Your thoughts are not the same as your intuition. It can be difficult to discern the difference between the two. Your thoughts are a system of experiences, social conditioning, habits, and the attempt to preserve the ego. But here are some ways to evaluate your thoughts.

We often dismiss the whispers. Why? Well, it can be for a variety of reasons, but mostly because we are stuck in one way of being. Until we are ready to adopt a new way of being, we tend to try and stick with our standard plans.

When something comes along and knocks you off of your axis, you tend to throw our arms up and say "why does this always happen to me?" You might try and still cling to the old way of being and responding, making it even harder on yourself and daring the universe to knock you over again. And undoubtedly it will.

The self-help community talks a lot about being positive and using positive perspectives and perceptions to manifest. The books, tapes, and lectures all go over how your feelings can be changed to change your experience in any given situation.

But what if no matter what you do, you can't think positively? What if you are a totally connected person most of the time, but today you just can't see the good in the world? Is something wrong with you? Do you have a block? Are you losing your enlightenment? No, of course not. The human experience is designed to be a range of experiences. The good, the bad, the hard, the easy, all wrapped up into one giant box called life.

Emotions are seemingly the easiest things to share amongst friends; it's almost like a virus. One person feels happy and passes it on to the next and the next and so on. That is ideal... but not always how it goes.

More often, one person in line is angry and yelling at the cashier which puts you in a "what is wrong with people?" mood. This, in turn, may lead to you going home and yelling at your kids, which makes them mad at each other and so on. Emotions are contagious and the sooner we learn to recognize the difference between our emotions and the people we are with, the easier time we will have in knowing ourselves.