I Used To Be Intuitive
What Happens When Intuition Seems to Disappear?
In the past, I thought of myself as intuitive, but what does that even mean?
There was a time when intuition felt almost magical. Dreams appeared meaningful. Thoughts arrived before explanation Coincidences seemed to gather around me in ways I couldn’t fully account for. I felt accompanied by a quiet form of knowing that I neither controlled nor understood.
And then, over an undefined amount of time, I realized these gentle experiences I had come to both count on and rely on were gone. Life began to seem a little mundane.
Externally, situations remained the same. Nothing dramatic happened. It seemed to me, though, as if I had lost my personal magic.
I blamed myself.
I didn’t meditate.
I didn’t pray.
I didn’t do yoga.
I wasn’t a good person.
I swore.
I wasn’t a believer (in what, I wasn’t quite sure, but therein was the problem).
The list varied by the day, but was quite long.
I’d like to say something dramatically changed, beautifully and suddenly. It didn’t.
The spell of disenchantment continued for years. But what did happen was I thought about it less. The tasks of life took precedence. I spent my time on what I considered important.
Some years my time was absorbed with my work, other years it was relationships. Still others, I strove for ultimate physical excellence and personal growth. As I aged, so did my intentions and goals.
As these pursuits absorbed my attention, I no longer relied on intuition for the daily dialogue. I called it up, if at all, only when I was in need or wanted something.
And although there was loss in missing my constant companion, through the years I found substitutes — friends to confide in, professionals to hire, books to counsel me, courses to explore.
While I appreciated each substitute, none of them knew my inner landscape from the inside. They didn’t arrive for me before I spoke, often as I thought. So I valued them differently than I did intuition.
I realized I assumed intuition would always arrive in the same form. As those experiences became less frequent, I no longer felt I had access to it.
Many years later, driving on a freeway, I thought of an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. When I got home, I reached out to her and we enjoyed time reconnecting.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon when I was doing something unrelated — walking my dog — that I realized I had followed my intuition when I reached out to her. And it was the first time I had done so in a very long time.
I began to reflect.
Maybe intuition had been there all along. I had been looking for the spectacular — the dreams, the coincidences, the moments that felt touched by something beyond explanation. When those experiences became less frequent, I assumed intuition itself had disappeared.
What I hadn’t considered was that perhaps I had mistaken one expression of intuition for the whole of it.
Sometimes intuition does show up in big ways — dreams, wishes granted — but repeatedly, throughout a day, it’s in the answered dialogue, the message heard, the instinct heeded. It hadn’t abandoned me.
I remembered other times my steady companion had answered my internal dialogue and I hastily disregarded it, not giving it the respect I originally had. As I remembered, a sense of relief began to replace the loss I had carried for so long.
What was different? Despite any personal growth I may have undergone, I still wasn’t meditating daily.
But what I had done was listen. I thought of a friend in my thoughts “from nowhere”, and responded to the thought because it appealed to me.
And despite not doing daily yoga or meditation, what I did have and needed in order to listen was my awareness and perception. And then, I could choose to take action — or not.
It’s possible that while I thought my intuition had deserted me, it had gradually grown, or deepened with me as I gathered experiences and worked on my personal growth. I like to believe that’s true. I do know I value it fully now.
What I did discover is that it led me further than where I had been, and for that I am grateful. I’m not looking back anymore and wondering what happened. I no longer ask whether I’m intuitive. My attention is no longer focused on what I thought I lost. It is focused on recognizing intuition as it appears now, however it chooses to arrive.
