The kind that sits in your chest, twisting a little tighter every time you push it down.
For me, it often comes when my inner voice whispers one thing, but the voices around me shout another.
Maybe you know that feeling?
Recently, we moved back to the South East. On paper, it seemed like the right step.
But in the weeks leading up to it, there was another reality.
My inner voice, that quiet, persistent presence I’ve come to recognise as my heart’s voice, kept saying: This isn’t right. Don’t do it.
And yet…
I didn’t pay it enough attention.
I swallowed that discomfort. I ignored myself.
The move came, and I remember standing in the middle of the new house surrounded by boxes with a feeling of great discord. This did not feel right. There wasn’t excitement or anticipation. Just heaviness.
In the coming days, I tried to convince myself this was just transition nerves.
But deep down? I knew.
I knew I had betrayed that deeper voice.
It didn’t take long. Within weeks, we all acknowledged what I had felt all along: this move was a mistake.
The distress in our home was raw. And I carried an extra burden. Not only the pain of the move itself, but the shame of having silenced my truth.
That shame can eat at you. It whispers things like: You knew better. You failed them. You failed yourself.
All that said, in the middle of the mess, I found something deeper.
True, I had ignored my voice. But even there, in the aftermath of the mistake, that same voice didn’t leave me.
It said: Even this is part of the journey. This pain isn’t a way of punishing yourself. It’s a stepping stone.
That shifted something.
I realised our inner knowing isn’t fragile. It doesn’t evaporate the moment we betray it. It waits. And when we’re ready, it guides us home again. Even if we took the long way.
The move was wrong. But the lesson was right.
It taught me that truth doesn’t disappear when you ignore it. It stays around until you’re ready to choose it. And that sometimes the very mistakes we fear will break us are the ones that wake us up.
Boy this was a big wake up!
That voice within doesn’t just point to decisions. It points us back to presence. Back to a quiet mind. Back to the aliveness that comes when we live in alignment with what our heart wants.
That’s where real impact begins. Not in avoiding mistakes, but in learning to trust the compass inside us — even when it feels inconvenient, even when others can’t see what we see.
So if you’ve ever found yourself caught between the pressure of others’ opinions and the tug of your own inner voice… if you’ve ever silenced yourself only to regret it later… I want to remind you (and myself):
That voice hasn’t abandoned you.
It’s still there.
And even your missteps can lead you closer to alignment, if you let them.
The question and ongoing challenge is whether you pause long enough to hear it again.
Photo by Alicia Christin on Unsplash