Deep Knowings
This Real Life Magic story is short, sweet, and unedited (mostly because I am currently on vacation in California). It is a story about following deep inner knowings/ intuition.
A few years ago I signed up for an astrology reading. It wasn’t my first reading and definitely wasn’t my last. I find astrology, human design, the tarot, and all mystical or esoteric systems to be so fun.
While signing up for the reading, I had to complete the usual information: birthdate, exact birth time, and location. I triple-checked the information and confirmed my appointment.
A few days before the reading, I kept having this deep feeling that she had my birth time wrong. I knew that I had entered it correctly, but had this really strong pull to email her and double-check the birth information. I ignored it though and convinced myself I was being paranoid because I had seen that I had entered the info correctly. I also didn't want to appear micro-manage-y, so I let it go despite the returning internal whisper.
When the astrologer shared her screen and opened up the presentation she had with all of my birth information, I immediately saw she had the wrong date. I did my best to politely stop her before she began and I mentioned that there was a typo in my birthday on the first page of the presentation.
She was startled and paused the presentation to double-check. where the error was. She looked at the form I filled out and realized she had copied it over incorrectly when she went to look up my natal chart. The entire presentation was incorrect. She apologized profusely and said we would have to meet again another day so she could prepare.
Not a big deal at all, but this little moment was a good reminder. When I experience that inner pull or a deep intuitive knowing about something that might not make logical or practical sense, I should follow it. I’ve learned and continue to learn this lesson time and time again.
I think about this and talk about this all the time. These intuitive feelings aren’t in my head, they are in my body or somewhere deeper in my being. They are often a whisper, not a shout, and generally not fully explainable. You just know. And these are the ones that I must follow.
I know I am not alone on this. Everyone has these intuitive pulls and hunches and I’ve heard so many people talk about this. It is a very common human experience to look back and say, damn why did I do that when I knew something was off.
It gets confusing sometimes. As someone who experienced a lot of anxiety and panic attacks when I was younger, I know learning to follow my intuition takes practice. For me, it is an ongoing practice to discern between what is fear, what is anxiety, and what is intuition. It is not always healthy to tell someone with a lot of anxiety to simply follow their intuition. Just as it is not helpful for me as a yoga teacher to simply tell someone to listen to their body in a culture where we are often taught to ignore it. (I wrote about that here).
But with practice, learning to follow these deep knowings or intuitive feelings has both saved me and led me to some of the best moments of my life. I believe in them more than anything.