Remembering how to listen to your intuition, and journal prompts for past, present and future reflection.
“When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.”
― Kahlil Gibrán
The beautiful and miraculous irony is, your intuition guided you to this post.
As Mimi Bouchard said in her recent interview with Mari Llewellyn the Pursuit of Wellness Podcast, we all have that little voice. That tiny, sometimes whisper of a voice that comes through to guide us, reassure us, or even tell us that beyond reason and evidence to the contrary, we can know and trust the gut feeling bubbling up within us.
I can with absolute and unwavering confidence say that I have built my entire life around that voice. From the very first moment she whispered inside me “Tell them no, you aren’t going to die. Tell them you aren’t going to cry and talk in whispers or live in fear through this. You’re going to do what you have to do - the surgeries, the chemo, whatever it takes, and you’re all going to come out better for it.”
When she found me in a yoga studio, finally learning to trust and truly look, physically and spiritually, at my body again after treatment, and in the dark she sang: “Go to India. Find an ashram. Learn to open every set of your eyes.”
And the time that she instructed me while sleepwalking comfortably in an 8-year relationship, “Rachael, it’s time to leave. Not because anything is wrong or anyone failed, but because you need to learn to love, and trust, and validate yourself.”
But when I saw I built my life around her, that sometimes meant hearing and ignoring that voice. When I was in jobs I hated, romantic connections that were abusive but I stayed for the addictive nature of my own self-sabotaging messages. Believing that if someone at the lowest rung of humanity found it hard to love me, surely no one else ever could or would. While she, in the background, gently and diligently tried to call me back home I shut off my ears my senses and my logic to stay. It is a full-time job to ignore her. She only speaks softly until our lives come crumbling down and then she must scream to reach us through the rubble just to help us find a way out.
Look Back
When have you received a message, instruction, or knowing from intuition in your past that you listened and heeded, and it worked out in your favor?
When have you received a message, instruction, or knowing from intuition in your past that you ignored, and regretted it?
How might your life be different today had you followed that internal guidance system?
When I was a child, it helped to give character to this voice. In the years of adolescence, though, that personification began to feel immature and naive. As if Cali, the name I gave her as she wrote through me into my journals at night, somehow frozen in time but I kept maturing. The less time I spent intentionally listening, tuning into through the practice of free-writing, the less able I became to hear her distinct voice. Until the day I was diagnosed, and suddenly in the deafening silence of the kitchen where my parents sat crying as they broke the news “You have cancer”, outside snow fell delicately and too slowly. On that day her tone became more stern but just as soft and reassuring. On that day her volume became loud enough that it was the only thing I could hear. And when chemo finished, and I could see how right she had been about...everything, I promised to widen my perception of ways she might speak within and without my mind.
Look Around
When, in the last week, did you heard your intuition speaking to you?
How and when do you consciously make space for your intuition now?
What does the voice sound like? What does it feel like in your body? Name the sensations.
Characterize it; what would it look like as a person? An animal? A supernatural force? Flesh out this physical form in your journal.
How can you make a daily practice of tuning in more often?
On the cusp of becoming a wife and hopefully a mother in the next year, I hear her rhapsody in my heart and soul even more often. Perhaps it’s the practice of divine feminine flow that has me more aligned and able to hear her sweet songs. Or it could be that her own maternal instincts are being activated alongside my own. She tells me more often when to rest and, in the hardships of daily life and a day job, she reminds me of my purpose to help others find the miracles hidden in their hardships. She reminds me, in nearly every moment, that my work as a writer is to reach you in moments like the one we share right here, right now, through this post and to serve as the tiniest road sign on your individual path, to help you come home to yourself again. To see the magic waiting all around you. To give an example, by living it myself, of the power of chasing that little, quiet voice until you get so close to it, it’s anything but little and far from quiet. That is my purpose as a person in this second chance, that is the call she has divined for me to answer.
Your intuition led you to this post, and is calling to you right now, offering you the chance to ask the most powerful creative question of all: “What if?”
Look Ahead
What future do you feel your intuition is calling you toward? Is it a new job? A new home or city? A new relationship?
What changes in your life or lifestyle do you have a deep knowing you should address?
How would your life look and feel in 6 months if you answered that call today? How would your life look and feel one year from now?
What do you risk if you don’t listen?
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations...I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.”
― Albert Einstein
