The Greatest Expert on Your Life Is the One Person You’ve Probably Trusted the Least
Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught that wisdom always lived somewhere outside ourselves.
Ask your parents. Ask your pastor. Ask the doctor. Ask the expert. Buy another book. Listen to another podcast. Find someone who has the answer.
There is nothing wrong with learning from other people. I’ve spent a lifetime doing exactly that. But there comes a point when collecting more advice quietly becomes a substitute for living your own life.
I’ve reached that point.
Years ago, when my house burned down, I lost an entire library. Hundreds of books. Around a hundred of them were self-help books. I never replaced them.
At first it was practical. I didn’t want to start collecting books again.
Looking back, I think something deeper happened.
Without realizing it, I stopped looking for someone else to tell me how to live.
That didn’t mean I stopped learning.
It meant I started listening somewhere else.
The biggest shift in my life didn’t come from another book.
It came from learning to regulate my own nervous system.
Not because someone told me to. Because I discovered that a calm mind hears things an anxious mind never can.
When we’re constantly activated, we confuse noise for guidance. We mistake urgency for truth. We believe the loudest voice must be the wisest one.
But once the nervous system settles, something remarkable happens.
Space appears.
And in that space, we begin hearing ourselves again.
Recently, I spent several nights waking up over and over again. Everyone had a solution.
Drink apple cider vinegar. Try melatonin. Eat dill pickles.
Every suggestion came from someone who genuinely wanted to help. None of them solved the problem.
Finally, I stopped asking.
I got quiet.
The answer appeared almost immediately.
Nothing was wrong with my body.
I was waking myself up every time I checked my phone in the middle of the night. My brain saw Substack, comments, notifications, and instantly believed the workday had begun.
The problem wasn’t physical.
It was self-created.
Which meant the solution was mine, too.
That experience reminded me of something I’ve been discovering for years.
We spend an incredible amount of energy trying to convince ourselves that we can’t be trusted. And somewhere along the way, most of us built a case against ourselves. Every mistake became evidence. Every wrong turn became exhibit A. We prosecuted ourselves for decades and never once questioned whether the case was fair.
Maybe it’s time to reopen it.
Instead of keeping a journal filled with everything that’s wrong, begin noticing the moments when your own instincts quietly led you somewhere good.
The decision you made without polling five friends. The opportunity you almost ignored but didn’t. The tiny nudge you followed simply because it was there.
Collect those. Build a case for your own wisdom, the way you once built one against it.
Trust isn’t built through positive thinking. Trust is built through evidence.
Every one of us has moments when life unfolded better than we could have planned. Notice them. Write them down. Read them again.
Over time, you’ll begin discovering that your relationship with your own inner knowing is much stronger than you’ve been led to believe.
Maybe that’s the real work.
Not becoming another version of yourself. Not fixing yourself. Not chasing one more expert.
Simply becoming a student of your own life.
Because the greatest expert on your life has been walking beside you all along.
You’ve just spent years asking everyone else what she thinks.
This is exactly what we walked through in tonight’s video — the first exercise from Building Trust With Yourself*. If you haven’t watched it yet, start there. And if you’re ready to begin collecting your own evidence, that’s where the real work begins.*
Join as a paid subscriber tonight and get 10% off, plus my gift to you: Building Trust With Yourself.
Thank you Tanya Mikaela, Bonnie Bluewater, Mary Reis, and many others for tuning into my live video with Mike Searles! Join me for my next live video in the app.
