TGIF: Learning To Trust My Intuition Again (Patreon)

Hello and happy Friday, Patrons! Once again, in ominous deja vu fashion, I am beginning this post while on a plane. This weekend Elliott and I are headed to Tampa to go a music festival that his favorite band, Weezer, will be playing at (it was part of my Christmas gift to him). So, off we go on a strange adventure! Ooooweeeuuuuu Buddy Holly … so on and so forth. You get it.

In international news, happy St. Patrick’s day to those who celebrate! There were a scattering of green shirts, hats, and assorted accessories around the airport - it makes me smile. It’s so juxtaposed to the frenzy of a crowded airport. It’s like a sweet and sad attempt at celebration amidst the chaos of children crying, adults running, and endless faces of stress and concern. You cut your way through crowds of tears and laughs and headphones and then oop there’s someone in a big green hat. They’re not letting travel upstage the real event happening today! Even the employees in the Delta lounge were wearing green bow ties which made me feel a little bad bc they looked like Party Down cater waiters. Nothing like replacing vegan frittatas in a green bow tie at 9am on a Friday. Anyway, we’ll be landing into Tampa early tonight so I can only imagine what sort of fresh hell celebrations await us! I know it’s an Irish holiday but please enjoy this video of Snoop Dogg arriving in Scotland to Still DRE on the bagpipes to get you in the MOOD.

I woke up thinking a lot about intuition today. More specifically that unique gut instinct that guides each of us. How fucking wild is that. We have this intangible signal booster that speaks to us (if we decide to listen). It can show up psychically as an inner voice or physically as a raging gastrointestinal system but either way it’s trying to get our attention for better or worse. I think I’ve been thinking about it more these days because I’ve felt very out of sorts with my own intuition over the last few years. I found myself in a place where I didn’t trust myself. I felt incredibly insecure about my own decision making. And the stress of that sorta kept me in a freeze state. Ya know the ol fight or flight or freeze states that we engage in when we’re faced with something stressful. The Holistic Psychologist does some great posts on the freeze state. I do feel like I’ve been laying low and hiding out for the last few years, but for good reason. It’s given me a chance to ~actually~ make sense of myself. It’s like my car stalled on the highway and I hid in a nearby ditch with my peepers just below a guardrail watching everyone else drive every which way. Then AAA showed up in the form of a creative graduate program and now I’m slowly starting to crawl out of that trench and climb back into the car. But with my hands on the wheel I have to look to my intuition on where to drive. And that’s the part I’ve realized is a little rusty. I’m still unsure on trusting my instincts. Y’all know I’ve had a roller coaster of a gut journey over the last couple years, which in hindsight is like “oh no shit my gut went feral on me at the exact same time I was denying feeling bonkers about who I was in the world” 🤦🏼‍♀️. I was probably refusing the signals of my intuition for so long it decided to crap out on me … literally. Where my GI issue girlies at??

I’ve been reading Lighter by Yung Pueblo and it’s another beautifully poetic book focused on healing (the full title is Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future). Apologies for the constant barrage of healing material, trust I contract the cringe when I see other people overdoing it in this arena, but I’m unironically all up in this self help shit right now, you guys. It’s the “season” I’m in. AHHH I KNOW, CRINGE. However, I feel like I balance it with plenty of non-self-reflective reality TV programming so I should be good, right? Absolutely! Anyway, he’s got a great section on human habit vs human nature. Human habit is essentially the social conditioning we develop to survive in life.

He goes on to say that when we find ourselves in a situation of stress or a situation in which we feel out of control we revert back to human habit as a way to protect. Over time we condition ourselves to respond from this survival place. We often to meet new experiences with our old patterns to make sense of what’s happening. This keeps us away from our human nature. He says, “human habit is essentially the sum total of your patterns, while true human nature is a mind that is no longer governed by patterns”. It still holds info from your past to help you make decisions, but that info isn’t in the driver's seat. I read this as connecting to your true human nature means cleaning out old patterns/habits which makes space for your intuition. A ha! That's very nice. And here’s a little bit of how he describes the true beauty of human nature…

Ding ding ding! That last line about connecting with beauty and finding solutions is what I'm currently in the market for. It sounds like the byproduct of authentically accessing your intuition. Also “connecting with beauty and finding solutions” feels like THE quintessential Libra tagline 💁🏼‍♀️. Btw I’m about halfway through the book and really enjoying it - def recommend if you’re looking for more pretty prose on going inward.

So that’s what we’ve been ruminating on lately. Noticing and rebuilding the slightly severed tie between myself and my intuition. Learning to trust again. I mean, if you can’t trust yourself, how the hell you gonna trust anybody else?! No wonder every surprise/prank video I’ve ever seen online I’ve thought “that’s a hot pile of horseshit lies”. OooOoOooooOoo she’s a ten but she’s got trust issues … so she doesn’t believe you thought she was a ten in the first place, you manipulative MONSTER. Te he he.

Anyway! My gut is telling me it’s time to go and watch the Top Chef episode I downloaded. It’s also telling me to cool it on the cheese. Yes, there was a lot of free cheese in the Delta lounge and yes, I absolutely lost my will power, and then yes, there was a fruit and cheese box available for purchase on this flight, and YES, I ORDERED IT BECAUSE I LIKE TO FEEL LIKE A FANCY TRAVEL LADY BREAKING OFF BITS OF CHEESE AND CRACKERS FROM HER TINY MAKESHIFT CHARCUTERIE BOARD IN THE SKY LIKE A BIG FRILLY MOUSE, SUE ME. So, now we’ll go with our gut and chill on cheese. Thanks for letting me ramble at you! Let me know if any of this connects with you, and what kinda shenanigans you’re getting up to this weekend. Good luck (of the Irish) and god speed! Thanks, as always, for being here! 💚G