An instinct can feel so certain that questioning it seems almost disloyal to yourself. In episode 89 of A LOT with Audra, host Audra Dinell asks former attorney and spiritual mentor Keveney Evanne Avila how to tell inner guidance from the fears people have carried for years. Avila’s answer challenges the familiar instruction to simply trust your gut. First, she suggests, examine the story attached to the feeling.
Avila practiced law for a decade before moving into energy work and spiritual mentoring. Many of the people she now works with have successful careers and established lives but feel uncertain about their next chapter. In the conversation, she argues that decisions made at these crossroads can be shaped by old assumptions that sound remarkably convincing.
She offers two hypothetical examples. A child might interpret the arrival of a younger sibling as evidence that they were not enough. Someone who has experienced betrayal might begin expecting disloyalty in future relationships. Neither conclusion necessarily follows from what happened, yet each could become a lens through which later events are judged. In Avila’s spiritual framework, discernment means noticing when an old protective story is being mistaken for reliable guidance.
Her practical suggestion is modest: pause when a person or situation produces an unusually strong reaction. If someone seems intolerably outspoken, for instance, Avila invites listeners to consider whether they secretly wish they could speak more freely themselves. The point is not to dismiss every judgment, but to question the first explanation that arrives.
Dinell offers an everyday example from a home renovation. After several minor interruptions and a family concern left her agitated, she wrote down the events on a Post-it note. Seeing them together helped her understand why her mood had changed. Talking it through with her mother brought more perspective, even though it did not instantly restore her earlier good mood.
Avila also discusses the limits of collecting more advice, affirmations or coaching techniques without examining one’s own reactions. Her approach draws on energy work and spiritual direction, but the immediate exercise is accessible without adopting a particular belief: notice the sensation, identify the story and give yourself time before deciding what it means.
The full conversation, ‘When the Life You Built No Longer Holds You,’ also covers career change, identity and the emotional cost of paths not taken.
Source: A LOT with Audra / Audra Dinell
Web: https://alotwithaudra.transistor.fm/89
