I have found it hard to rely upon. So often I get that feeling, that vague sense of knowing but how often do I discount it? Fret it away, rationalize it, push it down, out, away? I always have a good reason. But I also always know. I KNOW things that I may not be able to put into words. I may not be able to explain it in the moment, but I just know.
That person is up to something.
That person is lying even when all they say appears true.
This situation feels wrong.
I shouldn’t be here.
I should be with this person.
Do not go there now.
Get off this plane.
Stay on this plane.
Something is wrong.
Do not make that decision today.
Make the decision today.
The fact that I am still here on the planet is a pretty good testament to my being able to follow my intuition more often than not. It was very hard to do that when I was drunk all the time. Intuition is not something that will command your attention...it is way more low key and subtle. And if you have poured copious amounts of whiskey down your gullet, your intuition is drowning and is likewise inebriated. So you are both fucked.
So the first step for me in allowing my intuition to shine was to stop fucking it up with booze. That helped a lot. But that was only a part of really being able to play it by feel. Then I had to realize that my feelings were not there to kill me like I previously thought. My feelings were there to give me information about myself and all of you. They were just messengers. Tiny and not so tiny clouds that float across my life, bringing rain, cover, beautiful sunsets, awe inspiring dawns. Regardless of intensity, they all are temporal and fading. And so it is with my emotional nature also.
What I also learned is that my emotions will often work to tamp down intuition. Big emotions will bring about a great deal of upheaval which distract and delay my being able to tap into myself and see what is more realistically going on with me.
Meditation has so far been the only thing that worked. I have to be still for a few minutes every day to be able to even have a prayer of connecting to that place where my intuition lives. If I don’t, I don’t have access.
The other thing that has come as a more recent reveal is that there is a difference between listening to intuition and allowing trauma’s lies to supplant truer knowing. Trauma misleads, redirects healing to well worn patterns of survival. Anyone who has survived knows the difference. Surviving and living are NOT the same. Trauma survival has a lot of rules, rigid set patterns of conduct all designed to provide safety so that the horrible, awful thing that happened can’t ever happen again. Living is way better than that - living is open, a great unfolding, happiness can reign and the rules can be way looser.
It has taken me a long time to arrive at a place where I even was open enough to know that there was a difference between trauma lying and intuition leading. But I do now. I know, I can feel it in my body, mind and soul. I can and do differentiate more and more often.
What I believe is the fundamental difference is that I have done the work to see where trauma shows up, the trauma binds in my life and I see them without the desire to eradicate or medicate or in any way shape or form get rid of them. They are there as my forever teachers showing me new things about old shit. I just look, I see, I accept, and I change. That is what makes me finally be able to begin to see where the trauma lies and the intuition leads. I am fairly new at it but it feels so good to be on this new path. I feel like decades of work has begun to payoff in ways that I never imagined would be possible. I am healing exponentially. Finally inhabiting this life, allowing the choke hold survival skills to dissipate and wholly dive into this amazing life I have. Intuition guiding me one breath at a time.
