#526 Seven signs you’re ignoring your inner guidance, and how to fix it for more peace and purpose, with Erica Ballard.

Have you ever wondered why success still leaves you feeling disconnected and how to truly hear your inner voice?

In a world obsessed with hustle and external achievement, many high performers feel the inner tug toward something deeper, yet struggle to trust it. This episode dives into the art of accessing and honoring your inner guidance, especially during life's most uncertain transitions.

• Discover how acceptance, not resistance, can open the door to spiritual clarity and practical transformation.
• Learn how to differentiate between the voice of your intuition and the noise of fear and ego.
• Find out how reconnecting with joy and self-awareness can guide high-achievers to meaningful career and life choices.

Listen now to learn how to trade burnout for inner wisdom and make aligned, confident decisions from a place of calm and trust. 

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KEY POINTS AND TIMESTAMPS:

02:36 - Erica's Spiritual Turning Point: Being Fired on Maternity Leave

07:10 - Cultivating Acceptance and Overcoming Resistance

10:32 - Distinguishing Intuition from Ego

15:49 - Reconnecting with Spiritual Guidance

21:59 - Balancing Career Ambition with Personal Fulfillment

26:39 - Contact Information and Social Media Platforms

27:40 - Personal Development and Life Advice

29:07 - Closing Remarks and Final Wisdom

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MEMORABLE QUOTE:

"Do what you love and trust that it's enough."

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VALUABLE RESOURCES:

Erica's website: https://www.ericaballard.co/

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To explore coaching with Agi: https://personaldevelopmentmasterypodcast.com/mentor

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🎙️ Want to be a guest?

Message Agi on PodMatch: https://www.podmatch.com/member/personaldevelopmentmastery

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Personal development interviews exploring key principles of personal development, self improvement, self mastery, personal growth, self-discipline, and personal improvement — all supporting a life of purpose and fulfilment.

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Transcript

Agi Keramidas: 0:00

Seven signs you're ignoring your inner guidance and how to fix it for more peace and purpose. Welcome to personal development mastery, the podcast that helps intelligent, busy professionals develop self mastery and gain clarity so you can thrive in a fulfilling, purposeful life. I am your host, Agi Keramidas, and this is episode 526 join us every Monday for an insightful conversation with a guest, and each Thursday for a shorter episode where I reflect and share with you if you are looking to reconnect with your intuition and make decisions rooted in trust rather than fear, this conversation explores how acceptance, presence and self awareness open the door to true inner guidance. By listening today, you're going to discover how acceptance, not resistance, opens the door to inner guidance and spiritual clarity, and you will learn how to differentiate between the voice of intuition and the noise of fear and ego. If you are a high achiever feeling disconnected from your purpose or uncertain about your next step, then this episode is for you before we dive in. If you resonate with the topics on the podcast and find yourself in a transition, I offer one to one mentoring and coaching. It is a space to gain clarity, reconnect with what truly matters and move forward with purpose. If you are curious about what that could look like for you, just reach out using the link in the show notes. Now let's get started today. It is my real pleasure to speak with Erica. Ballard Erica, you are a spiritual teacher, mindfulness facilitator and mom of two who brings grounded wisdom to the often abstract world of intuition and healing. You are passionate about making spirituality practical and accessible, and you are especially driven to help high achieving women reconnect with their inner guidance and build lives rooted in trust, not hustle. Eric, I'm delighted to have you with me today.

Erica Ballard: 2:36

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Agi Keramidas: 2:41

Erica, I'm looking forward to exploring with you today, among other things, but how to tap into our inner guidance, that the intuition or the inner guidance, and perhaps even more importantly, how to trust that guidance when we receive it. So before we go there, tell us I read your story, and there is a moment when you got fired from your job while you were in maternity leave, and you describe that moment as spiritual turning point. So I want you to take us back there. And my question is, what, what did that experience reveal for you? And was there anything that was stripped away by this? You know, the term spiritual turning point is very, very interesting.

