Have you ever been almost out the door when a little voice inside you says:
Take your umbrella.
You look outside.
The sky is bright blue.
There isn’t a cloud anywhere.
And your mind immediately responds:
An umbrella? That’s ridiculous. Look at the sky!
So you leave without it.
Three hours later, it’s raining cats and dogs.
And there you are, getting soaked, thinking:
Darn! I should have listened!
😂
I think most of us have had some version of that experience.
I certainly have.
I’ve always had a strong intuition. For as long as I can remember, there has been a voice inside me that simply seems to know things.
The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t hear it.
I heard it.
I just didn’t do what it said.
The Voice That Thinks and the Voice That Knows
Over the years, I’ve learned that my intuition doesn’t feel the same as my normal thinking voice.
I have what I call the Me voice in my head.
You know that voice.
It analyzes.
It questions.
It worries.
It explains.
It argues.
It can come up with seventeen reasons why something is a terrible idea and then, five minutes later, produce another twelve reasons why it might be brilliant.
😂
My intuition is different.
For me, I experience it around my solar plexus.
It’s difficult to describe because it isn’t exactly a voice in the usual sense.
It’s just there.
A knowing.
It doesn’t argue its case.
It doesn’t arrive with supporting documentation.
It doesn’t give me a PowerPoint presentation explaining why I should listen. 😂
It simply says:
Take the umbrella.
And then my mind looks at the blue sky and says:
That’s ridiculous.
For someone else, intuition may show up differently.
Perhaps it’s a physical sensation.
Perhaps it’s an inner knowing.
Perhaps it’s words.
Perhaps it’s something you can’t quite explain.
I don’t think intuition has to speak the same language in everybody.
Part of developing our intuition may simply be learning to recognize how our own speaks to us.
I Decided to Listen
Many years ago, when I was deeply focused on my personal development, I made a decision.
I was going to start listening to my intuition.
Not just hearing it.
Listening to it.
There is a difference.
I decided that when that inner knowing appeared, I would pay attention and, whenever possible, act on it.
At first, I didn’t do it every time.
Old habits are old habits.
But I started practicing.
And something fascinating happened.
Whenever I actually paid attention and later had a way to verify what my intuition had told me…
it was right.
Every single time.
The only times I can’t tell you whether it was right are the times when I wasn’t paying enough attention to remember the message in the first place.
That got my attention.
So I listened more.
And the more I listened, the more I trusted.
The more I trusted, the more I acted.
And the more I acted, the easier it became to recognize that particular voice when it arrived.
I began to think of intuition almost like a muscle.
You develop it by using it.
Thirty Years of Practice
Fast-forward about thirty years.
By then, listening to my intuition and acting on it had become a habit.
I didn’t need to understand everything it told me.
I didn’t always need to know why.
I had accumulated enough experiences to know:
Pay attention.
A couple of years ago, I was living in Asheville, North Carolina.
I loved Asheville.
I loved my apartment.
My life there was going well.
I wasn’t sitting around thinking about leaving.
Then one morning, shortly after I woke up, that voice came.
And this time it wasn’t particularly subtle.
It was loud.
Very loud.
The message was unmistakable:
Do not renew your lease. You are leaving Asheville. You are moving to Georgia.
Well.
Okay then.
😂
My mind certainly could have produced a list of questions.
Why?
Why Georgia?
What’s wrong with Asheville?
Why would I leave an apartment I love?
But after thirty years of practice, I knew that voice.
I didn’t need the PowerPoint presentation anymore.
I listened.
I left Asheville and moved to Georgia.
Three Weeks Later
Three weeks later, Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville and much of western North Carolina.
As the news began coming in and I gradually understood the magnitude of what had happened to the city and surrounding area, I was stunned.
Flooding.
Destruction.
Lives completely disrupted.
A place I had been living only weeks earlier had experienced an enormous disaster.
And suddenly I understood why that voice had been so loud.
This was serious.
I had listened.
I had acted.
And I had been spared an experience that could have been deeply traumatic for me.
There was one other detail that made the whole experience even more meaningful.
My mother’s name was Hélène.
Was that my mother’s spirit talking to me?
I don’t know.
Maybe.
❤️
Some things don’t need an explanation.
I Feel Protected
That experience changed something in me.
Or perhaps it deepened something that was already there.
Since then, I have felt profoundly protected and loved by the Universe.
I feel that somehow, somewhere, there is help available to me.
I can’t prove that.
I can’t explain exactly how it works.
And I don’t need to.
I only know what I experienced.
And when I think about what I was spared, I feel an enormous amount of gratitude.
Thank you.
Whoever—or whatever—you are.
Thank you.
Are You Listening?
Maybe you already hear your intuition.
Perhaps the question isn’t whether you have it.
Perhaps the question is:
Are you listening?
And even more importantly:
Are you willing to act on what you hear?
Your intuition may not feel anything like mine.
You may not experience it in your solar plexus.
You may not hear words.
But perhaps there is some quiet place inside you that knows things before your thinking mind catches up.
Start paying attention.
Notice what it feels like.
Notice where you feel it.
Notice how it differs from fear, worry, wishful thinking, and the endless chatter of the mind.
And then experiment.
You don’t have to begin by moving to another state. 😂
Start small.
Listen.
Act.
Pay attention to what happens.
And perhaps, little by little, you’ll learn the particular language your own intuition uses to speak to you.
So the next time that little voice says:
Take your umbrella.
Take the umbrella.
You never know what you’re practicing for. ❤️