Honoring your intuition (December's #TPTT)

This #TPTT is about a topic that I've been wanting to discuss for a while but haven't because I feel it needs a certain nuance that I wasn’t sure I would be able to make translate in writing. So, I hope what I'm going to say will make sense, be meaningful and very clear.

Something I wrote about for a past #TPTT, I think maybe two New Year’s Eves' ago, was how I had been practicing honoring and listening to my intuition and how that made me more accountable for my decision-making. And how, subsequently, it positively affected my health and happiness. Specifically, I recognized unhealthy themes and patterns in my life and how I had a bigger role in maintaining those unhealthy themes and patterns than I had previously realized.

Oftentimes, when it comes to victims (or marginalized folks) the conversation revolves around the perpetrator (or the privileged person) and how they're horrible, trash, etc. And all of that is absolutely important and vital conversation that NEEDS to be happening – perpetrators and privileged people need to be held accountable for their actions and discuss, frequently, how they benefit from being toxic and do so with impunity.

The flip side of that conversation, that I was missing, and I feel is important to have (and which is why I'm sharing with you all) is about us – it’s about recognizing how having a weaker intuition and ignoring negative themes in our lives, and how that affects our decision-making, is something that we have control over. And is something that, if addressed, can change how we move about the world. 

I think this conversation is best framed in a victim context, so that's how I'm going to frame it for yall (because that's how it makes sense to me lol). So for me, all of the times I've been in relationships that were toxic, there were major red flags that I actively overlooked. 

These were moments where my alarms were raised and I had internal dialogue, even if just for a split second, that said, "this seems weird. This seems off. This doesn't seem okay." And instead of explicitly listening (because in hindsight it was my intuition talking to me. So many of us have weak intuitions because we been gaslit our whole fucking lives. Told we're overreacting, told we're doing too much, etc.) I ignored it.

But had I listened to my intuition, so much of what I experienced could have been avoided. Now, again, I want to be very fucking clear here: this is not an either/or conversation. This is not a, "I can avoid toxic men by listening to my intuition" thing. That's not what this is. This is an AND and BOTH conversation.

This is, "men are trash AND if I strengthen my intuition, I can better discern healthy versus unhealthy situations, which subsequently may (or may not) help me navigate the world more productively." Does that make sense?

AND and BOTH not either/or because both sides of these conversations are important. It's super important for perpetrators (and privileged people) to understand how they are toxic and how their behavior is violent AND it's important for me (us) to recognize that I can make better, safer decisions if I stop moving from a place of trauma.

Additionally, once I was able to recognize negative patterns in my life I was able to address what my role in keeping them alive was. I asked myself, “how I'm contributing to this?” 

And just some random, but relevant, knowledge here: from a neurological standpoint, if you have experienced trauma, your threshold for trauma is lower and it becomes easier for you to be re-traumatized AND all that unprocessed trauma makes it difficult to discern what safety looks like (ie. you keep making unfuckingsmart decisions not because you aren’t smart but because your literal brain can’t assess wtf is safe and what isn’t).

On top of that, if you are used to being in toxic/abusive situations (from childhood, past relationships, whatever), THAT becomes familiar in a way that familiarity feels better than trying something new (ie. a healthy relationship which requires you to be vulnerable). Because doing the same old toxic shit sucks but it feels safer because it’s NOT NEW and new is scary. Does that make sense?

ALSO, what I just mentioned above touches on fear of intimacy. If I have a pattern of dating toxic men, for example, I’m re-creating relationships that have a built-in emotional barrier – I’m stopping myself (and perhaps this is unconscious for most of us) from being able to create emotionally healthy relationships because I’m choosing to date emotionally unavailable or toxic men. I’m using the example of toxicity but this can be applied to dating married people, people who live far away from you (a literal geographic barrier), etc. 

All of what I’ve mentioned so far is to create the opportunity to address what kind of partners we’re choosing, why, and how those choices affect us.

So, while we need to recognize systemic oppression and how that makes our partners inherently trash lol we ALSO need to ask ourselves: what is my role here? How is this serving me? How can I make better decisions? What do I need to do to learn how to better discern, and make sense of, what's healthy and what's not? How can I, within reason, be accountable for how my life is? How can I recognize negative themes and patterns in my life to avoid them in the future? 

Because the tea is: sometimes WE are the common denominator (hello, self-sabotage). 

And of course, this all, takes time to recognize. It takes time to put these things in practice. You fuck up sometimes. And of course, it is not as reductive as asking yourself these questions and then magically escaping a violent partner. However, I wanted to have this conversation so that we can start to think about what we DO have power over.

And again: this is not some hotep, pussy chakra, law of attraction bullshit and I hope this did not read as such lol This is not to say that you will avoid toxicity or pain from perpetrators (or privileged people) forever. Men (and privileged folks) are hot garbage AND we can unlearn our bullshit and unpack our traumas so that we have better insight about ourselves and our decision-making. 

(Also, I hope the “either/or versus and/both” thing is hella clear here and that you implement that framing in your life. Because it allows multiple things to exist even if they are opposing which adds nuance.)

I also want to remind yall that I'm using the example/framing of toxic relationships because that is what rang true to me. But this can be about your work relationships, your career, your relationships with your parents/friends, etc. It could also apply to your relationships with things that aren’t people (ie. addictions).

So, the questions I want to leave you with are: 

- What are the negative themes and patterns in my life?

- How am I feeding them?

- How often does my intuition speak to me? (and maybe a preface to this is, can I recognize when my intuition is speaking to me?)

- How often do I ignore it?

- If I didn’t ignore my intuition would things be different?

I hope this was helpful in some way – I really want us to begin conceptualizing what our power is and how, of the things we can control, we can wield it to our advantage. So, let me know what you think. If you think everything I said was trash, tell me! Think it was great? Let me know! I want to hear from you. Please leave comments and talk amongst each other, as well!

xoxo