How do you use intuition in your life?

Merriam Webster defines intuition as “the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.”

In other (easier to understand) words, it’s that wisdom that is guided by your feelings. It’s what you know in your gut to be true. Rationality and reasoning don’t factor in here.

In the professional world, we often think there is no room for woo-woo stuff like feelings and heart. However, the best leaders often credit their intuition for their success.

Knowing how powerful intuition is to guide us, I’ve tried to build my own intuition muscle in recent years. But I’ve always felt a little unsure of it. Sometimes it seemed like a magical power that you either have or don’t have.

How do you know if a thought comes from your intuition or not?

I’m often torn wondering if an idea I have is based on superstition or on fear. It seems I never know how to trust that it is really coming from my deepest sense of knowing.

Until recently.

In December I finished chemo. In February I had surgery. The surgery was considered successful. They removed the tumors from my body, but one of them was in a lymph node. That’s not uncommon.

Unfortunately the presence of cancer cells in a lymph node meant that I had to go back in for a second surgery to have all of the lymph nodes in my axilla removed.

I was devastated.

As I was thrust back into a new round of grief, I crumbled the way I had after my original cancer diagnosis. No matter how much I rationalized that lymph node dissection surgery is common, my cancer was still curable, and the fact that I might not even get lymphedema– I still couldn’t pull myself together.

I was so distraught because without our lymph nodes, we have a high risk of developing lymphedema. I was terrified of the possibility of acquiring this life altering condition for which there is no cure.

Sometimes serendipitous events come about to help pave the way forward.

As luck would have it, a friend of mine happened to reach out to me in those few days to see how I was doing. He is a friend I hadn’t seen in over 20 years who happens to be a surgeon. I coincidentally reacquainted with him at a reunion the day before they found my tumors last August… Oh yeah, and by the way, it turns out he and his partner developed a surgery to HELP PREVENT LYMPHEDEMA IN PEOPLE JUST LIKE ME!

A series of beautiful coincidences and very unlikely events happened to bring this option to me. The surgery is a microsurgery done at the same time as the lymph node dissection. Access to it is unbelievably limited, and I would not have known it even existed, let alone been given the choice, had these events not lined up the way they did.

Although this gift seemed to miraculously appear in my life, there were a lot of obstacles I had to push through. It wasn’t a cut and dry solution sitting before me. It would require flight travel, an insurance battle, added expenses, and going against the recommendations of all of my doctors.

I had a big decision to make.

Was it worth even having the surgery? Should I go through the struggles to make this happen, or should I take the path of least resistance?

I was torn. As I researched my options, I started to notice that every time this surgery became a more viable option I perked up. I became my normal self again. I felt functional and even positive.

On the flip side, every time an obstacle popped up to make me think the surgery was too difficult an option, I became a blubbering mess. I couldn’t function. All I could do was sit and cry. I literally felt a weight of sadness and fear crushing down on my chest.

No matter what I did to rationalize the benefits of sticking with the conventional treatment plan, I couldn’t escape this crushing feeling. No matter how much I reasoned with myself, I couldn’t put myself at ease.

The only thing that put me at ease was the prospect of having this specialized surgery.

And for the first time in my life I really learned what intuition feels like.

No logic could change what I was feeling. The minute I started noticing these extreme emotional reactions, it all became very clear to me: I had to listen to myself. I had all the answers right in front of me. This was my intuition screaming at me, and I finally heard it.

Tapping into intuition is easier than I thought.

It’s just listening to how we feel.

No matter how difficult the road ahead might appear to be.

The answer was so clear, that I didn’t even have a choice anymore. I had to pursue the specialized surgery. In hindsight I don’t regret it for a second.

How often do we ignore our innate knowledge in favor of listening to our fear?

Often.

I see this a lot when people are distressed by their careers or relationships. If you stop and listen to them describe the situation, it seems so obvious to everyone but them. Their feelings are screaming at them telling them something is severely wrong. They are often anxious, exhausted, and even depressed.

But they always top it off with good old logic and reason, and that keeps them stuck.

I know this because I did it myself for years.

When we ignore the power of our intuition, we can miss out on huge opportunities.

We often miss out on the opportunity to find freedom. The ultimate freedom comes when we face the truth, so we can work through it to find peace in our lives.

Facing burnout or dissatisfaction is often painful, and we don’t want to deal with taking the difficult road. I get it. I did it too. But I also know that if we continue to deny that something is wrong, we’ll stay exactly where we are.

Trust me. Once you start to listen to yourself and honor your intuition, a peace washes over you that confirms your decision.

And you start to realize that there really was only one option all along.