When Did We Decide Influencers Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves?

At some point—quietly, gradually—we started outsourcing our intuition.

We began looking to influencers to tell us what to eat, how to dress, when to rest, what our home should look like, how to grieve, and even how to heal. We stopped asking ourselves what felt true. What feels right. We scroll to find certainty instead of sitting with ourselves.

For many of us, this didn’t begin with social media. It began in childhood.

Children who grow up with trauma or inconsistent attachment often learn one painful lesson early on: “I can’t trust myself.” Maybe you were convinced your reality wasn’t how you perceived it to be. Maybe your needs were ignored, or your emotions were too big for the people around you. So, like many of us, you learned to scan the room instead of checking in with your body. You learned to ask, “Is this okay?” before you let yourself feel or speak or want anything at all.

Now we’re reenacting that same dynamic in our adult lives—at work, in our relationships, on sports teams, and increasingly, online.It makes sense. Insecure attachment wires us to seek external regulation: someone to tell us we’re doing it right, that we’re safe, that we’re okay. And in a world full of content creators offering curated solutions, it’s easy to confuse their authority with our own inner knowing.

But healing asks us to pause. To reclaim the voice inside that trauma taught us to ignore.

So how do we reconnect with our intuition?

Here are a few places to start:

Build a relationship with your body

Your body holds the blueprint of your intuition. Start with basic somatic check-ins. Throughout your day, ask: What am I feeling? Where do I feel it? What does this sensation want me to know?

Work with a trauma-informed clinician

You don’t have to do this alone. A skilled therapist can help you unpack the reasons why you struggle to trust yourself. Together, you can build safety in your nervous system so that intuition feels accessible again—not dangerous or confusing.

Watch your “fawning” response

If you find yourself constantly agreeing, appeasing, or shaping your identity to match the people or accounts you follow, gently ask yourself: What am I afraid will happen if I trust my own instincts instead?

Practice saying “I don’t know”

Intuition doesn’t always give us immediate clarity. Sometimes it comes in whispers. Sometimes we have to create quiet for it to speak. Allow yourself the grace of not knowing right away.

Unfollow to reconnect

If your feed is full of voices that make you second-guess your own, curate more intentionally. Follow people who invite reflection, not performance. Who honor complexity, not certainty.Our attachment wounds may have taught us to outsource our truth, but healing is the process of remembering it. Rebuilding trust with your own voice is radical, sacred, and deeply possible.

You don’t need to earn your intuition. It’s already inside you. You may just need the right kind of support to listen again.

With you,
Jessica Zweig, LCSW