The Quiet Voice We've Forgotten How To Hear

At 19, I turned down the chance to play county netball because my boyfriend didn't want me to be away that much. Looking back, I wasn't choosing love. I was practising ignoring my own intuition.

For a lot of my adult life, I did things to keep partners happy - I turned down playing Netball for West Devon because my then boyfriend thought it would take me away from him for too long. I went to University in Exeter instead of further afield because that same boyfriend wanted to be near me. (He got kicked to the curb soon after I started Uni ;) ) I went to Lanzarote because of a man. Germany instead of Greece because of, you’ve guessed it, a man and really if I’m honest, most decisions up to around 13 years ago were made or moulded because of what a partner wanted.

And why? Because I wanted to people please. I wanted to keep them happy. I went against every ounce of intuition that was clawing at me.

These days, the older I get, the less interested I’ve become in collecting other people’s opinions. I ask my partner for feedback, but he’d never dream of telling me what to do.

All my decisions used to be made with the wellbeing of another at the forefront of my mind. Never did I put myself up top. And decisions were often made so that I didn’t experience another guilt trip from the other side.

Over the last few years, I’ve been in the advantageous position of having a partner who supports me in every decision I make. That’s resulted in me making mostly good decisions - way better than I have made in the past.

The problem is, and this spills into many areas of life, we’ve become addicted to outsourcing certainty. We Google symptoms before we’ve even noticed how our body actually feels. We ask strangers on the internet what they think before we’ve finished thinking ourselves. We consume podcasts, YouTube videos, newsletters and experts until our own inner voice is drowned out by everyone else’s.

Ironically, we’ve never had more information and we’ve never seemed less sure.

Every major decision in my life looked irrational on paper. I moved to Lanzarote with £1000 in my pocket, no where to live and no job. My first trip to Germany happened after a 30 hour bus journey with £500 in my pocket and one suitcase. I moved to Australia, of course with my Australian boyfriend, with nothing but my clothes.

By the time I met my current partner, I’d been nudged so hard by intuition, so many times that I had learned to listen to it and I went against everyone’s better judgement and bought a house while self employed and with some fairly insecure promises.

None of those decisions came from logic alone. Not many of them made any sense at all.

Some worked brilliantly.

Some taught me painful lessons.

But every single one taught me to hear my own voice a little more clearly.

I’m lucky to have gone down the self-development path, combined with a healthy amount of woo-woo, a fairly long time ago. That’s led me to believe that for the most part, I don’t think people have become less intuitive.

I think we’ve just become frightened of being wrong. So instead of listening to ourselves, we poll the internet. Or ask the Googles.

In our current climate of utter chaos, it feels like everyone is shouting. Every headline demands our attention and emotional reaction. Every commentator on every side, insists they’re right. Every side tells you the other side is dangerous.

Algorithms reward outrage. News rewards fear. Social media rewards certainty.

When real life rarely offers any of those things.

Perhaps the greatest act of rebellion in 2026 is deciding to trust your own experience.

Not meditation. Not manifesting.

Just listening to what your gut tells you. Listening for that visceral uh-huh or nah. Sitting by a pond, a tree or a field for 20 minutes and actually thinking about things.

I don’t hear myself when I’m sitting in front of a screen. I hear myself when I’m walking or biking. When I’m pulling weeds or doing the washing up, cycling through the woods, or watching dragonflies over the pond.

That’s when the answers usually arrive. Not because the universe suddenly starts talking, but because I’ve finally stopped interrupting it.

Maybe intuition isn’t some mystical gift reserved for gurus. Maybe it’s simply the part of you that finally gets a chance to speak once everyone else has stopped.

And perhaps that’s why so many people feel exhausted. Not because life is noisy, but because they’ve forgotten what their own voice sounds like beneath it all.

Let me know in the poll below:

Have you put off following your dreams to please other people?

YES

2 votes

3 comments

The Quiet Voice We've Forgotten How To Hear