, whose advice am I listening to right now? And this is a really, really good one because sometimes we're not even aware that we've outsourced like someone else's way of doing things, right? We've outsourced our decision to someone else. You're thinking about making a business move and you're in your head. You're hearing that voice of a guru you follow. You hear the way they did it and it worked for them. Or you're thinking about a relationship situation and you're you're filtered through what someone, some online personality told you is a healthy version of that relationship. Or you're considering a life choice and you're running it through the framework of someone whose life looks nothing like yours, right? So ask yourself, and just to pause here, it doesn't mean you can't learn from people who have very different lives from you. You you can and you should, not should, but like it's very beautiful thing to talk with people who have different ways of seeing the world, but it's only meant to reinforce and have you think about yourself and your own philosophies, right? So ask yourself, whose voice am I listening to? Is it my own or am I consulting an external authority? And here's the nuance, right? Consulting external wisdom, like I said, isn't bad. Learning from people who have gone before you is super valuable, but there's a difference between considering someone's perspective and outsourcing your own knowing to them. So the question to ask is am I using this information to inform my own knowing, or am I using this information to replace my own knowing and therefore become sort of like the leaf in the wind? And then you can also like, you know, give them the responsibility of it going well or not, right? Because that's the override and that's the moment you drift away from your own discernment. Okay, prompt number three. What would I choose if no one else would ever know? This is kind of a tricky one. What would I choose if no one else would ever know? This one cuts through a lot of noise because so much of what we do is about managing how we appear to others, managing judgment of ourselves sometimes too, managing how we'll be perceived, managing what others will think or say. But that's not where your intuition lives. Your intuition lives in what you actually want, which is a huge thing because so many people, if you ask them what do you want, they don't even know, which is really a great place to start, right? So what actually serves you, what actually feels true for you. So remove the audience, remove the optics, remove the need to appear consistent with your previous choices, because a paradox is a beautiful thing. Like contradict yourself, go for it. We grow, we evolve, we change our change our minds, right? It doesn't even have to agree with your public brand or your mentor's teachings, right? If you've had past coaches tell you you should be doing something a certain way, you filter it through your own discernment. If no one else would ever know, if this could be a private choice just for you, what would you choose? That answer is usually your intuition talking. So here's what I want to just like sort of put on the table here, because this work takes time. If you've been overriding your intuition, either just in general or in some parts of your life, because that's possible too, you could be super highly attuned in some areas and others, you just sort of get wobbly. And there's a lot of reasons for that that I'm not going to dive into today. But if you've been doing this for years or decades or your whole life, or just in this one area of your life, maybe finances, maybe business, right? It takes a minute to build that trust back. It's like you have to prove to yourself that you're worth listening to because you are. So don't expect that you'll do these three prompts once and suddenly you'll be a beacon of inner clarity and intuition because you won't. You'll do these prompts as an ongoing check-in. And sometimes you'll still override and that's okay. Sometimes you'll second guess yourself and that's okay. Sometimes you'll choose the external authority because it feels safer and that's okay. It's all learning, it's all information. If you notice it, right? But here's what changes because you will start to notice and you'll start to see the pattern. You'll start to catch yourself in the moment instead of weeks later going, oh, I knew that wasn't right, but I did it anyway. That's a thing, right? You've done that, I've done that, we've all done that. And every time you notice, every time you pause and check in with yourself, instead of automatically deferring to someone else's judgment, you're rebuilding trust with you. You're sending yourself the message. I see you, I hear you, I trust you. That is how the overriding stops. Not all at once, but gradually, consistently, one choice at a time. The work of reclaiming your intuition, the work of trusting yourself, the work of building a life that actually feels aligned with who you are. This is some of the most important work you can do right now. Not because you need to be perfect at it, not because you need some framework to follow or a guru to guide you, but because you're the expert on your own life and you've been waiting for someone else to tell you what you already know. Does that ring true? I know it does for me. So today, this week, I want you to try those prompts or just try one of them. Bring them into real moments of decision, like an access point, a little decision moment where you get to check in with yourself. How am I feeling right now in my body?

unknown 18:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

And notice what happens. Notice what you learn about yourself. And if you find yourself overriding your intuition, which you probably will because that's the groove we've been in, don't make it mean anything. Just pause, check in, and come back to you. That's the practice, and that's where the real discernment is built. And you know, as always, if you need support, if you need support, really grounding into your inner value system, your inner GPS. I would love to work with you in one of my vision sessions. The link is in my bio on Instagram. It'll also be in the show notes. And if you're interested in learning your own decision, your intuitive decision-making style, because it does make a difference, your intuitive decision-making style will affect how you gather information, how you trust yourself in that moment or not, how you um process the guidance from your intuition and act on it or not. So there's a free quiz called the Intuitive Decision-making style quiz. It's also in my link in Instagram and in the show notes. So start there. And as always, there's a little blue heart in the show notes on Apple Podcast where you can send me a message, ask me a question. If you're interested in one-on-one coaching or any workshops I have coming up, please click on that little blue button and send me a message. And as always, if you have found this valuable at all, please leave a review on Apple. I always love to hear your thoughts and reactions. And if you have any suggestions for future topics or asking a question, I would love to hear those as well. Alrighty, thank you so much for being here today. I wish you a beautiful, magical day, and I'll see you on the next episode of An Intuitive Life.