26. How to Make the Right Decision: Creating Balance Between Inner Wisdom and the Ego

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What if you could transform your decision-making process to always align with your true self?  

This episode of High Vibe Guide promises to show you how, by tapping into your inner wisdom and silencing the noise of the ego.  By understanding the nature of inner wisdom as your intuitive, unchanging core and contrasting it with the ego's fear-driven voice, you'll learn to make decisions that resonate with your highest good and lead to long-term fulfilment.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Welcome to the High Vibe Guide, the podcast where I demystify the concept of raising our vibration. I'm Jenna, a yoga teacher, mum of three and passionate advocate for helping others to just feel happier. Let me explain to you how we can all live more contented and fulfilled lives, and how it's so much easier than you think. Hello, hello and welcome back to the High Vibe Guide. Welcome all my new lovely listeners. You have landed here today on a good topic. Today, we're diving into a subject that I think everybody grapples with at some point in their lives. How do you know when you are making the right decision? And I think there is a very simple practice that we can do in order to discover if the choice you're about to make is coming from your true channeling, your inner self. Recently, and I've realized that meditation is incredibly powerful in allowing us to create more certainty and clarity in our lives. It dispels all the fear that we create for ourselves, and I wasn't aware how meditation plays such a huge part in this until recently, and it got me thinking about clarity and how to channel our intuition in general. All of my lovely premium subscribers, this week's guide of meditation will be crafted around gaining more clarity and insight. I've got a really lovely visualization for you this week. So if you haven't yet subscribed to my premium content, the link is in the show notes or the episode description right at the top. It's only four dollars a month. That's it. It's so worth it. I've put a lot of work into designing these guided meditations for you, and if you want to up your meditation game or need some guidance, then go and check them out. Some guidance, then go and check them out.

Speaker 1: 2:50

So in this episode today, we will explore the difference between making decisions from your true inner wisdom and when it's actually your ego talking to you. I also want to discuss the feelings associated with each and provide some examples to help us tune in to our gut, our intuition, because ultimately, we want to make aligned decisions, decisions that align to our true self, decisions that, when we act upon them, we know we're being steered in the right direction, a direction that will ultimately lead us to our highest good. Because what's the alternative? We make decisions and act from a place of fear, and this comes from our ego. The ego is a very funny and interesting part of us, but let's go into understanding a little bit more about the ego and the difference it can make when it gets involved in the decision making process.

Speaker 1: 3:54

So first, let's define what we mean by inner wisdom and what we mean by ego. And what we mean by ego, inner wisdom, is that deep, intuitive knowing that comes from within. I speak quite a lot about this because it's that part of us that we're born with that never changes, it stays pure, it stays calm, it's all-knowing and it's unaffected by the outside world. And yet, as we grow, and yet as we grow older, we may form beliefs and values and opinions, but they are like layers of the onion. That deep part of us, our inner self, is still there, unaffected and unwavering in its potential to guide us through life. Now this can be identified differently depending on what your beliefs are. You know, if you're religious, then it's God that that part comes from. If you're spiritual, maybe it's your soul.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Yoga talks about the term Atman, which is your essence, your spirit, that universal energy that you're born with. It's why, in yoga, that you might hear your teacher refer to the body, the mind, rather than your body or your mind, because the body is effectively a shell and only a very small and impermanent part of us. But to someone who's not spiritual. Your inner self can be described as your most authentic and core essence, the deepest part of your subconscious, which encompasses your true values, your beliefs and your desires. It's that part of you that remains consistent regardless of external circumstances, guiding your decisions and actions based on what genuinely feels right and fulfilling for you. Sorry guys, there's loads of planes going overhead and there's a fly in here, which is quite annoying, but I'll soldier through. But think of it as your internal compass, that gut feeling that we can work with, which helps to make choices that align with our true self and our long-term well-being, rather than just immediate or surface level desires. It's that same universal message, just a different origin.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Ultimately, it all comes from within us. You know it's often referred to as your gut feeling or the voice of your heart. This wisdom is connected to your higher purpose. On the other hand, the ego is often the voice of fear, doubt and negative thought patterns. It's it's the part of you that's concerned with safety, security and maintaining the status quo, so it's very useful a lot of the time. But the ego is the part of the mind responsible for our sense of self-identity, helping us to navigate the world by distinguishing ourselves from others and ensuring our safety and our security, and it does drive our decision-making process a lot of the time. It also drives our social interactions, our ambition and our achievements, while also managing those defensive mechanisms to protect our self-esteem no-transcript. But if we can balance the ego with our self-awareness and our authenticity, then we can make some really fulfilling and aligned choices.

