Listening To Your Intuition When You're Scared Shitless

Hello, my loves!

I wanted to share an exercise (attached) that I do with all my 1:1 clients about connecting to your intuition. I received a lot of messages yesterday saying, "Wow, I envy your ability to trust your gut and do scary shit" and let me explain why...

I don't know if you've seen lately but I've been getting some harsh messages and backlash because of my decisions over the last few months. Last summer I was at what I thought was my rock-bottom and needed a break from the city I have spent the last 10 years in. It was extremely painful and difficult for Zee and I to make the choices we had to make to pack up our lives and leave everything we knew to try a different environment. A risk.

Over time we realized where we moved was infinitely worse than where we left and one of the main lessons that came from that was that our internal struggle was the issue, not necessarily our environment.  Zee and I are pretty relentless when it comes to our inner development but for some reason, we had mislabelled that inner-storm because we were disconnected from our intuition and our highest self. We didn't even last 4 months in Burlington. 

During those 4 months, absolutely everything that could have possibly gone wrong did. The Universe was screaming at us to get out of there. No heat, no hot water, 3 of our neighbour's dogs constantly barking, isolated from our friends, Zee experiencing racism... everything felt so, so wrong. In addition, in December one of my friends died by suicide and as Zee and I attended her funeral we felt a deeply painful urge to use that relentless energy and get the f*ck out of our situation. There was no way we were going to let her death be in vain- we were going back home and re-connecting to the community we took for granted.

So it's mid-December, a week before Christmas, we have no place to go but we put our apartment up on Kijiji anyways. We were transparent in what the situation was and even though we knew the chances of someone taking over our lease was like 0.0000001%- we did it anyways. 

15 minutes after we posted we got a call from a man who was desperately looking for an 8-month lease. Zee and I literally shit ourselves because we had exactly 8 months left on ours. With only 2 days before Christmas and no place to go we signed over our lease and packed our entire house up, booked a storage locker and drove to Toronto. During this time we had applied to 2 places and got rejected by both because the landlords didn't want to do paperwork over the holidays. It felt absolutely devastating. But we still trusted and we still moved forward. 

The first night we were scared shitless, it was surreal. It's the night before Christmas Eve and every single hotel in Toronto was full. We were sitting in a Metro parking lot with our car stuffed to the brim, Capo on my lap, and absolutely no clue what to do. I wanted to break down in tears but I kept it together because something in my gut told me to be patient and trust. We ended up finding the last room in a hotel and stayed there for two days. 

Fast forward through all the boring details but we ended up staying with friends and found a really nice Airbnb downtown so that we could look for places for February. 

Even though we were in a tight spot with time running out I refused to settle for any ol' apartment that became available. We had a vision in our mind of what we wanted and what we deserved and we wouldn't accept anything less. We did not go through all of this to suddenly make choices from scarcity and fear. Last week, with only 10 days left at our Airbnb we ended up finding the exact place we had envisioned and we were accepted with ease- they are even renovating and painting before we move in. The kicker- it was literally the only apartment in our view from the Airbnb. I could not make this shit up! We were in our neighbourhood and looking at our future home this whole time.

Yesterday a news article was published that our Burlington neighbour's homes were raided with armed police forces and military trucks because of guns, drugs, and trafficking.  I actually jumped on the couch and screamed: "ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?!". The most validating thing possible. Everything around us was screaming at us to get out and despite people's judgements of us- we listened. I've been called a trainwreck, a psycho, a fraud, a hypocrite, a mess, and every other name- just because we wanted to move back home. Just because we changed our minds. 

There are never right or wrong decisions, only choices we make that create new pathways for us. When we make a decision we think is "wrong" what usually happens? A beautiful lesson that we could not have learned any other way. Gratitude, growth, perspective, empathy, connection, healing. When we make the "right" decision what happens? The trust we have in ourselves is affirmed. The Universe (or God, Higher Power) will always present infinite possibilities and timelines for us, it is up to us to pay attention and choose the one that feels most aligned with our intuition. It is also up to us not to feel defeated when we come up against resistance. Sometimes your world needs to fall apart because it wasn't working for you. Sometimes growth comes with a 2x4 to the face because you aren't listening to the subtle cues. Sometimes it takes immense faith and courage to defy what others expect of you.

The only reason I constantly take calculated risks is that I have nurtured an extremely strong intuition- sometimes it actually scares me because it really makes me think I'm in a hibernation pod in the Matrix creating my reality (and like.. I don't fully disbelieve that LOL) But intuition is not just a gift that some people get and others don't. Intuition is a sharpened skill, it's something that has been conditioned out of us so that we rely on external forces to guide us, it's something that has been diminished and invalidated because of the way we were raised, it's something that we all have.

I want you to take this exercise and sharpen  your gut instincts. To intentionally label your thoughts as either your inner critic or intuition and learn how to take risks and giant leaps of faith based on how you feel and not based on the opinions of others. People are misguided into thinking that courage is comfortable and feels good, but as Brene Brown would say, we have to "do it scared."