Here Comes The... Wait, What?

20 years ago today, I got married.

Not to babe, but to my first husband.

(It's not so romantic to recall your 'first' wedding day is it..? The day when you promised yourself to another, that ultimately ended in heartbreak and heartache.)

It just jumped into my awareness today, as it was a fairly memorable date 10/10... and it made me think back... 

I was a child, a child, when I got married the first time around. I was eighteen years old, and a very naive and immature eighteen I might add.

J and I had dated for about 1 year, and we were desperate to get married, because sex before marriage was a big no-no in our community.  We were both committed to the same values and we wanted to try and keep to them (the success of that one is an entirely other story). In very simplistic terms, he was the first person I'd really wanted to go that far with, so I thought that meant we should get married.  I know, that sounds so messed up on reflection.

J was a lovely, gentle, kind person.  But he wasn't my forever person. We probably should have dated for a while and then parted ways... but we didn't.

As I loaded up the dishwasher today, my mind went back to me sitting in the back of a cream 1920's vintage Rolls Royce en route to the kingdom hall in my big pouffy dress about to get married.  

I was so very frightened.

I could feel it all in my gut, this horrible feeling creeping up my throat.  I haven't often felt sheer panic like that. I clearly remember identifying the feeling as not being jitters or nerves... I knew what they felt like.  It was a strong sense of: YOU. SHOULD. NOT. BE. DOING. THIS.

I remember looking at my Dad and saying, half-jokingly but with eyes brimming with tears, "I am not sure I should be doing this".  It took a lot for me to get those words out.

His response, as he smiled and squeezed my hand, was "well, it's too late now Susan"

I looked at my lap, and took a deep breath, and then... got married.

I think this was one of few times in my life thus far that I had felt intuition so strongly and probably the first time I out-and-out ignored it.

I used to think intuition was a hippy dippy idea for people that couldn't process thoughts and ideas properly, and relied on...ugh... (whisper it) feelings.  And they were probably mostly women. Women who were frankly, emotionally unstable.

It's taken me years, decades, to start listening to that still, small voice inside.  To realize I'm totally one of those 'emotionally unstable', feelie women, and that is actually awesome to be that way.

Steve Jobs said intuition was "more powerful than intellect". 

Even so, today, if I catch myself sensing something is not right, or feeling like something is 'off' - my first response is to reframe it in a logical way, that my feelings must be wrong.  I almost always have to coax myself to come back to where I started: intuition.

I wonder how much we all do that?

How much do we miss by not being in tune with our intuition?

Are we even listening to it?  Or has our intellect slowly eroded that inner voice?

The truth is, often we are not comfortable using this 'unrational' part of us to deduce situations, or relying on 'instinct' to uncover a deeper truth. But allowing that very real part of our subconcious/unconscious reasoning to come to the fore is tapping into a power that we might not even know we had!

In my head, intellect is like the, the smart one. The bespectacled, bright one bouncing up and down with his hand up and his answer ready, he's sitting right at the front of the class. But ignore Intuition at your peril... she's right at the back, with a dreamy look in her eyes... her head is always in a book and she only answers questions that she's been asked directly, and even then it's in a round-about way.  She aces every test though, and goes on to win awards and scholarships... even though she was on everyone's 'least likely to...' list in the yearbook.  She is a quiet warrior queen.

As Ariana Huntington shared in her book Thrive:  "Even when we’re not at a fork in the road, wondering what to do and trying to hear that inner voice, our intuition is always there, always reading the situation, always trying to steer us the right way. But can we hear it? Are we paying attention? Are we living a life that keeps the pathway to our intuition unblocked? Feeding and nurturing our intuition, and living a life in which we can make use of its wisdom, is one key way to thrive, at work and in life."

I don't wish per se that I had listened to that small voice, on that sunny October day twenty years ago... I see now, there are no regrets, just opportunities to grow. And I truly believe every experience I've had has made me who I am today - I try to embrace it all, in it's technicolor glorious mess.

And it's good to reflect.  Reflection is just as it sounds, like looking into a mirror and gazing on what has always been, but we may not have seen it until we took the time to look.

Thinking back to that day, makes me wonder... what could I do today to pay closer attention to my intuition?

What am I doing that might be blocking that pathway to intuition?

What wisdom am I missing out on by ignoring that small but mighty, quiet but thunderous voice of intuition?

Because she's right there, sitting in the back of the class, waiting for us just to chat for while, to give her chance and not write her off.  She might well give that overblown intellect a run for his money.