Speaker 1: 8:31

So when you are faced with a decision, it is crucial to check in with your gut and your heart space. Now, when I say heart space, I know I sound incredibly yogi, but when I say heart space, I just mean your chest, that part of your chest that holds your heart, because that is so often a place where we feel physical sensations attached to different emotions. So check in with your gut and your heart space when you're faced with a decision and ask yourself how does this decision feel in my body? True alignment when your inner wisdom is talking to you. This will create feelings of expansion, of lightness and openness. You'll feel a sense of ease and flow, even if the decision is challenging. You know it's not going to be easy. On the other hand, when your ego is driving the decision, you'll often feel constriction, tension and like a heaviness, and the ego tends to favour the path of least resistance because it wants to seek instant gratification and comfort, the easier option which might make the decision seem easier in the short term, but ultimately, down the road, it's going to be less fulfilling.

Speaker 1: 10:10

So let's look at a practical example so that you guys know what I'm talking about. So suppose you've made the very sensible decision to save some money and not go out on weekend nights for a while. Now, this requires some discipline because it's not an easy decision, especially if you are, you know, youthful, single used to going out every weekend, especially when Friday night comes around and your friends want you to join them. Or if you're similar to me a more realistic example for me and going out isn't really your scene anymore, definitely not every weekend. But you keep telling yourself, like me, that you're going to cut back on refined sugar and, and you get to the end of the day, you're tired, the kids are finally in bed and you just want to inhale a bar of Cadbury's.

Speaker 1: 11:12

So when you tune into your gut and your heart space about this decision, you might feel a sense of inner strength and purpose in sticking to your plan, even though it is tough once that initial feeling of frustration or annoyance because you're denying yourself that instant gratification. Once that dies down, there tends to be a feeling of expansion, knowing that you're making a choice that serves your long-term goals. However, if you decide to go out or wolf down the chocolate because it's easier and more immediately gratifying, you might feel a shrinking sensation, a nagging sense of guilt or maybe even discomfort. A nagging sense of guilt or maybe even discomfort. This is a sign that the decision is ego-driven, focused on short-term pleasure rather than long-term benefit. But also and this is where it can get a little bit confusing but you might find that one evening you do go out, even when you said you weren't going to, or you do inhale the chocolate when you said you weren't going to, and you don't feel this sense of constriction or heaviness, possibly because this has made you happy. Maybe it's what you truly needed at that point in time. Maybe it's because you've had a month or two or three without going out on the weekends and even though you still need to save money, you agree with yourself that one night of fun is okay. You can still enjoy the things that you love in moderation, because we can't be all or nothing all the time. We need that balance in our lives, but the important thing is that if saving money is still important to you, you can rest easy knowing you're still on track and that one night out is not going to remove you so far away from achieving your goals. So, more often than not, the road that we need to take is the more difficult option, because it requires us to sacrifice that instant gratification to better serve ourselves in the long run, and this can be challenging, but remember that true growth comes from stepping out of our comfort zones and listening to our inner wisdom. So when you make decisions that are aligned with your true self, you will notice a profound difference in how you feel and the outcomes that you can then achieve. You'll experience that deeper sense of fulfillment and peace, knowing that you are on the right path. So how can you relate this to your life right now?

Speaker 1: 14:09

For me, right now, the chocolate example is shining through pretty harshly. I know that when I feed my body more whole and nourishing foods and cut down on the crappy processed foods normally sugar for me, chocolate being one of them that I just feel so much better, not only in my body but in my mind, my body feels stronger and it just works more efficiently. And it just works more efficiently. My mind feels brighter and clearer and I'm just generally operating on a much higher and more efficient level. And some of you may remember from my Mindful Eating episode or my Plonkcast episode with Sam, my sister, that I used to be extremely obsessive and restrictive when it came to my weight and my nutrition and it just wasn't enjoyable, it wasn't healthy. And I'm getting to the other side of it now, but it it almost feels like I'm at this strange sticky point where I'm almost rebelling against that restrictive pattern that I used to follow for so long. So when it gets to the evening, and yeah, I may have eaten a nice healthy dinner, but I'm almost putting my middle finger up to my old self and thinking, screw you if I want chocolate and a very large glass of wine, I, I'm going to have it. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1: 15:43

