As a small child, I remember having "feelings" about things that happened all around me. I would lie in bed at night and go over situations in my head. Sometimes I would determine there was no possible way there could be a good outcome, but deep inside, I would feel like everything was going to be alright. Then the next day, or in the days following, three or four or five things would happen in a sort of crazy chain reaction, that somehow, some way, would bring about a positive end.
Over the years, my feelings would take the form of a sort of warning I would hear in my head. On one occasion, my family was pulling into the parking lot at Disneyland, all six of us. I was about twelve. In our left turn into the parking lot, a renegade trans am pulled in front of the cars that had the green arrow. The nervy teenager began to shout at my father as he helped my baby sister out of her carseat. My father kept his cool and told the young man that he (my father) had the right-of-way. Needless to say, I had a bad feeling and I secretly wrote down the license plate on a scrap of paper I found on the floor of our full-size conversion van. We came out after the electric light parade around 11pm with four sleepy kids and found four very flat tires. The next morning, I gave that slip of paper to my father and he patted me on the shoulder and said, "Well done." I think that may have been the first time I realized I should listen to my feelings.
When I was a freshman in college, I was having some problems with migraines and temporary blindness that often accompanies. I was scheduled to have exploratory surgery so the neurologist could determine if I had a brain tumor on my frontal lobe, but I couldn't help but thinking everything was going to be okay. I didn't really talk about it during the weeks I had to wait for the results because, I guess, I thought I didn't need to. On Thanksgiving Day, yes, some lab person was actually working on a holiday, called and asked for me. I answered the phone and they gave me my results. Negative. I said thank you and have a Happy Thanksgiving, not really thinking much of it. I turned around and my mom and grandma were both standing there, turkey basters in hand, asking, "Was that the doctor?" I nodded yes. "Well, what did they say?" "Oh, negative," I said, pretty oblivious to the sobbing that was about to ensue.
So before, after, and in between these two scenarios, I have had thousands of feelings that often come true. I don't think that makes me any different from anybody else. I just think it means I am better at listening to what my heart and my mind are telling me. You can do it, too.
