I work with a lot of visionaries, spiritually-adept teachers, consultants, speakers, coaches and other self-help professionals. I often say these folks are “hardwired for inspiration.” This is a great thing. They’re forward thinking, inspirational, innovative and positive for the most part. This makes my work fun.

Unfortunately, there are downsides to this spiritual, visionary intensity. Being a visionary myself, I’m learning a lot about the downsides to this spiritual strength. Over the next few blog entries, I’d like to share what I’m gleaning — mostly through experience as a single mom.

To say the world of online dating is a test of discernment would be an understatement! It’s been a great laboratory for learning to sift through inspiration, imagination, emotion, seeing patterns, and even chemicals in the brain.

Beware of Interpretations

Visionaries are hardwired for inspiration. Each of us have our own way of getting answers or receiving insight. Some of us have words or phrases come to us, others see things in our mind’s eye, others get a strong emotional sense about a situation, while others “just know.” Some people even receive inspiration through touching something, taste or smell. Experiencing a combination of these is common.

The interesting thing about visions, impressions or insights is that when we receive them, we have a tendency to interpret them through the lens of our current perceived reality. Most of the time events NEVER happen the way we see or imagine they will.

avoid the temptation to put your own interpretation on visions, inspiration or insightsToday’s tip for visionaries is to avoid the tendency to interpret what an insight means. Just document it. Journal, Journal, Journal! Then, let it go.

For example, when I was dating a man right after the divorce, I prayed about him and got the answer, “He is a man among men. You can’t go wrong with him.”  I interpreted this to mean he was the man I would marry.

The real interpretation was that this gentleman was “a man among men.” He was a very good man, a perfect gentleman. I could not have gone wrong with him morally. Also, going wrong with him would have been marrying him! He was the first to realize and admit that we were not a good match. He didn’t let us make a stupid mistake.

Since this experience, I’ve tried to be cautious about how I interpret an answer I perceive as coming from God. Even something that seems straight-forward doesn’t always mean what you think it does.

In my next posts, I talk about distinguishing inspiration from imagination. This post is part of a series. If you missed the others, you can start at the beginning here.

About Marnie Pehrson Kuhns

Marnie Pehrson Kuhns is a Certified SimplyAlign Practitioner™ who uses music and creativity to mentor you past barriers, fears and doubts to discover, create, align with, and deliver your soul’s song (the mission, message or purpose you are on this earth to live). Marnie is a best-selling author with 31 fiction and nonfiction titles. If you'd like Marnie and her husband Dave to work with you personally on Your Great Reinvention, get a FREE 20-minute strategy session with Marnie here.