Introducing: My next Great Adventure

“I mean, what we just did in there … we were never taught that in school.” 

Sweat dripped down my stomach as I took another glug of water, listening to my new friend. Why is it that such juicy, secretive conversations tend to surface in the sauna?

 

She was right. But what we had just “done in there”—thirteen women armed with our secret devices—actually wasn’t a secret at all. 

Yet what had emerged moments before was still about to further uproot my world.

In last month’s blog post, I dished about the revelation of in-person sisterhood I didn’t know I was starving for. Darn if that retreat didn’t swoop in to accelerate a wealth of clarity I had already been seeking. With mountains surrounding us and the absence of choppers and road rage came a chance to hear other things. Like the skill my life coach, Rebecca, was about to help us strengthen step-by-step —one I’ve never seen printed in an algebra textbook or AP biology workbook. You know, stuff that prepares us for "the real world."

But honestly, when the last time you whipped out a skill busting move you learned in pre-calc? And how often do you thank the heavens for memorizing each and every element of the periodic table?

Now let me ask you this: how often do you make a decision?

According to experts, some 35,000 times a day.

When will I unload the dishwasher? What’ll I tackle next on the to-do list? Which word do I wanna use for this email’s greeting line? What shirt will I wear today? 

Traditionally, we’re taught to make those decisions by solely using our head. Pro/con list kinda stuff (Dad, I know you’re reading this so don’t worry, I still love and use them . . . on occasion). We turn to what makes sense, what logically has the chance of the “best” outcome. Maybe, what even feels safest.

Yet, we seem to forget another method. One that we, too, can lean on that makes an excellent supplement to our tried and true logic flexing. Especially when it comes to not-so-little decisions.

You know, like, where to live. A teeny tiny subject I’ve been wrestling with for oh, a while now.

What got my new friend and I chatting looked pretty "normal" from the outside. Before jumping into the sauna, we women circled up, wriggled around and got the kinks out of our bodies. Got still and took some long, deep breaths.

Then, we each asked ourselves a question. Simple, just one at a time. Like, “What’s the next step for me?” or “What do I need to know most right now?” We sat back, and — drum roll, people — listened for the answer to emerge inside of us. Like, actually sat back and waited instead of doing what so many of our minds are tempted to do: rush to make one up.

I know what you’re thinking. Where’s the witchcraft or magic potion? Or the Magic 8 ball?

credit: Chelsea Kosec

Well, for some, the “magic” comes not so much from the side of a cube covered in ink. But perhaps the form of an image that faintly emerges. Or a word that springs to mind, sometimes a phrase. Maybe a feeling in the body. Whatever the message's form, it all stems from the same language: our intuition. And often, that can feel otherworldly.

Sure, some people call it inner wisdom or even the language of the soul, which has a lovely little ring to it. No matter what you call it though, we’re all born with it, and as long as we’re around, it never leaves us. But to fully tap into it, it helps to have three things that so many people in today’s fast, digital world have a hard time maintaining: focus, quiet, and trust. 

credit: Chelsea Kosec

(By the way, this intuitive muscle derives from the same one I rely on to channel during my animal communication sessions. If flexed over and over again, we start to learn our individual intuition “accents.”  Rebecca and my friend Cindy Luffred, a renowned medium, co-created a fantastic workshop called Soul Talks to help break this process down into tangible steps which is pure gold, helping to take the mystery out of it.) 

That afternoon in Taos, the messages I received didn’t exactly trickle in . . . they flooded my page. My hand could barely keep up with the pace. I received a bunch of intuitive hits during this interview with myself, which was great! Fab! Hooray!

But there’s another layer to all of this work. After we’ve heard a message, are we actually gonna act on it? 

Among those marks on the page was this: Leave the building.

That was it. No paragraph of detailed map coordinates for where to go. No laundry list of follow-up items and the order to do them. Just three words streaming in at once. That was my next step? Oooooof.

I braced myself for a doozy of reintegration back to “real life” on the plane back to DC. Minutes before midnight, I twisted the front door knob. That's when my phone buzzed. It was Rebecca. “Did you make it home safely?”

Home safely. And that was the clincher: There was no denying that every strand of my intuition screamed, this just isn’t the same kind of home anymore.

Cool. So . . . if not here, where?

I could go into the whole “home is where the heart is” bit, but since writers are taught to avoid cliches (like the plague!) I’ll simply share that I’m not upset about nomadic life having stitched itself into my skin from an early age. For all the new bedrooms and bus routes I’ve had to settle into over the last three decades, I’m glad for it. Because being on the move has helped me taste what I otherwise would never know to be so juicy. It's also taught me that I can be, truly deep down, okay almost anywhere.

So in a matter of weeks, back to my roots I go. 

This time, I'm selling a bunch of stuff, throwing the rest in storage and embarking on a multi-month travel adventure armed with a loose itinerary, a handful of people I’m dying to spend time with (including sisters and soul friends) and a few sunny, nature-y locations I feel oh-so-curious about. How long will I remain in each place? Where will I stay? How will I know when it's time to move on? There are so. many. questions. No shortage of decisions to be made. Some have furrowed their brows, finding it hard to grasp that, no, the point of this journey is not make it to an end destination. But to soak up what I otherwise may miss if I planned every single element out, relying solely on logic. We can have both intellect and intuition. Science and spirituality. And lots of valid ways to do life. My way of moving doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to some people. But that’s okay, because I don’t need it to. For now, I'm at peace knowing that le intuition will take a front seat guiding me along.

When we’re open to meandering from the syllabus, we make space for magic. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

P.S. I’m taking my animal communication sessions on the road, too! I’ve just re-opened my calendar through June and if you book before May 31, you’ll even get 20% off with the code WELCOME24. (No algebra skills necessary ;)

(If my car isn't stuffed with dogs or people on road trips, it's plants.)