During a recent road trip to Christchurch I picked up some hitchhikers. We shared past hitchhiking experiences and agreed that it’s extremely important to use one’s intuitive faculties when accepting a ride from a stranger.
These women told me they were hitchhiking around New Zealand and had had positive experiences except for one:
They were offered a ride from someone who had given them bad vibes. Neither of the women wanted to offend the driver by rejecting the offer of a ride, and neither of them knew the other was not too keen on accepting it, so they both ignored their feelings. After they got into the vehicle, they realized that the driver was drinking alcohol at the wheel.
I think that most of us have done something similar at some point, and hoped it would turn out OK. I am no exception – there have been a fair few times when I willfully ignored my intuition.
One notable negative experience that occurred was when I needed to hire a house cleaner. A friend had told me about her new cleaner who sounded perfect and gave me the cleaner’s number. When I was about to contact her, I had a bad feeling and knew it was not going to go well, but I went ahead anyway.
This was mainly because finding a cleaner was on my to-do list, and damn it, I was going to make sure I would tick that one off the list as soon as possible, so that I could focus on other more important tasks.
Unfortunately, the person I hired was unsuitable in a way that was quite stressful.
I also completely ignored my intuition when I was traveling to the US recently. I needed to find a place to stay and my first choice was not available so I picked another which looked like it was exactly what I needed. However, when I was about to book, my intuition told me that if I must stay there, it was best to book for a very short period only.
Instead, I did the opposite and booked it for 8 nights. Of course, there turned out to be an unusual flaw with the accommodation (a flaw that I had personally never encountered before, and which was not mentioned in the description) that made staying there unpleasant.
Your intuition can protect you from dangerous situations, subpar accommodation and wasting your time, energy or money, to give but a few examples.
But it can also be quite annoying and inconvenient to heed at times…
It may mean passing up a really good opportunity “on paper” and everyone thinking you’re crazy.
It may mean that you offend someone.
It may mean waiting when all you want to do is move forward.
It may mean letting go of what you want and instead embracing what you need.
However, to follow our intuition, we need to be prepared to embrace inconveniences, delays and annoyances; and to be open to saying ‘no’, or even possibly offending someone.
Because at the end of the day, the results of not listening to your intuition are always going to be WORSE than the inconvenience of having to heed it!
Have you ever had an experience where you didn’t listen to your intuition and regretted it?
The reason, I think why we don’t listen to our intuition is because our ego often gets in the way. Reasons vary from we don’t want to offend the other person, or the what if’s: What if I don’t take this chance?” or “What if I’m wrong?” There have been times when I wished I had paid
attention to that heavy feeling in my gut or the uneasiness I felt when being around someone. Later, my
feelings proved to be correct.. much to my detriment..
but also great learning on my part too! 🙂
Wow, perfect timing for me to read this ! I am thinking about a job-related meeting that is scheduled for a couple of weeks from now, and part of me wants to see if I can move it up sooner, but my intuition keeps saying to wait. While there is discomfort in waiting, I know my intuition keeps sending me the ‘wait’ message. My “issue” is that I always want to know “why” instead of just knowing my intuition has proven itself MANY times. Once when I didn’t listen to my intuition I pestered a friend about something too much and it hurt our friendship. Thanks for the great article Anna
OMG, YES!!! This is a huge part of why I want to strengthen my intuitive abilities! Good to know that even when you are “intuitive” that you can miss it due to NOT LISTENING (especially when it doesn’t seem to make sense)!
This has happened to me, sometimes I listen and sometimes I don’t and have many regretful memories.
But I don’t know when it is my laziness/anxieties speaking or when it is my intuition speaking.
One more important thing, even when I was sure of my gut feelings, it was always not possible avert the situation. I most of the times knew I would not have a hurtful/bitter experience when prospective guys for arranged marriage would come to ‘see me’. It was not possible to avoid these situation by saying my gut says NO. What to do in such situations even when you know what is coming forth?
I have delved a lot into this for quite sometime now
Thanks for another great and insightful piece of writing, Anna!
Oh yes, I’ve definitely ignored that uneasy feeling. A few years ago I was troubled with people parking over my drive and they would become aggressive if I needed to take my car out. Along with this my neighbour decided to cut part of my hedge down low. At the time I understood these things were trying to tell me something but I love this house and although we thought about moving I convinced myself there were many reasons to stay. Five years on and the field at the back of my house has been sold and an estate of houses has been built blocking out my beautiful view of the Welsh hills. I still believe that my intuition was trying very hard to tell me it was time to move but I didn’t have the confidence to believe in it. I do now!
I’m guilty of this. But sometimes too my intuition feels like it’s exaggerated. I’ve had terrible gut feelings only to discover the situation is not so bad!
In the past I’ve relied too much on asking others for their intuition about my life, which only led to reliance on psychics and so on.
Learning your own intuition, and taking each day as a surprise… that’s the best route I think 🙂
Nice post, as always – love your site and am always looking forward to your new posts!
I have an ignoring your intuition story that I will never forget. It was when I was about seventeen or eighteen. I was at the mall with a friend of mine who has been my friend since childhood. She had a license and car of her own so every now and then I would go out with her for a sense of freedom. I’ve always been a very shy, careful and intuitive person. This one time though, I ignored it so I wouldn’t disappoint my friend. While we were on one of our adventures in the mall, these two strangers approached us. These guys had obviously thought we were cute and wanted to try to talk to us. I, not too keen with talking with strangers and in a long term relationship could care less at all, I had to hold back rolling my eyes at them, they were basically “hitting” on us in not the most respectful way. My friend, who was single,was for some reason interested by them and exchanged her phone number.