Erica Ballard: 3:39

Yeah, so I had the pleasure of being fired on maternity leave. And what was interesting for me was and the reason I described it as a spiritual turning point is it was my second kid. For anyone who's ever had a baby, you know that those first three to four months are exhausting, and I would make the argument, they're even more exhausting when you have a second kid who doesn't care that you have another kid. You know what I mean, like? So I was really, really tired, but I am exhausted and all sleep deprived, all the things, but I was a happiest I had ever been. There was something in me that was like, This is great. I'm going to move on my own schedule. I picked up. I prioritised and picked up readings. I meditated every day, without fail, no matter what time I came up, I wasn't pushing myself, I wasn't running, and I was like, wow, oh my god, I'm so happy right now. This is almost concerning, right? Because I didn't expect to feel this great, which was the direct contrast of how I was feeling at my job at the time. And so when I got fired, I was not happy. I can I can be very honest about that, but there was something in me that just knew that the only way to continue to feel how. Was feeling involved, me not being there, and so I didn't see this. And this was really big for me as this like hurdle or obstacle to overcome. It was something that happened, and I could accept it. I didn't fight it. I didn't go immediately into problem solving. I got to do this in the my positive mind. And then I get I was just like, oh, this happened. And from there, I was able to take the space to watch my actions, watch my thoughts, watch my words, watch all these things unfold, and then watch how I was provided for in ways that I could not have even expected. And I got to experience so much. And so the reason I say it's a turning point is because instead of my problem solver, solver mind turning on and saying, Ah, gotta go. Oh man, go apply. Do this, I just said, Okay, so what's next? And that allowed me to see that all the stuff that had been doing was working. And it allowed to see me, show me where my work still needed to be, and now I'm here talking to you about it. And so it seems it worked out okay. But in a fire, right? Like in a fire, it turned out okay. And so that's why I describe it as such it was. I was able to really walk my talk in a way I didn't expect to be able to.

Agi Keramidas: 6:25

That's fascinating. What I want to stay a bit longer. You said that, rather than going into problem solving mode, and as many of us or would in a case like this, you went into you accepted it. That's what you said. So did you find that easy? Did you find that difficult to accept it? Was it a natural thing to accept it? And is there perhaps something for someone listening that maybe acceptance does not come so easily to them, and is pointers. So I asked many questions at the same time.

Erica Ballard: 7:10

Okay, I love it. So there, there is two responses. So one, I do think you said natural. So I'm gonna go with that. I do think it's natural to accept. I think that preconditioning, pre pressure, pre programming, it's very natural to accept what's happening in front of you. I watch it with my children all the time. Someone grabs something on their hands. Someone want, like, doesn't want to play with them. They aren't like, oh my god, they're just like, Oh, man. And then they feel their feels, and then they get up and go, like, there isn't, like, this massive dialogue happening within their head about why that happened. What trauma did my mom give me? Like, where did this stem from? Right? Like, it's like, oh, this thing that I didn't like happened happened, and I'll go, and it's the same thing when Joy happens. Oh, this is cool, right? And, and so I would say it's, it's natural to accept, and it's not that easy, right? As you grow up, because there is programming, there are thoughts. And so at the time I had been studying, I've been really deep into studying Yogananda and self realisation. And so I was medit. I mean, I meditated a lot previously, but I was a really long meditations, and I was really super chill because I wasn't rushing or forcing and so it was a lot easier in that state, because that's a more natural state, right to accept it. But dot, dot, dot. But when I started to think about the livelihood of my family, when I started to think about what I was going to do next, my mind would start to spin. And I found myself in a situation where I was experiencing the same pushing and forcing, but I didn't like previously and in other jobs and positions and careers, and so I had to watch that and start to peel apart why it was happening and the reasons why I continued to let it happen. Because I believe, my belief is that we call on experiences. I don't think like the universe is testing us. I don't think there's like this massive punishment that happens. This is me. I think. What I think is we have experiences because we want to have different experiences, and so the contrast exists to move us in the direction that we want to go. So I do believe it's natural. And I believe that because we have been a human having or a spirit having a very human experience. It's really difficult to to shut down your mind when you believe money, prestige, achievement gets you happiness, joy, safety, etc, yeah.

Agi Keramidas: 10:02

Yeah, that's great. And tell me the second part of my question was someone who has a little bit of trouble with accepting. There is more resistance, shall we say? Is there something perhaps practical or something that one can do to cultivate that tendency for acceptance the natural day. I agree with you that it is natural, but you know, many of us have lost this natural ability.

