When Intuition Opens Again
Four years ago I abruptly stopped a course I was taking, the SAGE Method by Isabeau Maxwell. An intuitive development program whose name stands for Spirituality, Alignment, Growth, and Empowerment. I’d been through a deep clearing at that time. What I didn’t expect was that once the dark and heavy had been cleared out, the good would leave too. Everything that had felt light and flowing was gone, and I was so disappointed. There was just an empty and hollow feeling left. I was five weeks in when I stopped the course and went back to everyday life.
I had thought about the course over the last four years and how I was only two weeks shy of finishing it. There were many times I thought and talked about restarting it. What finally brought me back was meeting others doing similar inner and energetic work, and something inside me lit back up. The pull I'd been carrying for so long felt stronger than the reason I'd stopped.
I restarted, and almost immediately the resistance showed back up. The doubt and the procrastination crept in, along with the familiar questions about whether this would actually work or whether I'd get anything out of it. The course begins with grounding and belief. From there it moves into the inner work, the shadow work, and the limiting beliefs. It also teaches you to recognize the patterns that get in the way so you can respond instead of react. It’s the same foundation I keep coming back to.
I also gave myself permission to not be so rigid this time. It’s a seven week course, but I’m not forcing it into seven weeks. I’m trusting that however it unfolds is how it’s meant to unfold for me, and that permission alone took so much of the pressure off. What surprised me was how quickly things started opening up. Not even a full week in, I began sensing things in new ways. It wasn’t just seeing but hearing and even smelling, senses I didn’t expect to come alive so soon.
What’s been harder to admit is how much joy I’d lost along the way. It has been a hard stretch with my health, especially since the summer. So much of my daily life had gone blah and mundane without me quite noticing. One of the early exercises asks you to track how many minutes a day you smile and how many minutes a day you laugh. When I filled it in, I wrote one minute for each, and seeing that on the page made me pause. I’ve known for a long time that I needed to put the joy back in. Trying iced coffees at different shops and finally registering for a sea glass class had been on my mind for a while, along with finding more reasons to laugh. I didn’t truly begin until this week.
What stays with me is how small the beginning actually was. I chose one small thing to start, opening the course and watching one or two brief modules over four days. Then I completed a single piece of the homework each night, and that was enough. I missed a couple nights, but felt no guilt or frustration. Sometimes life happens, and I will continue.
Whatever you've been putting off, the thing that keeps living in the back of your mind, know that you don't have to achieve all of it today. Choose one small piece and begin there, and see what starts to open up for you. Whatever you've been waiting to come back to, it may have been waiting for you too.
