I am a completely different person from the one I was in my teens and twenties, and I believe the biggest reason is that I learnt to listen to my intuition. I had no idea what I was starting when I began. I just knew I was tired of living in my head.
As a highly sensitive person, I was an anxious, indecisive, overthinking perfectionist. I couldn't understand how other people knew what they wanted, or how they could make a decision in a snap. What were they doing that I couldn't do?
Here are four ways listening to my intuition changed my life, and how it could change yours too.
1. You stop overthinking
My intuitive journey started at the end of my second long-term relationship. In both relationships, my intuition had been shouting that it was time to go. My head argued that we could make it work. My heart was desperate to stay. But it was my intuition that made the final call both times, and it was right.
So I decided to ask my intuition first. It sounds simple, but it was a radical shift for me. I started with everyday decisions:
What time to get the train
Where to go on holiday
Which book to buy
Which class to take
Small choices like these are the best place to start. You build trust with your intuition in low stakes situations, so that when a big nudge arrives, you already know what it feels like. Mine came after that breakup. I knew it was time to leave my job, leave my industry and leave the city I was living in.
I moved back home with no plan. It looked crazy and it felt crazy, and I was a bit of a mess if I'm honest. But because I had practised on the small things, I could follow the big nudge even without the answers.
For those of us who are highly sensitive, this is a huge relief. Overthinking often comes from taking in so much information that we can't sort it. Dropping into your intuitive knowing cuts through the noise. It gives you one clear answer instead of fifty options.
Your intuition will point the way, but you still have to walk it. If someone handed you a book of all the answers, you wouldn't learn anything. Think of maths homework. If your parents had done it for you, you'd never have learnt the skill. You needed to try, get it wrong and figure it out yourself. Intuition works the same way.
2. You learn to say no
The first thing my intuition taught me was how often I was saying yes when it was saying no. I began what I now call my year of saying no. As a people pleaser, this was not easy!
Listening to your intuition isn't only about knowing what to lean into. It also tells you which conversations to avoid, who to stop spending time with, and which opportunities aren't worth your energy. To act on that, you have to be able to say no.
It also means trusting yourself as the authority on what you need, even when you can't back it up with evidence. I've changed career direction twice in my life. Both times, friends and family asked, "What are you doing? Are you nuts?" It made no logical sense from the outside, especially without a plan. I had to say no to their opinions, and to tradition and expectation, and trust what I knew inside.
Saying no is what helped me find my yes. For years, my career felt like a voice saying, "Not quite this. Close, but there's something more." I didn't know what the something was. Each no narrowed it down until I found my own way of working as an intuitive healer and channel.
It also shaped the courses I created, when I created them, and the people who came to work with me. I was never given the full plan. I was given the next stepping stone, and I trusted it. Every time I said no to what wasn't right, the next step became clearer. None of it looks like anyone else's path, and that's the point. We each receive information differently and have different gifts. Your intuition knows yours, and saying no clears the way for you to use them.
3. You become your authentic self
This is one of the best things that happens when you listen to your intuition. You find out who you actually are, underneath everything you were taught to think and do.
Many of us who are highly sensitive spend years shaping ourselves around other people. We read the room, work out what everyone needs and adjust to fit. After a while, we don't know what we want, because we're so used to knowing what everyone else wants.
Your intuition works differently. It helps you know what is really happening, beneath what people say or what things look like on the surface. It shows you what is alive in a situation, what is true for the people around you, and what is true for you. You can then respond appropriately and be in flow.
For example, when I run my training, I have the material I've written to teach. But I'm intuitively guided on whether to stick to the plan, jump to another day's material, pause for a break, or move into channelled healing. I know when someone has a question. I'm reading the room and the people moment by moment, and responding to what is needed. It makes the training more impactful, more meaningful and more healing. It responds to what is alive rather than following a dry format.
This is also how you become your authentic self. When you can tell what is really going on, you stop guessing and second-guessing. You can see what belongs to other people and what belongs to you.
Every time I followed my intuition, I learnt a little more about myself. What I liked and didn't like. Who I felt good around and who drained me. What kind of work lit me up and what left me flat. I stopped asking "What should I do?" and started asking "What do I actually want?" It was slow, and some of it was uncomfortable, but over time I stopped feeling like I was wearing somebody else's shoes.
4. You develop your subtle awareness
Following my intuition also opened up the subtle energy and spirit world to me. I had always been a seeker, and I'd always felt there was more to life than study, work and die. I was often told I thought too much. It turned out I was picking up on far more than I knew.
In my late twenties I walked into a Buddhist centre and felt at home. There were people asking the same big questions I was, about consciousness and how to live. I started studying, meditating and going on retreats. That same month I began my shiatsu training.
Shiatsu taught me to connect with the subtle energy of the body, mind and emotions. I started to see and feel the emotions and memories of the person I was working on, and even the spirit guides around them. In meditation, memories surfaced and energy moved through my body. Some of it was scary, because I was also beginning to face old experiences my system had been holding onto.
This explained a lot about my lifelong overwhelm. Some of it was the information I was picking up from others, and some was my own unprocessed emotion. I had no tools to tell the difference. Learning to work with both made my awareness clearer and more refined.
Buddhism gave me a map of ethics. Shiatsu gave me energetic awareness. But I still wanted to know how to just know what to do. What both gave me was the confidence to notice the different levels of response in me. I began to know what I felt rather than what I thought. I listened in, quietened my mind and responded instead of overriding myself. My intuitive voice got clearer and louder.
Your turn
Looking back, the best thing I ever did was start small. I asked my intuition about a train time, and it eventually led me to a whole new life.
If you're a highly sensitive person who overthinks everything, I'd love you to try this. Pick one small decision today and ask your intuition before your head. Notice what you feel, and go with it.
Intuitive Development Training
Ready to understand and strengthen your intuitive gifts? My Intuitive Development Course for highly sensitives and empaths shows you how to trust and develop your inner knowing Intuitive Development Course.
