This is why I act on my intuition
A brief ode to wanting more from life.
Have you ever woken up on an unassuming mid-week morning to find yourself passively cruising or actively charging in the wrong life direction?
I have.
More than once I’ve become acutely aware of my wrong-ness; being in the wrong relationship, the wrong job, the wrong career. Each of these times, the realisation crept up insidiously as a barely audible, anxiety-producing hum.
I should have faced my intuition head on but naturally, each time I ignored it. Burying my head in the sand was far easier than facing the reality of being in a situation that I was mentally, physically, emotionally and financially tied to, yet was no longer meant for me.
Unfortunately my ‘ignorance is bliss’ strategy failed miserably and as I ignored each call to change, it became louder. My niggling feeling morphed into a nagging knowing that reverberated through my insides like a fifty person orchestra belting out ‘An Ode to a Life Not Yet Lived’.
YOU NEED TO LEAVE, the violins screeched.
YOU NEED TO CHANGE, the drums banged.
YOU NEED TO MOVE, the trumpets blared.
YOU’RE MADE FOR MORE, the cymbals clanged.
Soon, the bashing and crashing was deafening and it became impossible to keep burying my head in the sand, under my pillows, within my Tiktok feed or behind my noise-cancelling AirPods. Standing still was no longer an option. Any terror I had about leaving the life and career I’d worked so hard to build was drowned out by two contradictory yet co-existing feelings - the fear of not living up to my potential and the flicker of hope for what that potential could be.
It was then that I made a series of radical decisions to reorient my life from wrong to right, and vowed to never look back.
The call to change can feel heavy and cataclysmic, like a spiritual yearning to do more, be more, be different, do better. It can also feel light and tantalising, like the spark of an inspired idea that you simply cannot not pursue. It is exciting, playful, deep, eternal, stubborn, pervasive, all encompassing, motivating, desperate, mind-numbing and mind-bending. It can make you feel trapped, suffocated and caged, or giddy, hopeful and free.
The desire for more is persistent and inconvenient. If you ignore it, it grows. If you try to silence it, it crescendoes. That’s because desire is a signal that it is no longer time to think, strategise, plan, wonder, dream, fantasise, cry, hope, bluster, want, need, wish or procrastinate. It’s a signal to act. A sign to move up. To move forward or move right along.
So if it’s an unassuming mid-week morning and you’re starting to hear the rumble of a tune, remember that you’re the Conductor. There’s a fifty person orchestra within you, waiting patiently for a cue.
They’re ready to play your anthem.
On learning to listen to my internal orchestra (aka. my intuition):
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