How To Trust Yourself When You’ve Screwed Up In The Past

How do you trust yourself when you’ve screwed up in the past? You’ve entered into the wrong relationships, accepted the wrong job, missed out on an opportunity you now regret or whatever the case may be.

You feel you’ve screwed up with your past choices and now you’re having trouble trusting your judgment.

We often look back on our experiences to give us evidence as to why we should or should not trust ourselves in the future. And we all go through moments in life when we’ve had a gut feeling about something, but for whatever reason, we ignored the feeling or just talked ourselves out of it.

Then in hindsight, you say to yourself, “Why didn’t I listen to myself? I knew I shouldn’t have…”

This gut feeling is our access to a divine wisdom that lives within us from the moment we’re born. This divine guidance is your intuition and this is what we need to return to – divine guidance.

As you’re well aware, sometimes we listen to this voice of wisdom and at other times we simply don’t. And through experience, I’ve come to realize that when we don’t listen it’s usually because we let our fears and fantasies get in the way of divine guidance.

Also, when we’re stressed and in fret mode we become off balance, which then makes it more difficult for us to listen to our inner wisdom.

Let’s say for example, that you now want to invite romantic love into your life but you’re afraid of choosing the wrong partner because of your past experiences. The issue here is that you don’t necessarily need to be afraid of choosing the wrong partner, it’s more about you not listening and trusting your divine wisdom.

If you’re walking around feeling afraid of making the wrong choices because of past mistakes, then you’ve placed your trust with something outside yourself and not within. 

You’re allowing fear to take control by not putting your trust in the wiser part of you. So, it’s only natural for you to have this fear of screwing up.

When you can understand that the fear of not trusting yourself comes from a small part of your mind called the ego, then you’ll be able to tackle your situation differently by using your inner wisdom as your radar instead of your frightened ego.

Give yourself permission to feel your fear, and then shift your focus off of the fear and return to the divine for support.

Your job now is to forgive yourself for the times you did not listen to your wisdom. Now you’re going to practice listening to the wiser part of you, not on being perfect, but on being spiritually aware.

The more you focus on this wisdom and follow through on this voice, the more confidence you’ll feel listening to it. So, when it’s time to make a decision you will tune in and decide what is right for you.

How do you know if it’s the right wisdom?

Well, it’s a feeling you can’t explain because this wisdom doesn’t come from the mind, it comes from the inside as a gut feeling, like when you know, you just know. And it just feels right.

In order to trust yourself when you have screwed up in the past, stay silent.

Begin meditating for 3-5 minutes at a time by simply closing your eyes and focusing on your breath. You can have a daily spiritual ritual where you spend quiet time listening to something greater than yourself.

A mantra or prayer that you may wish to say prior to your meditation to invoke the wisdom within is, “Thank you God/Universe for helping me move out of my own way so that I can clearly and confidently hear your wisdom that always leads me in the right direction.”

You can also connect with your heart.

Begin to trust yourself by placing your hands over your heart and asking, “What is my gut telling me about (fill in the blank)….” Don’t overthink it. And then ask, “What is my mind telling me about (fill in the blank)…” Write your answers on a piece of paper.

Then take a deep breath, close your eyes, and set a clear intention to connect to your intuition. Then open your eyes and look at the paper where your heart answered. Close your eyes again and allow yourself to fully take on that choice.

Just for a moment see yourself making that choice and pay attention to: How does this choice feel? What can you feel in your body? Where do your thoughts go? What happens to your breathing? And now do the same with your mind answer.

As you move through each choice, you’ll begin to feel what feels best. Doing this also means giving up some control and going with the divine flow, which is the hardest part!