I Follow The Intuition Now 🔮
Less than a year at WSP (my 9-5 environmental consulting job) I am leaving for another job opportunity. My mind has struggled with this decision. But I follow the intuition now.
I haven’t always followed the intuition. In 2015 I had a clear next step laid out by my intuition and I did not follow. I let my mind take the lead. In 2015 I was working full time at Stantec (my 9-5 environmental consulting job before WSP). I was offered a substantial pay raise and vegetation lead position (my passion at my 9-5) to come to WSP at that time. My mind didn’t know how to take this opportunity. My mind came up with excuses. I was not qualified enough to be the vegetation lead. My mind saw WSP as a start up and too dangerous. My mind felt comfortable where I was. And the age old saying “the grass is greener on the other side” played through my head, pushing me to mentally make the decision to stay at Stantec. But I was starting to go for intuitive sessions and my mind was spinning working through all the “what if’s” with this opportunity. So I went for a Mindscape session with Kristen Pierce. I had booked a bodytalk session, but given Kristen’s passion for helping other tap into their intuitive abilities, it quickly became a Mindscape session. She quickly and easily helped my frantic mind calm and brought me to a place where I could connect to my intuition. She had me walk down a path to see how each option would feel. Option 1 being “I stay where I was at Stantec” and Option 2 being “I take the pay raise, new responsibility and new job opportunity”. My intuition was very clear, the current path I was on felt dark and scratchy. Almost like I was squeezing down a path of hawthorn (aka thorn) bushes on a dreary day as I traveled down my existing path. Then she offered me to try the WSP path. It was bright, more open, green grass at my feet and new spring growth on the bushes beside me. My intuition was very clear.
If you would like to try this intuition exercise, I have a free recording. Or you could always book in for an Inner Knowing sessions where I guide you 1 on 1.
But this was maybe the first time I had truely intentionally used my intuition and I could not trust it. My mind was the captain at this point. I had not knowingly let my intuition decide anything up to this point. And decided to follow my head. Make the safe decision and stay where I was.
Fast forward to 2021 and I am now following my intuition and having it affirm that it does know best over and over. I was coming to the end of my second maternity leave from Stantec and I did not want to go back. My last 6 months at Stantec was a mixed bag and had left a sour taste in my mouth. With my business my intuition was telling me I needed to be doing nothing. In a way my business had self imploded as I followed the intuition and made some big changes in my offerings and prices. So going back to a 9-5 seemed to be inevitable. But I did not want to go back to Stantec and the universe was showing me vegetation ecologist (my professional expertise) postings everywhere! Including WSP who came knocking again. At this point I didn’t want to take my chances and I applied to a few places including WSP. In the end I had two job interviews and two offers at WSP and EDI. But the energy of the EDI job offer was not a hell yes (I’m learning through my human design if it’s not a gut “hell yes”, then it’s a no). They were saying nothing wrong and seemed like lovely people. But the interview process didn’t leave me excited. Compared to my WSP interview I felt excitement and felt like it was a too good to be true! It made all of me excited. However my mind still wanted to lead the charge. Stantec was what I knew. I had lots of holiday time and banked time if I went back to Stantec. Stantec would in theory be a slow ease into work. My new boss at Stantec seemed great and was doing the right things and saying the right things. But as I started to talk through the steps to come back to Stantec, not yet decided on the two other job offers, I had a visceral reaction. Old trauma from work bubbled up as she walked me through coming back and I knew right then and there I couldn’t go back. I knew it was time to move forward.
So I jumped and landed at WSP in April 2021. I was nervous to go back to a 9-5, but my intuition made it pretty clear this was the best next step for me. My first week it was not as magical as I had hoped. It was actually REALLY FUCKING HARD! With no banked time or vacation time because I was a new hire, I had to put in my full three days with a toddler at home who was not sleeping well at night. Day two back at work I slept in my car over my lunch break. The backseat was not comfortable, but I was so exhausted it didn’t matter. When I started at WSP I hit the ground running.
I remember thinking to myself, “WTF INTUITION?!?! THIS WAS THE BEST NEXT STEP FOR ME?!!!”
I spent the first few weeks of work struggling. I was coming home beyond exhausted each night. Fast food soon became my good friend as I ate my feelings and I needed someone else to cook at night because I was too exhausted and my husband was usually gone the nights I came home from work. I was pleading with my husband to let me sell my car, cancel daycare. I would rather be a stay at home mom than feel this overwhelmed and exhausted. Husband was not open to this discussion. So we compromised on reassessing our part time daycare and I started another heavy lean on counselling, reiki, and working to cultivate some self care time. I couldn’t understand how something that felt so clearly like the best next step from my intuition could feel so awful now?
One of my reiki sessions with Amy Melissa included a card reading and it was pretty clear I was meant to be at WSP. I was there to learn to work through my old work trauma. That I didn’t feel fine, but I was ok and WSP was the right place to do this. So it started to feel a smidge better but I was burning the candles at both ends parenting or working. Not doing a great job of asking for time for me. Or when I got downtime it just brought me out of the energy hole I dug, not to a place of feeling energized. And now reflecting back, I doubt there was a better boss to hold space for me as I struggled. Once I felt comfortable to open up about some of my struggles he was always open for a conversation. Prioritizing the conversation over whatever work he should have been doing instead.
This nose dive is maybe exactly what I needed to also start some deep healing. In late 2021 I started inner child sessions with Francie Millar, as my desperate need to feel better made me open to trying different practitioners and modalities. Leading me to find what I believe to be a very gentle styles of deep healing. Learning to have compassion for myself and my inner child. As I am just reading “Happy Days” by Gabrielle Bernstein. Her book affirms that sometimes we need to get so uncomfortable so we are open to this deeper, slow and gentle healing.
And fast forward to 2022 and the universe guided me to a new job opportunity. The path forward from my intuition is a clear yes! But my mind has mostly spent the last couple of weeks kicking and screaming through the process. How can I leave a company so quickly? I hardly gave WSP a chance? WSP has not done anything wrong! There is such a good opportunity and technical support system if I stay! I am dumping my responsibilities and running away? The people I’m leaving behind will struggle without me!
Or what if me leaving means?
💗”leaving quickly” is just a mind construct. In theory I could have been at WSP since 2015. If I had followed intuition all along, I would have been there a long time.
💗Just because someone has done nothing wrong does not mean it’s therefore right. WSP was a challenging pace for me. It offered a lot of opportunity, but it also offered potential burnout as they are crazy busy!
💗The new job also provides a great opportunity and maybe I don’t need that technical support system or it’s available to me in other ways?
💗My coworker at WSP get an opportunity to rise to the new responsibility and gain confidence in themselves. When I leave that opens up space for someone else to move in who would be overjoyed to work at WSP!
My intuition is very clear, has not waivered, my new 9-5 is the best next step for me. So as I have just finished my last week at WSP. I’m exhausted, but feeling excited (both my mind and heart) for the new path forward. And once that energy fades I look forward to another wave of emotions to push me to keep deep diving and healing. Moving towards Happy Days 💗