…but yourself won’t listen. It’s an awkward feeling. You push the feeling, or notion,  to one side, hoping it will go away, or you’ll just forget about it. But there’s something that’s not quite right. It sits at the back of your mind and bothers you. Even when you’re thinking about something else completely, you’ll feel as though you’re under a cloud. There is a weight, a leaden feeling, a stain, a smear. Something that needs to be removed. Or it will feel like a bump, or a crease that needs to be flattened, which won’t co-operate. Unless you move it out the way you’ll fall on it every time you try to move on. Something isn’t right, and this intangible thing, this force, this inner voice, keeps trying to alert you. Often, you don’t listen. You tell yourself not to dwell on what’s making you feel this way, and try to focus on something else. You play a game of distraction, hoping the black cloud goes away. Sometimes it does… for a while. You smile, and think you’ve moved on. But your gut won’t have a bar of it.

There’s a part of us that won’t do or feel what it’s told; that won’t be swayed by others. It’s the part of us that’s no fool. The part of us that has an in-built, state-of-the-art bullshit detector, and it’s always turned on, with its needle wavering, ready to lean towards low, or swing right over to danger. When it does, the alarm goes off, clanging so loudly in our head you think everyone can hear it. If we listen to that part of ourselves – our true self – we can learn a lot. But listening to that voice is not always easy. People put pressure on us to ignore it. And often we do, ignore it. We turn its volume right down, and let others’ voices drown out the inner protest. But our true self doesn’t forget. Hours, days, weeks, months and even years later, it holds on to the hurt, the slight, or the moment of pure joy, and reminds us of that truth. It’s our choice to act on it or to keep ignoring the message.

I won’t call this intuitive part of us our ‘heart’ because I think there’s enough ‘head’ there that to just call it, listening to your ‘heart’, makes it sound emotional and unreliable. No, I think this voice deep down inside ourselves, the intuitive self, is not often wrong. And often we realise this inner voice was right after we’ve chosen not to listen to it. It’s in the hindsight moments that we come to know our inner voice, the intuitive self, was right.

So, whatever you want to call it, your ‘heart’, ‘head’, ‘soul’, or ‘gut’, I think I will just call it ‘me’. Strangely enough, the ‘me’ voice looks after others, too. The ‘me’ voice is the one that points out when you’ve been thoughtless, or forgetful. It is part scribe – keeping meticulous records – and part judge, handing down its verdict just when you thought nobody was looking and did not notice.

The next time you’re in a new situation, and you don’t know what to make of it (or the people in it), find a quiet place, and listen for a bit. If you let it, that whispering truth will come to you. And if you’re kind to it, you might become friends. And then it’s likely it will come to visit you more often, even when you’re in the noisiest of places.