Bringing my Intuition to Work

It turns out my intuition knows a thing or two about business.

I had everything prepared to launch a leadership course for entrepreneurs a couple weeks ago. Mentally I was ready to go, everything was organized and I had a good plan in place.

But there was something holding me back. A deeper voice telling me to wait.

My mind was not happy about this. "Time is of the essence!" it reminded me.

"It's now or never!"

"What are you waiting for?"

"You put so much work into this already it would be a waste to delay."

These thoughts trailed on and on. I sat there for two days feeling stuck. Is this a block? A fear? A resistance I need to overcome?

Or is this my intuition telling me to wait?

I have learned to differentiate between the voices of my mind and my intuition. My mind has a million reasons for why to do or not to do something. It rationalizes it all in a hope to convince me it's the right path.

My intuition has a softer voice. She doesn't need a reason for feeling how she feels. She doesn't try to puff up her chest and stand up to my mind.

She just whispers to me, "Wait."

This time, I could hear her, but I couldn’t listen to her because my mind was still running its narrative. 

Or rather, I was allowing my mind to run its narrative.

When I remembered that it’s in my power to master my thoughts, I closed my laptop, walked to the river, and sat there for about an hour. No phone, no laptop, no thinking.

As I stared into the white water rushing over the stones, my mind quieted and a clear image emerged. 

Metamorphosis. 

I allowed the image to unfold some more.

It’s a small group of women. All going through a transformation. Hold them in a chrysalis and support them in their process. 

I felt in my body what it would feel like to lead this group. Ideas for different topics, exercises and tools flooded through my mind. I grabbed my notebook to try to record them as they passed through my awareness. 

And then I sat there in gratitude. 

 Yes. This is what needs to come first. This is alive for me right now. This is where I start.

It’s so funny how these things happen. I had just spent a week doing market research calls for the business leadership course, and I definitely noticed that most people I spoke with expressed that they’re going through a personal transformation right now. 

But my rational mind was so attached to launching the leadership course that it didn’t pay close enough attention to this pattern. It didn’t consider maybe there was something else that wanted to emerge first.  It wanted to continue on the path in front of me simply because I’d started down it. Not because continuing was the right thing to do.

Thankfully, my intuition picked up on it. And thanks to the river, which cleared my mind and my body, I was able to access it and trust in what she was guiding me to do.

So within a week, I created the materials for Chrysalis, a small group program for women. I filled most of the spots. I feel alive and clear and calm in the process for holding space for these women.

This is what alignment feels like. This is what trusting your intuition in business feels like. (And this is what nature helps us gain access to!)

It is a constant practice in life to learn to trust our intuition. And I find it’s even harder to do this with work because we’re so conditioned to rely on our minds for all the answers. 

But we are so much more than our minds. We have access to so much wisdom, if we just learn how to listen and trust. 

Especially in the workplace. Because the workplace is not just ‘business’ where you should cut off parts of yourself to get the job done. No, work is a personal journey too (especially entrepreneurship!) and deserves to be treated with the same curiosity and experimentation that we bring into our everyday lives. 

When we recognize all of the portals of information we have access to as worthy and relevant, we can function at a higher level, we create lives that feel fully aligned, and we can be of the most service.

Trust. Trust. Trust.