Erica Ballard: 10:32

I love that you're like, if someone you mean like all of us, like, if someone out there, you mean all of us, even though doing the work, and

Agi Keramidas: 10:45

it's a question that relates,

Erica Ballard: 10:50

yes. So I have a mentor. His name is Mitch, and I love him. And he calls it Problem Solver brain. He says, When, your problem solver brain kicks on, when? And you'll know it because you start to contrast. Your mind spins. There's two there's usually two states that happen. One, you can either watch, if you've been doing the work enough, you can start to watch your mind start to spin, and if you're there, stop. And he calls it, and I love it. Name your thought process. Name your thought practice. Just name your thoughts. Okay, my brain's spinning. I don't like it. I don't want it to be this way. Okay, I'm gonna name my thought. I have to do this. I have to do this thought. If I don't do this, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die thought, right? And you just watch it. And you with no agenda, you just watch your thoughts, because what happens is that they stop. Because the only reason that you're you're being sent thoughts is your problem solver is like, we've got to fix this. And so your brain is trained to send right those thoughts to you so that you can move into action. But when you watch them, you're disrupting the pattern. And so it'll send everything to you, all of your fears, and you're going to watch and if you can watch them instead of move on them. Your brain gets tired, your problem server gets tired, and they stop yelling, because what they're really doing is wasting energy, and your brain doesn't waste energy. And so they eventually cease. You become quite calm, and you drop into that natural part of you, that true nature, right? Like this, the part of you that's connected to source, divinity, whatever you know, whatever you call your consciousness, and then you can hear real guidance on what to do, instead of the spinning. So that's the first one for that someone. And then, and then the second is, sometimes we cannot stop at thoughts. Sometimes we we're in it, right? And like we're already taking action, and then we're pissed at the action we take, and then, like our whole body is stressed out, and we know that. What we know is we don't want to feel this way, yeah, like I'm angry and I don't want to feel this way. When you do that, he's saying that you stop, but you honour it. Instead of saying I shouldn't feel this way. I don't want to let me reach for a better feeling. You just close your eyes and you sit. Where is this in my body? What is happening? Like, find it, accept it. Be with it. Let it scream. Let whatever, pick it. Maybe it comes up in a colour I don't know, like, just be with it and let it all out. And then you're going to get to your name, your thought practice, like, as soon as you feel it right, and like you don't let it overtake you, you're going to get then eventually to the name, your thought, where you're going to start to see the stuff. And if you sit with it long enough, you're going to hear the truth. And when you hear the truth, then you work with that. And I would say just from a practical standpoint, because I love to know how long these things take when you start this is probably like a 1520 minute ordeal, maybe even 30 when you get good at it, it can be anywhere from 30 Seconds to five minutes. But what's really important is you do the exercise, because the only way to get good at it is to do it. And I tell my clients like, what's 20 minutes for the rest of your day?

Agi Keramidas: 14:21

Practising self awareness and being in the present moment in order to, you know, realise and stop and to honour whatever is happening that is an ongoing practice. You know, to cultivate this ability, I will, I will use the term ability to be able to to observe on that. So thank you for the for this, it's useful. Erica, I would like to go back to the intuition, our internal guidance. Many people. You and again, maybe what you said earlier might also apply that every single one of us. But let me say many people cannot easily distinguish between the voice of intuition, if I can use the phrase voice and the ego. Mind, or the, you know, our rational mind, or anything that is completely the opposite of it. I would like to hear your thoughts about perhaps the major difference between those two, so one can be able to discern when there is, you know, a difficulty to do that? Yeah,

Erica Ballard: 15:49

that's a really good question, and here's my answer, because I have one. Is the part of you that knows, your intuition, your inner being, the God within whatever you call it, it's always love. The step might be hard, right? It might be setting a boundary, right? It might be saying something you don't want to say. It might be doing something scary, but the feeling behind it is love. And the when you think about the aftermath, it's joy and peace, right? And free. That's how you know it's your your intuition. You know it's your ego. That's the world I'll use, right? You know it's your ego or your practical mind, when there's fear behind it and there's shoulds so when you're like, I got to do this because, or if I don't do this, this will happen, right? That's your ego. And when you are able to hear it's subtle, though, right? Like, because it can feel really subtle. But when you start to play with it, sit with it and hear it, which is why those name your thought practices. And the like body practice is really helpful, is you'll start to really understand what they sound like and feel like when you do it. But yeah, at the at the root, one's loving, and at the end of it, you'll feel free and joyful. The other is a should, and it's fearful, really, really fearful. I I

Agi Keramidas: 17:23

like that that is very practical and very actually easy to descend. So that's exactly what I was looking for. So thanks for this, Erica. Let's there is one more category of people. Actually, they have another one in my mind, but I will, let's cover everyone, since they're coming up in my mind, let's ask something for everyone. And the person that comes to mind now is someone who feels disconnected from their, you know, spiritual guidance, or their higher self, or perhaps they have been much more connected in the past, and now it doesn't feel like it is the same. What would you tell her, in this case?

