The Gift You Can’t Afford to Ignore
by Amy B. Scher
You hear about it all the time. It’s the pit in your stomach when someone gives you a bad feeling, the nudge to take the other way home from work, or the double check you make on your little ones after they go to bed. It’s intuition—women’s greatest tool. But, you have to use it to really know how well it works. And many of us are so disconnected, we’ve forgotten how. I was one of them for way too long.
But, when I was faced with a literal life or death decision, I tried the only thing left for me to do besides guessing—I learned to find that little voice inside of me that was screaming “C’mon, I keep trying to get your attention lady! Will you listen to me now?!”
I had been the queen of self-doubt before I got to this place in my life—the place where I couldn’t afford for anything else to go wrong. For eight years I’d been suffering with Chronic Lyme disease and my slowly degenerating body had spent thousands of dollars on medical care. I had nowhere to turn.
I was considering going to India for a highly experimental treatment using embryonic stem cell therapy. My doctors strongly advised against it. One literally said, “I hope it doesn’t kill you” as I left his office after discussing it with him. The physician in India was at the center of a firestorm of controversy—many scientists calling her therapy “snake oil” and referring to her as a scam artist, and worse.
Why then, did I have this internal drive to ignore everything I heard? Was it pride, fear, or revenge? After years of listening to the medical experts, I finally did what I hadn’t so many times before: I silenced the firing voices around me and I listened to myself. I had no medical degree or scientific depth of understanding about stem cells. But, I had the whisper of women’s intuition.
In This Is How I Save My Life, I write:
I always thought I had flawed intuition, but I now realize I ignored it when it whispered to me. I was uncomfortable with making decisions based on anything, but justifiable data—a Virgo to the core. I soon learned though, intuition is far from logical. It calculates the answer and delivers it unapologetically, with no explanation. Still, I allowed myself to need logic and legitimate reasons to free myself from relationships that weren’t good for me, career paths that didn’t fit me, and more.
I never came up with any “good” justification why I should board a plane for a 21-hour flight I wasn’t guaranteed to survive, to get an experimental treatment that was touted as a scam that might also kill me. But, I did it anyway. And, I did it anyway on a simple hunch that I should.
I did survive the plane ride and finally made it to the hospital late at night, unable to assess what I had just gotten myself into.
The next day I met with the infamous Dr. Geeta Shroff whom I had read so much about. I sat in the chair in her office and as she began to speak in her sweet Indian accent, I scanned around the room in slow motion with my eyes. A sudden peace came over me that I hadn’t felt in years. All I could feel or think was “Thank god you are here.” I had an immediate sense I had made the right decision. I was totally unattached to results. Had I made the right decision because this would cure me, or because of some other reason? I had no idea, and to this day, I still don’t.
What I do know is that I’ve learned some essential lessons about intuition that will forever lead me to exactly where I need to be. I have discovered that sometimes the hunches that make the least sense are the strongest intuitive messages.
I’ve found that ego and intuition do not pair well, so we have to release our fears of being wrong if we want that inner guidance to speak up with enough volume to grab our attention. I have come to accept that listening to our intuition will most definitely clash with opinions of those around us, and we have to be ready for that. It is imperative to realize intuition does not explain itself and because of that, we are doing ourselves a disservice to question it.
Learning to honor your intuition is as much a lesson in practice as in patience. Most of us have spent our lives making pros and cons lists and weighing our options, unknowingly separating ourselves from this awesome super power that resides inside.
One of my favorite ways to get started in this practice is to stand or sit up straight, arms by your side and body relaxed. Quietly ask yourself a “yes” or “no” question and feel how your body sways in response. You are likely to feel a gently pull forward, or backward. If it pulls forward, your body is gravitating to a “yes” for that situation. Just like plants grow toward the light, your body will tend to gently move forward too when you think of something positive. If your body draws back slightly, your body is repelling away from that thought or idea and is telling you “no” to it.
Go ahead and try it. The next time you’re in a dilemma, I dare you to stop using your brain and start using your intuition. Go ahead, it’s time to discover your gift.
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