On Intuition: You Already Know
Here's what I know about intuition: it doesn't shout. It asks. Quietly, persistently, at the most inconvenient moments. And one of the most common things I see in the people I work with is not that they don't have access to their intuition. It's that they have become very skilled at dismissing it.
Here's a little story.
The Question She Kept Answering With "Two More Years"
For six years, she said she was leaving her position in two years. Her boss knew. She was supportive, genuinely so. And every year at the annual review, she was still two years out.
It wasn't that she was lying. She believed it every time she said it. But there was always something that needed to be resolved first. An opportunity to expand the program she oversaw. A restructure when positions went vacant. A protege she was determined to prepare to lead the unit — who, as it turned out, left before she did, which meant another year of training up other staff for more senior roles.
Every reason was real. Every reason was reasonable. And her intuition kept asking the same quiet question anyway: Is this actually a good reason to stay, or is it a justification?
She had very good answers. The work wasn't finished. The team wasn't ready. She couldn't leave before the project launched. It just wasn't the right time.
What it cost her was a burnout she couldn't logic her way out of. A diagnosis of depression and generalized anxiety, medication, and real therapeutic work to climb back out. Not a dramatic collapse. A slow, quiet accumulation of what happens when you keep betraying yourself even when you know better.
Eventually she did the thing she had said she wanted to do for twelve years.
That person was me.
My unrecognized dream was to become a professional leadership and life coach. And I can tell you, having since weaned off medication with the support of my physician, that I have more fulfillment — and far less depression and anxiety — than I have ever had in my life.
The quiet voice was right. It was always right. I was just very skilled at giving it a reasonable answer and sending it away. Lucky for me, and for you, it keeps coming back.
What Dismissing the Question Actually Costs You
Here's what I want you to notice about my story. My intuition wasn't dramatic. It didn't announce itself. It asked a quiet, reasonable question — Is it time? — and each time I had a very logical, very reasonable set of answers for why the answer was no.
That's not logic. That's your brain overriding your other wisdom centers because the question feels too costly to answer honestly. It brings up fear. And every time we dismiss the question because of that fear, we don't get rid of it. We just make ourselves carry it longer. The weight compounds. And eventually the dam breaks — usually at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way.
Trusted Advisors Are Not Assigned. They're Cultivated.
Once I stopped arguing with my intuition, something shifted. I didn't blow anything up. I resigned with plenty of notice, and my boss kept me on to support behind-the-scenes projects she and my former colleagues needed help with. That work helped fund my coursework and the beginning of the life I had wanted for all those years.
You Already Knew
I am not telling you to blow up your job, your relationship, or anything else based on a feeling. I'm telling you to stop filing the feeling away.
When the quiet question shows up — Is this right for me? Can I trust this? Is this actually what I want? — it deserves more than a dismissal. It deserves a real answer. Not the logical defense of why the question is wrong, but the honest one.
You already knew. You were just looking for permission to trust it.
What question have you been dismissing?
Journal Prompts: You Already Knew
What is a question your gut has been asking that you keep filing away? What have you told yourself about why that question is wrong?
Who in your life does the little voice never question? What is it about those people that makes them safe?
Think about a time you dismissed your intuition and later realized it was right. What did you tell yourself to justify the dismissal?
Where are you currently working hard to logic your way out of something you already know? What might it be costing you to keep doing that?
If you stopped needing proof and trusted what you already know, what would you do next?
