I’m going to end our 10-Day Intuitive Reset with a story about a turning point in my own understanding of my intuition and how to partner with it. It’s a story about how I came to realize that in order to really foster my intuition, I was going to have to trust it unconditionally. Even when I didn’t understand what it was telling me.

But first, big THANK YOU’s are in order to all of you who participated! Your contributions made the Reset absolutely magical for all of us. Some of you shared comments and questions online, and some of you sent me emails and pm’s behind the scenes–I was just delighted by the way you all helped raise the level of the conversation! And to everyone who stopped by: Even if you didn’t have a chance to share, by reading the posts you embraced your intuition with openness, and together we helped pull it out of the margins a little bit more. I promise you, if you keep going it will be the best investment in yourself you’ll ever make.

Next week I’m going to do an AMA on Instagram, so keep sending me your questions! Plus, stay tuned for an exciting announcement about my live workshops in February! That’s right! I’m returning to teaching and leading workshops, and for those of you who don’t live in the area, there will be ways for you to participate online.

So, here’s the story.

A few years after I began my work as an intuitive, I had a friend who’d received two free tickets from Alaska Airlines because not only had they lost her luggage, some valuables were missing when her suitcases finally showed up weeks later. One of us had an idea to use the tickets to go to Seattle for a fun weekend. We picked a weekend about a month away.

Almost immediately, I started to feel uneasy about going. The feeling kept getting stronger as we approached our departure date.

I tried to use my intuition to figure out why I wasn’t supposed to go, but no other information came through that would help me understand. Every time I scanned for an answer (Is the plane unsafe? Are there problems with the hotel? Is the weather going to suck? Would the hotel’s hot water heater bust? Would someone attempt to roofie us in the hotel bar? Would my pets be unsafe at home? Would my apartment be burgled while I was away?) I only received this message back: CANCEL THE TRIP.

Now, there are many techniques I employ to make sure a message is accurate. I use them both when I’m reading for someone and when I’m gathering information for myself, and I used them repeatedly. No matter how many ways I tried to filter for clarification, I got zilch in return. It didn’t make any difference how specific or general my queries were about the situation, all I got back was a loud and resounding, “CANCEL THE TRIP”.

So I did. With five days to go, I called my friend and apologizing profusely, I explained that even though I didn’t really have a logical reason why–I couldn’t go.

Of course, I consumed the news that weekend ravenously. This was pre-internet so I scoured all the print and TV news outlets for any information on anything happening in Seattle that might shed any light whatsoever on the danger or discomfort we might be avoiding.

When there hadn’t been any relevant news by the end of the weekend, I realized there wasn’t going to be a way to get answers to my questions. And nothing special or out of the ordinary had happened while I was home.

Unless I had actually gone on the trip, thereby ignoring my gut and consequently experiencing the thing or things my intuition was asking me to avoid, I’d never know why.

I was completely out of options. Except for one.

It occurred to me to consider the entirely new idea that perhaps I didn’t actually need to know the reason I wasn’t supposed to go. I wanted to know why that was for sure. I even felt entitled to know, I mean it was my own intuition guiding me so didn’t it also owe me an explanation?

Yet I had spent nearly a month poking and prodding the message for justification, and I had nothing to show for it.

To this day, I have not gotten any more insight or information about why I wasn’t supposed to go. But this story has become one that I cherish deeply because it takes me back to that crossroads that we stand in so often: Should I stand here demanding proof or should I just go ahead and trust?

Some situations happen so fast we don’t have time to figure out why we know what we know. Some decisions feel worthy of a longer contemplation, especially those that could be far more impactful than whether to go on a quick holiday. But no matter where on this spectrum we find ourselves throughout each and every day, really trusting our intuition means there are going to be times when we need to move with it and not wait. The only question we need to answer is can I surrender my need for proof?

If we can do this, we’ll be the recipient of an ever-expanding amount of insight, assistance, and joy just when we need it and when it counts the most.