Intuition is like Vitamin C
Your inner voice is waiting in the pantry, ready when you are, to pop the cap and take your daily dose.
I hate November.
The days get shorter, the weather colder, and to top it all off, there is no significant holiday to spark joy during an otherwise miserable month.
It doesn’t help that I have a string of memories from November's passed; a lot of them include the loss of loved ones.
A particularly trying week in November 2017, my grandfather and friend both passed away. It was also the same week I decided to end my relationship.
Why?
I had no idea.
Unmistakably, the deaths contributed to the seemingly irrational decision. The stress of a new business venture definitely added some weight. Maybe mercury was in retrograde? Perhaps I was burnt the heck out.
But deep down there was something in me that said “I need out; this isn’t for me anymore.”
Even though I had no rhyme or reason to explain myself in November 2017, it was the exact reasoning I gave to the same partner two years later.
I remember my therapist telling me following her gut was how she made all of her business decisions. Internally I rolled my eyes.
And yet, without acknowledging it, intuition is what led me to pick up the phone and book that first appointment with her.
In the Spring of 2018, I had an interesting decision to make and it took all my strength to pick my jaw off the floor when my lawyer said, “well, Rachel, you’re just gonna have to follow to your gut on this one.”
Even lawyers listen to their hunches.
Call it what you will: sixth sense, hunch, inner voice, gut instinct, deep belief, or that not-so-deluded trust that everything will just work out, intuition is a universal feeling.
Just like Vitamin C, intuition is always at home.
But sometimes, you don’t want to take your vitamins. Sometimes, even when the pale orange bottle is sitting front and center on your kitchen counter, it feels easier to leave the cap unscrewed, tablets untouched. Knowing all too well how easy it can be to take care of yourself.
Over time, the bottle departs the counter and slowly works its way to the back of the crumb lined corners of the pantry.
Before you know it, it’s been an entire season since you’ve pushed down on the child-lock, pulled the cotton from the top of the bottle, inhaled a waft of orange dust, and chomped down on a citrus burst of capsuled immunity.
Sometimes I just want to be told what to do. I want to see clearly, in black and white, Option A or Option B, and the answer is obvious.
December 30th, 2019 I hugged my partner goodbye as I boarded a plane to Bali; I knew the goodbye held more weight than he realized.
I felt heavy with guilt, shame, and embarrassment. He had just moved in 4 months prior. How could I do this to him?
My inner voice pipped up: How can you keep doing this to yourself?
It was as if I had overdosed on Vitamin C. My grip on practicality had loosened and my inner voice grew louder: “I need out; this isn’t for me anymore.”
I sat crossed-legged in a traditional Balinese house; the scent of incense hung heavy in the humid air, across from a Shaman who, hopefully, would tell me everything I needed to know.
No matter which way I asked the question, I learned that my happiness wouldn’t be dependent on the relationship I was in, but on doing what I felt was right for me.
There was a deep, intuitive knowing that choosing a broken heart and messy steps forward was my path to happiness.
Sometimes, happiness is a mix of Option A, Option B, and Vitamin C.
Writing this piece and connecting Intuition to Vitamin C, I’m reminded that I quite literally have a crusty orange tablet in my coat pocket. It must have been when I told myself to take it after my morning tea on my way out for a walk. Now, each time I dig into my pocket for my keys, I’ll find crumbs of the powdered orange dust on my fingers…a reminder that my intuition is all around, always there, ready when I am to listen.
