Sometimes I love to sit in silence. I love stillness.
And sometimes I will literally do whatever I possibly can to avoid it.
It ebbs and flows.
I’ve noticed that when I am at my most peaceful, I am willing to be even more peaceful. I’ll sit quietly. I’ll meditate. I’ll listen. I’ll let things unfold.
But when I am less at peace? That seems to be exactly when I am less willing to do any of the things that might actually bring me back to peace.
Funny how that works.
Everyone is always talking about the flow.
Get in the flow.
Trust the flow.
Go with the flow.
And I’m over here like, Okay, but what time does the flow start?
Because if somebody could just tell me when the flow starts and approximately when it ends, I could plan accordingly. Sign me up. I will absolutely participate in the flow.
That is how tight my grip can get.
Sometimes I don’t want to let go and let God. I don’t want to hand it over to my Higher Power and keep it moving. Instead, I get tangled up. I get discombobulated. I get thrown off course, and sometimes I don’t even realize I needed to pivot until I’m already knee-deep in something much stickier than I ever intended.
But the more I allow myself to flow, the more peaceful I become. And the more peaceful I become, the more I want to protect that peace.
And when I get there? I get almost giddy about life. I feel like I’m cruising.
Things feel guided. Angelic, even.
And I think part of that is because when I am peaceful enough to get quiet, I can finally hear the difference between what I immediately want and what is actually true for me.
Take having a partner.
If you asked me quickly, “Do you want a partner?”
My immediate reaction would probably be, Yeah! That sounds amazing.
Someone to travel with. Someone to laugh with. Someone to share my life with. Someone just to have around.
Sounds fabulous.
Then you might ask, “Are you ready for one right now?”
And I’d probably go, “Uhhhh… I don’t know. That’s a little trickier.”
But if I actually sat down in silence and asked my truest self:
Do you want a partner right now?
The answer is no.
No, I don’t.
And that answer doesn’t feel sad. It doesn’t feel lonely. It doesn’t feel angry or scared.
It just feels true.
That’s the difference.
My immediate reaction can be exciting and loud and full of possibilities. My truth is quieter.
And I have to become quiet enough to hear it.
I recently heard someone describe a tarot card in a way that stuck with me. I may not remember every detail correctly, but what stayed with me was the image of the barking dog representing the ego.
I loved that.
Because my ego can be one loud-ass barking dog.
Buy this.
Fix this.
Call them.
Go there.
Make this happen.
Do more.
Figure it out.
Control it.
And meanwhile, somewhere underneath all that barking is my actual self saying:
Brooks. I’m right here.
The world gives us so much extra noise. We have our feelings, our emotions, other people’s feelings, other people’s opinions, things to buy, places to go, people to see, things to fix, things to accomplish, and a million different ways to distract ourselves from ever asking:
Is this actually true for me?
That’s the question I’ve become interested in.
Not: Does this sound fun?
Not: Could I make this work?
Not: Would other people understand this?
Not even: Do I want this in this exact emotional moment?
But:
Is this true for me?
Maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking so much lately about doing these little self-check-ins—almost like giving myself an internal exam before I walk into something.
Where is my energy?
Where is my mind?
Why am I doing this?
Am I being led by peace or by urgency?
Am I following intuition, or am I following emotion?
Because feelings are like a bouncy ball.
Boing.
They’re over here.
Boing.
Now they’re over there.
Happy. Sad. Excited. Lonely. Confident. Afraid. Hopeful. Irritated. Inspired.
And all of those feelings are real, but they don’t necessarily all contain my truth.
Intuition feels different.
For me, intuition is level.
It’s a straight frequency.
It’s not screaming. It’s not jumping around trying to convince me of something. It doesn’t need a PowerPoint presentation or a pros-and-cons list.
It just knows.
And when I’m following it, life almost begins to feel musical.
Like suddenly everything is in the same key.
One thing flows into another. I meet the right person. I say the right thing. I know when to stay. I know when to leave. I know when to move and when to be still.
It becomes a symphony.
But when I get disconnected from myself—when my ego starts barking and my emotions start bouncing and the chaos of the outside world gets louder than what’s happening inside of me—I get off-key.
And that’s usually when I start making the weird decisions.
That’s when I force. That’s when I grip. That’s when I try to control the flow instead of being in it.
So maybe finding my intuition isn’t about learning some magical new skill.
Maybe it’s about getting quiet enough to hear what has been there the entire time.
Sometimes that might mean sitting in silence for twenty minutes.
Sometimes maybe it’s two.
Sometimes it might literally be one breath before I walk through a door.
Wait. Where am I? What is true for me right now?
Because somewhere underneath the barking dog, underneath the bouncing emotions, underneath the noise of the world, and underneath everything I think I should want, there is a steady frequency.
My intuition. My center. My truth.
And the more often I can find that frequency, the less I have to chase the flow.
Because maybe that’s the whole joke.
The flow doesn’t have a start time.
I just have to stop gripping long enough to realize I’m already in it.
