Thursday, September 2, 2010

Need the Right Answer? Trust Your Gut, Literally

CHICKS ROCK! is happy to welcome Alexia as a guest blogger this week.

Alexia Vernon is a career and leadership speaker, certified coach, and author of the forthcoming book Awaken Your CAREERpreneur: A Holistic Road Map to Climb from Your Calling to Your Career. She'll be leading The Audacity to Speak, a weekend public speaking bootcamp for women in NYC, September 24-25, 2010.



Whenever I look back on important choices I’ve made in my life, I recognize that each one was motivated by a message my body sent me. I just needed to be on the lookout for it.

The clearest example of this was making the choice to leave New York City. This month marks one year since I relocated to Las Vegas. When the idea popped up, I pretty instantly knew based on the messages I was receiving from my body that it was the right thing to do. If I had relied on logic I would have told myself "you'll never get a book published if you leave Manhattan" or "your business will stagnate if you move to the city with the nation’s highest unemployment rate." Fortunately, my gut knew better!

It’s taken a bit of practice to learn how to decode what my body's telling me, but I now recognize that my “gut response” truly resides in my gut. My stomach hurts, I get a little nauseous, etc. For a long time, I interpreted these responses as a sign that I was on the wrong track and did whatever I could to avoid them. As I’ve learned through the years, however, when my gut doesn’t get activated in a big decision it means I’m not asking myself to step outside of my comfort zone and into the unknown. It means I’m considering making a choice to play my life safe and small. And when I do this, I create a glass ceiling to my success and happiness.

So now, each time I’m on the precipice of a major change or weighing whether or not to launch a new service or product, I give myself some time to hang out with my tummy and listen to what she has to say. We scarf down some cupcakes, drink a pot of ginger tea and meditate with some lavender essential oil. And above all else, I remind myself that the less I force her to give me an answer and let her do her thing, the better I hear when she’s ready to speak.

No comments:







Disclaimer: Blog entries express the opinions of the respective Bloggers/Contributors/Authors/Commenters solely, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Women's Mosaic. As host and manager of CHICKS ROCK!, TWM acts solely as a provider of access to the internet and not as publisher of the content contained in bloggers' posts and cannot confirm the accuracy or reliability of individual entries. Each participant is solely responsible for the information, analysis and/or recommendations contained in her blog posts.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.