A few hours later they called her and invited her over to their house. She wanted me to go with her so she wouldn’t be going alone. I didn’t feel comfortable, but ignoring my intuition I went along anyways. I remember even suggesting waiting in the car and talking outside instead but she coaxed me and said “let’s go, it’ll be fine.” We went upstairs and there were a group of guys just hanging out, everything was okay, I just had this awkward feeling of really not wanting to be there. One of them was talking to me at one point with unwanted compliments. I told him about my boyfriend. He laughed and said “Oh you should just leave him.” At that moment, there was a loud bang and I looked over and this giant crucifix that was nailed up on the wall had fallen down on it’s own. I just knew that was my cue to get out of there. “Time to go.” I said to my friend and then we left shortly after that. Not that everyone has the “worst” of intentions in the world, but these people were complete strangers and I went against my strongest judgment to help out and not disappoint my friend. I still remember that horrible feeling of ignoring my intuition, I’ll never do that again!
Hi Anna, Lovely to be here and this is such an important post. My worst totally ignore my intuition story was involving a guy. I went to this meeting for a job and the guy running it was handsome, wealthy and SUCH a charmer. I actually heard the words, “run” in my head and poo-pooed them.. surely THIS sweet charming guy couldn’t be bad news? Well – yup – turned out to be an emotionally abusive relationship that took me literally a couple of years to get out of and ended with the guy stalking me.. sigh… The good thing is I always remember this moment when my intuition says to do something and I want to argue. Luckily there are many more stories where I know following my intuition was a great thing and saved me lots of heartache and I like to focus on those and use the other one as a built-in intuition enforcer. 😉 Sending love, <3
Hi Susan K,
I think sometimes we might need to ignore intuition to get a reminder of why it’s good to listen to it
Susan Mercier – that’s a good point…when we don’t listen to ourselves, we can become dependent on other peoples’ opinions and impressions!
Jenny – Wow, yes, I can see how that experience was a good motivator for listening to your intuition in future!! Nice to see you here 🙂
Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences and thoughts!
I find when I ignore the “intuitive” signs, my body goes into complete chaos. For instance, last night I was supposed to do readings at a wine tasting event and something told me “no go”, but I proceeded with getting myself together, but as the day progressed, a headache came on; sore throat; all my nails snapped off; and I misplaced my glasses (which showed up on the coffee table this morning). Then, there are times when I just don’t want to do something and my intuition kicks in making doing it more positive and optimistic. So, pay attention to that “sense”!
I have dream pt of things that eventually occurred, most of these dreams are warnings. I don’t dream often but I know if they are to be taken seriously.
The worst was when I dream pt my son was missing over the weekend and I was getting worried. Then suddenly he entered the front door his head shaved and a circular scar on his right side and he wasn’t all himself mentally., not serious but like his memory wasn’t all good. I woke up crying desperate to tell him what I just dream pt to warn him, he was angry I dreampt something horrible and would not really listen. I was serious and both my brother and I took four hours to coax him to leave my house and live with his uncle. He decided to listen but wanted to say goodbye to his friends. Unfortunately, they changed his mind . Two weeks later Chris knocked on the door late and told me my son was in hospital. I knew that two of his friends had on purpose put him in this position to be badly beaten by a professional mu-ay Thai boxer, because they were jealous of his popularity. Visiting him he insisted I was being stupid until his surgeon turned up and explained he had to operate and needed to make an incision where I dream pt it would be. I then knew to never disregard important warnings, but whether or not it could stop it I’m not sure. My younger son said it seemed he had joined a gang and earn t his beanie, where his friend turned up to the hospital with it. I don’t know the truth but I know for some reason his friend ended up doing professional mu-ay Thai boxing.
I also fell asleep whilst driving down the freeway at 100km/hr, suddenly I felt my leg press into the brake on its own involuntarily. I woke upon the sudden halt to see a light blue car in front stopped. I had been fast asleep and I guess my guardian angel saved my life and that of others. Mind you the car is a heavy ute and manual. No one believes me.
On another occasion I suddenly started to hear a coat hanger bang which was hung on a door in the en-suite, although there was no wind. It would wake me up in time to get ready for court and appointments, I never knew my friend who stayed in my room had passed away. Upon a reading from a class member he described her looks exactly and even told me she is showing her wooden jewellery box. It was a box I had found buried in sand, which her father had given her. It meant a lot to her because it had little animal carvings which her father gave her every time he went away.
Yes, and it was the worst 3 minutes of my life. the whole time i closed my eyes and tried to remember the person, as they were a decade ago but it didn’t work. I found out after he was married..and lied about it. I should have never invited him over or let him indirectly invite himself over.. i knew there was a possibility that we might be together and I ignored it. I had a headache for 2 weeks not only that, when he kissed me, whatever he was going through , went inside of me. the soul tie was hard to break.. He confirmed my suspicions but didn’t want to tell me because he wanted to be with me but was going through a messy marriage and thought he had options. I never knew he wanted a second chance or was trying to fix what never happen years when we first met. He saw me and he was like, no I let you get away the first time, this is not happening again. One of my favorite actors I met wanted to sleep with me and I brushed it off but when I saw him and we were talking about the arts.. It was very clear and we parted and I never saw him again. He clearly did not want to work with me, he wanted something more.