Erica Ballard: 18:18

That's so many of us, right? So I think it's a wonderful question. And I would say it's like a muscle, you build it. And I know it sounds like the hard part about what I share sometimes is it's so simple, like, Duh, it's a muscle. You're disconnected. Well, you gotta go. You gotta go, build it. But what that looks like isn't how doers, I'll say that high achievers and doers typically try to go about I'm gonna sit in a 20 minute meditation. I'm gonna hear it, and it's like you're here, because that's what you have been doing. And what we need from you is to spend a minute or two a day just trying to hear it, just and not even trying, just saying, I'm talking to it, and I'm going to do my best. And the other piece, I would say, is to set the intention. If you really want to hear it, set the intention. Okay, inner being, okay, consciousness, okay. God. Show up. Help me hear it. Make it clear, because I feel very disconnected. And sometimes that comes in as a sign, sometimes it comes in as a knowing, and you're going to start to be able to pull this out. Some people hear things, some people see things, you know, but you ask for help from the part of you that you want to connect with. And then the other piece is you get to know it, but not in a bulldozing way. So this makes me really uncomfortable, except that that's, you don't love it initially and then build it. Because it's like, you know, you talk about the nervous system, right? It's like, you got to build the capacity for it. If it's uncomfortable, you can't push past it, because when you try to push past your turn. Know, we all know what happens. It's the same thing, like, don't take the route that's got you feeling awful and apply it to something that's supposed to make you feel good, and then expect to make you feel good. Like a minute or two a day, set the intention and then watch it build, because it will. Because this part of you wants to be known. It just needs the space.

Agi Keramidas: 20:23

Thank you. Since you mentioned the high achievers earlier, let's discuss about them also, and what I would like in particular, the element that I would like to see the connection with is for a high achiever that them their main focus, or his main focus, is either advancing career, or perhaps even more, transitioning career, where it is Very common with people who listen to my podcast, and while they are in this space, perhaps the thought of spending more time in spiritual matters, I will say it like very broadly, might not strike the relevance. And I'm saying spiritual matters. We were talking about intuition. Let's, let's keep it simple and return to the inner guidance. So my question is, how, what do you think it is the connection between the way we show up in our career, or the way that we will transition in career, and that spiritual element that allowing our intuition to come up and trust it and follow it. I hope my question makes sense. I think

Erica Ballard: 21:59

it does so. I think it's like, Why? Why this? If we're trying to change careers, right, if we're trying to, like, build a different life, right?

Agi Keramidas: 22:06

Yes, yes, yes. Thank you for simplifying.

Erica Ballard: 22:12

Trained journalist I got is it's the most practical thing to do. It we I mean, it really is, because the reason so many of us want to transition is because transition is because we want to enjoy our life. And do you know how you figure out, how you enjoy your life? You figure out what lights you up, what makes you feel alive, right? What brings that love about that we talked about? And you do that by tapping in. There's a Venn diagram that I have in my head that I will try to share out let's see if I can articulate this. So what so well known to Venn diagram is if you don't google it, I'm sure you do, though, if you're listening to this podcast. So in one circle is ambition, right? And then the other circle is enjoying your life. Most of us live in the ambition circle, but we want to live in between. We want to know how to be ambitious and enjoy our lives, that's the goal. But we keep thinking that our job, that our career, is going to bring us enjoyment, and that's where we get in trouble, because x doesn't always equal y, right? So if you want to enjoy your life, spoiler, you have to enjoy your life. And so you do that by finding things at not finding things, remembering what lights you up. So did you like to go outside into nature? Did you my daughter, loves to play outside. All right. Do you love playing outside. Did you love it? Go outside, start to allow yourself to do that and feel it, and then you're gonna start to, or maybe like to listen to music. This was my thing. I loved listening to music, and I just stopped, like, What? What? So stupid. Truly, I can look back at myself with so much love and be like, That was dumb, right? Go listen to music, go to a concert. Because what it's gonna do is it's gonna light you up. You're gonna say, Oh, this feels good. And when you start to do that, you you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm starting to enjoy my life. Oh, this is what it feels like to enjoy my life. Oh, this is the feeling of love. Oh, this is the feeling of happiness when I'm going to my job, when I'm going to go after ambition. I want to feel this way. I want it to feel like this, but you have to learn how that feels. And so many of us, we we keep jumping from job to job to job right, thinking we're going to learn how to feel that way. But I'm like, But sis or a guy or they right, you're the common denominator of not feeling good. So that means that you have to learn how to feel that way. And when you do that, when you get the feeling, when you learn how to hold it, then you can use it to pull you forward, instead of constantly. Chasing it does that make sense?

