Learning to Trust My Intuition

Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.

~Florence Scovel Shinn

One hot San Diego day in mid-July, I slumped in the waiting-room chair of the car dealership, my hand resting on my pregnant belly. As luck would have it, my oil change finished early. I realized I was only minutes away from the thrift store where a friend of mine had worked, so I headed over with renewed energy.

When I stepped into the store, though, my heart became heavy with grief. It had only been a few weeks since the world had lost such a kind person. He was only thirty-two years old.

A part of me refused to believe he was really gone.

I found myself drawn to the used-book section in the back of the store. I had a strong sense there was a book I needed to find.

Running my fingers along the uneven spines, I scanned the titles, asking for my friend’s guidance. My hand finally stopped on a book wrapped in a blue jacket. Carefully sliding it out from the bookshelf, a smile stretched across my face.

This was it — a book I’d been hearing about over and over in a recording from an inspirational speaker I’d seen the previous year. “Dr. Wayne Dyer wrote a book some odd years ago — not ‘you’ll believe it when you see it,’ but You’ll See It When You Believe It,” Esther Hicks had said. I’d vowed to read it someday. Well, that day had come.

As I thumbed through the pages, I couldn’t help but notice that the book remained in pristine condition despite being published in 1989. My jaw dropped as I discovered words scrawled across the title page: Wayne Dyer’s signature.

I’d always believed in the power of intuition, and that loved ones continue to guide us long after they physically leave our sides. But I’d never been 100 percent sure. As I held the book to my chest that day, I silently thanked my friend for the sign, trying to trust in it.

My elation grew as I randomly opened to a chapter titled “Synchronicity” — the idea that seemingly coincidental events happen for a deeper purpose. That was reinforced just a few days later by a post on Wayne Dyer’s Facebook page: “Read the books that mysteriously show up in your life.” Another sign.

A month later, I heard the devastating news that Wayne Dyer had passed away from a heart attack in his sleep. I became overwhelmed with a mix of emotions: immense sadness for the Dyer family; disappointment that I’d only just discovered Wayne’s work; gratitude that his teachings would continue to change people’s lives long after he’d left the Earth.

As excited as I was to read it, I was so busy preparing for my daughter’s arrival that I didn’t get around to finishing the book. And as soon as she was born, I wanted only to rest alongside her, inhaling her baby scent and watching her as she dozed. Not to mention, a book with such deep concepts probably would’ve gone right over my head on so little sleep!

I didn’t read the book until almost a year later. Near the end, I came to a part where Wayne described his anger over a legal battle that had haunted him for nearly two years — until he realized he was going about things all wrong. He let go of the anger that tormented him, replacing any negative feelings with love. He sent flowers and copies of his books to the people who were suing him, and miraculously, just like that, the case was dropped. Forgiveness, he explained, was the key.

Reading this sparked something in my mind. I recalled a post that Wayne’s daughter had shared on her Facebook page about a similar experience she was going through with a legal situation.

Maybe I’m supposed to share this with her because she needs the reminder, I thought. Maybe I didn’t finish the book last year for a reason. Had I finished the book a year ago, I might not have even made the connection. While I wasn’t sure how to contact her, or if my revelation would even matter to her, I set it aside. Months passed, and while I occasionally thought about writing to her, one day I decided I’d just do it. But would she even care?

“Hopefully, everything’s been resolved, and you don’t need this message after all, but sending it anyway with love,” I wrote after telling her the story. Then I pointed out the page numbers and nervously hit Send, trying to trust my intuition.

The next day, I was surprised to see that she’d answered. My eyes welled with tears as I read her words. About three weeks prior, she wrote, her father had come to her in a dream, urging her to read You’ll See It When You Believe It because the answer to the legal situation was in the book. She’d told her sister about the dream, and they both planned to read it, but hadn’t done so yet.

“It makes me laugh to think that my dad was probably trying so hard to get me to understand this message, first by visiting me in my dream and also by urging you to send the message to me. He must’ve thought that I’m so stubborn he won’t even try to get me to read the whole book, so he’ll have to settle with just pointing out the page numbers! I can’t tell you how happy this makes me! Thank you so much!”

I couldn’t help but smile through the tears streaming down my face. And then it hit me: It’s so easy to dismiss an intuitive thought as just a thought — something meaningless we made up. And we can convince ourselves that it really wasn’t our lost loved one sending us a sign or showing up in our dreams, letting us know they’re okay. That despite the pain and emptiness we feel without them, we’ll be okay, too. It may not be the words we yearn to hear in our loved one’s familiar voice, but I knew in the moments after reading her response that the guidance we receive is as real as words will ever be.

I vowed then to never take my intuition for granted. Even if doubt starts to creep in, I’ll always remember Wayne’s wise words and his message: “If you really, really want to see it, first you must truly believe.”

— Danielle Soucy Mills —