But I'm slowly coming round to much more healthy habits and being able to come at it from a healthier mindset rather than from one of fear and ego, because that's what it was before. It was ego that made me believe that I was only desirable if I looked a certain way me believe that I was only desirable if I looked a certain way, if I was at a certain level of fitness, which then governed how much I ate, what I ate and how often and how intensely I exercised. It was all ego-driven, where now I'm slowly getting to a point where I can make these decisions that come from true alignment. The times that I do give in to that instant gratification in the evenings and I scoff the chocolate yes, most of the time this does come from ego, because I know it's not an aligned choice, but sometimes it is I sit and I drink the wine and I eat the chocolate and it comes from a place of alignment, expansion, but normally that's when I know it's being done in moderation, if I'm being honest with myself.

Speaker 1: 17:00

So how can you take this into your life? I think it gets really interesting when we start to pay attention to this feeling of expansion or restriction when we're faced with a choice. Because what are we doing here? We're increasing our own self-awareness which, remember, is the key to starting or progressing on your personal development or growth journey. So take note from now on how is your gut feeling, how is your heart feeling when you're contemplating a decision? It's like we can light up this path inwards, to our true selves, to that deepest wisdom, whatever you want to call it, whatever you believe it is for you. So remember that making the right decision often involves tuning into your gut and your heart space. Notice how the decision feels in your body. True alignment will feel expansive, while ego-driven decisions often feel constrictive. Trust your inner wisdom, even when it leads you down a more challenging path, and you'll find that you're making choices that truly serve your highest good, even when it does feel challenging. I like to think that your inner self knows that you've got this, that you can do it even though it is challenging, because otherwise it wouldn't offer you that feeling of expansion in the first place. It's almost like a little bit of reassurance that the wisest and the most intuitive part of you knows that you've got this. So let me know if this resonates today. Maybe it hits an open or maybe a vulnerable spot within you today. Maybe it hits an open or maybe a vulnerable spot within you today.

Speaker 1: 18:57

Oh, and I am still building Soul Circle, my virtual yoga studio. Now that I'm back from retreat, I've been concentrating on it again and we are getting closer and closer to the launch date. It's really coming together now and I'm so excited to share it with you. But I wanted to build Soul Circle because I wanted to build a place for you, for the people who do really want to get into yoga, because, yeah, you know it's good for you, you know it's going to be beneficial.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Everyone keeps telling you to try out yoga, but maybe your local classes just don't fit with your timetable. Maybe you haven't gelled with teachers previously and you know that's totally okay. I really believe you have to like, or at least vibe, with your teachers. I just don't think you will get as much out of your experience if you don't gel with your teacher. I experienced this too. But also I want to reach the people who feel intimidated about trying out yoga, the people that might feel nervous, like it's not for you. You're comparing yourself to the traditional yogi you see in our society these days. We both know what that person looks like. I want to build a community where you can safely, without judgment, start to develop your yoga practice or deepen an already existing one.

Speaker 1: 20:35

You'll have access to a huge library of yoga flows designed for all levels guided meditations, posture breakdowns and tutorials, breathing techniques and further podcast episodes all about yoga and yoga philosophy Some really fascinating topics you get in yoga philosophy and these will be exclusive podcast episodes from the high vibe guide, which I'm calling the yoga edition, as only soul circle members will have access to them. Oh, and there will also be a beginner's course which will break down nice and simply your yoga practice to anyone first starting out and needing an extra little helping hand. Oh, and I forgot, you'll also get first dibs on my yoga retreats before they go live to the public. Now, if you would like to be put on an early bird list to sign up and receive a humongous discount to soul circle, being one of the first ones to sign up, then email me at hello at soul circle dot uk. I'll put that in the notes for you too, as always.

Speaker 1: 21:52

Thank you, guys, and I will see you back here next time. Thank you all so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share with your friends and family to continue spreading that positivity. You can find me on instagram at thehighvibeguide. Get in touch. I would love to hear from you. Thank you all so much for listening and I'll see you back here next time at the high vibe guide.