Honing connection to intuition and heart

One of the things I realize more and more, is that everything I take on, can be a source of life lessons. For example, for the last three months, I have been emersed in an extendsive, intensive, remodeling project, that has encluded the removal of major walls, adding walls of windows and remodeling my kitchen.

Even though I have been working with a contractor and a designer on the side, I was still in the role of primary designer and general contractor. I had never done this before and I did not even know what my preferences were for the end result. It's been exciting, stimulating, stressful and exhausting.

In order to manage this, I found myself having to have a crash course to learn everything I could about making the best decisions for each element that went into creating a kitchen: the overall layout, electrical and plumbing choices, cabinets, counter tops, fixtures, etc.
There have been many life lessons learned.

One of the key lessons has been my own decision making process, particularly, learning to notice and pay attention to my intuition and deeper heartfelt preferences. Because I had never done this before, I needed to search out experts or talk with several vendors in order to understand what the parameters were for making decisions that would result in high quality, cost effective and esthetically pleasing choices. I started noticing that there were often times in this process when I would be aware of an internal 'nudge' or leaning in one direction of choice over another; or when I would start to feel uneasy when an expert would urge me to make a decision based on what everyone else does in a similar situation, and yet it didn't feel quite right to me.

In the beginning, I would override that 'nudge' or sense of uneasiness and would instead, go with what the expert suggested, only to get home and notice that the uneasy feeling would be growing. In each situation I 'went back to the drawing board' and got more information and asked a lot more questions; not only gathering more relevant information, but in the process, uncovering the intuitive wisdom that was embedded in the signal that those nudges, and uneasy feelings were about. I was uncovering my own preferences and true choice making from this intuitive signaling. This has been important leaning for me, because, while this has been like a giant 3-D art project, the consequences of the choices are ones I will have to live with for a long time.

Learning not to over ride my own wisdom and intuition and learning to listen to my hearts preferences has been an important journey as an adult. There are many times in the past, when I did not pay attention and overrode that signal and had to live with unintended consequences.
Buying this house was an example where I did not listen and there were big consequences.

Ten years ago, I was looking for a new house. Based on all appearances, this house looked like a great buy. It is an architecturally designed contemporary house with vaulted ceilings, great space, great views and a prime location. Everyone said it was a fantastic buy.

And yet, I had an underlying uneasiness. I double checked with all the experts who confirmed it was a great buy. So I bought it. What I discovered three years later, was that the bushes on the neighbors property below me, that I assumed was a hedge, were actually cedar trees that are destined to be 75 feet tall. They have already cut off a major portion of my spectacular view. What I learned 6 years after buying the house is that there was an unreported, ongoing leak inside the walls of a downstairs bedroom. When we finally opened the wall, we discovered dry rot that had been going on under the surface for so long, beams that were 4inches x 20inches were totally rotted through. This required major reconstruction and resulted in major costs.

So, even though everything looked good on the surface, some part of me knew intuitively that there was a major problem. I don't know exactly what I woud have done differently if I had paid attention to the gut feeling of uneasiness. I don't know if I would have investigated further, found the problems and renegotiated or just walked away. Whatever I would have done,
I would have saved myself a LOT of grief, sleepless nights and money.

So, learning to pay attention to my intuition has very practical applications and can have significant consequences when I do and don't listen. This has been true in many aspects of my life. That is why it is so important to me to continue to hone my ability to notice an listen to that inner signal and wisdom.

I am wondering what has been your experience with your own intuition?
Are you aware of it?
How does it signal you?
What have been the results of following or disregarding that signal?
I would love to hear from you.
Patricia