Agi Keramidas: 25:02

It does make sense. Of course, it makes sense. When you allow into your I will use my own understanding what you said. You will allow your own perception to expand to such an extent so that this can happen. Lights you up, you said, and enjoy your life. I was thinking, and I will, I will ask that, because it came up when you were saying that with the Venn diagram and the two circles. I suppose it would be possible for the two circles to pretty much merge, if you manage to have this kind of work that lights you up, that you feel you know, in that you're enjoying life, then there is no difference, isn't it?

Erica Ballard: 25:50

That's the goal, right? Awesome. That's the goal. But we have to stop chasing what we think will bring us enjoyment, and we have to start letting it. We have to start being the things that we believe someone who enjoys their life are happy, free, fulfilled, peaceful, right? We've got to be those things so that we stop chasing them.

Agi Keramidas: 26:19

Fantastic. Thank you very much. That was very insightful. Erica, before we start wrapping up this fascinating conversation, where would you like to direct our listeners that would like to learn more about you?

Erica Ballard: 26:39

Oh, thank you. So I am on the internet quite a bit. So Erica ballard.co you can find me on Instagram and Tiktok, because I am almost 40 and on Tiktok, Erica Ballard underscore, and I'm also very, very active on LinkedIn. So a lot of people that I work with and who find me, they find me on LinkedIn, and I'm there as

Agi Keramidas: 27:01

well. That's great. Excellent. Thank you, Erica, I have also two quick questions that I have been asking my guests since the very beginning of the podcast, 500 episodes ago, so they and I will share that also as a personal reflection now, because I haven't said that in a while, and I would like to hear it that over time, I have collected some incredibly insightful answers to these two Simple questions. So no pressure. There no pressure. Erica, sure.

Erica Ballard: 27:40

It's like no no

Agi Keramidas: 27:44

pressure. Erica, sorry, I didn't mean it to come to come up like that. But anyway, it's my, you know, my quick fire questions. You know, the first one is, what does personal development mean for you.

Erica Ballard: 28:04

So for me, when I think about personal development, I think about, how do I get home to myself? That's what I think about.

Agi Keramidas: 28:19

And hypothetically, if you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self, what's one piece of advice you would give her

Erica Ballard: 28:29

to do what you love? I will tell you I had a very supportive father who you want to do art, you want to travel the world, you want to listen to listen to music, you want to what do you want to do? And I still said I'm gonna go chase the corporate ladder, you know, or I'm still gonna go try that. I wish I would have said, Girl, you like art. Go draw, go paint. Like, go do that. That's what I wish I would told her,

Agi Keramidas: 29:07

Eric, I want to thank you very much for this conversation, and I will, I will say now that those intentions that you had said earlier and I agreed on, I believe they have been fulfilled Absolutely. So thank you very much. I want to wish you all the very best with your your life, your family and your mission, and I will leave it to you for your parting wisdom to our listener of this conversation,

Erica Ballard: 29:42

I'm like again, no pressure. See, you have a great life. Tell us what you want us to know. I would say, Hmm, you know the word, the thing that came through is trust, love, trust it. It'll get. You really far, really far if you do, thank

Agi Keramidas: 30:06

you for listening to this conversation with Erica Ballard. I hope it has given you a fresh perspective on the power of slowing down, listening within and trusting the love that guides you. If you have found value in this episode, consider supporting the show by visiting personal development mastery podcast.com/support you will also find the link in the episode description. I appreciate you until next time, keep growing and keep showing up as your authentic self stand out. Don't fit in you.