Epiphany #48,289,837

Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Crimes to the Third Degree.

Ironic, isn’t it? Some of the best intuitives I’ve ever known cannot see for themselves and help themselves in the same way they see for and help other people. At a Friday spiritual Gathering, I offhandedly mention how often I’ve been berated for not trusting my intuition when it comes to my own life, but how my instincts tend to be dead-on for so many other people.

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I explain how I’ve sometimes felt defensive because of the way others have told me that I should simply trust my own intuition and that I must be deficient somehow if I need to know things or want to know details or have to see confirmation in front of me.

“Well, of course, you do!” the woman at the kitchen table exclaims. “And you know why, too, don’t you?”

I’m silent. I have my own theories but obviously she has one, too. I’m curious.

“You’re just learning how good your intuition is, Lorna. You need cold hard facts to verify it for you so you know you’re right until you know for sure what being right feels like.”

I nod. “Yes, I know that. I still wish I didn’t have such a need to prove my intuition is right.”

“Of course, you have a need to prove it right. Anyone who knows you, really _knows_ you, knows why you need to know your intuition is right.”

Okay. So do I not know myself? “You may know why,” I tell her, “but I don’t.”

She smiles that intuitive smile of hers, seeing in me what I can’t see in myself. “All your life, you’ve been intuitive but you’ve been told over and over that you were wrong. Your parents, your husband, your friends, everybody. They’ve sent you the message that you don’t know what you’re talking about unless you have cold hard facts or unless they happen to agree with you. You know that you don’t need to validate your intuition when it comes to other people, but when it comes to you and to those closest to you, your past dictates that you need to know for sure, that you need to be sure before you act.”

She leans forward. “And that, darling, is what happens when you’ve been undermined all your life.”

Then she settles back into her chair. “But like I said, people who really know you understand why you sometimes still need confirmation of what your intuition is telling you.”

This is a new epiphany. Not the years of feeling undermined when it came to my not-hard-science beliefs, but the idea that the people who’ve taunted me for doubting my intuition weren’t close enough to recognize either about the years of undermining…or that their criticism only compounded the undermining.


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