God Winks & Spiritual Synchronicities: Following Your Intuition With Strangers

Letter #5 From the Intuitive Queen (Aka Jennifer R. Young, Version 2.0, Fully Oxygenated)

Dear Intuitive Readers,

In my past, I’ve had strangers pay for my toll at the tool booth. I've also had people in the car in front of me pay for my Starbucks order in the drive-thru because their order took so long. These small moments of care and consideration, when complete strangers look out for us, just feel good. But we don’t always have to be on the receiving end; we can choose to create these moments for others. 

Use your intuition to be the light in someone’s life

When taking time to use your intuition and help strangers, remember that these moments of kindness don’t have to be monetary. In fact, often what strangers need more than money, whether they realize it or not, is someone to take the time to listen to them. 

While the pandemic of 2020 is over, the one silent pandemic people don’t usually talk about is: the pandemic of loneliness in this country. 

Did you know that thirteen percent of Americans live alone  and 46.6 percent of Americans are single? Also, did you know that 1 out of 3 people in America, close to 33 percent, are lonely on a regular basis? Many of the lonely are young people. In fact, 61 percent of younger people are lonely on a chronic basis in our country! 

Obviously, this pandemic of loneliness is impossible for any one person to fix. However, imagine what our country would be like if each of us used our intuition and took time to talk to strangers in need?  Together, each of us could be part of a collective healing solution.

In my lifetime, strangers who must have sensed that I am empathetic, have told me their stories. When possible, I’ve stopped to make time to lend an ear. It’s helped me just as much as the other person. Some strangers inspired me, made me grateful, or shifted my perspective entirely. Here are four of these encounters where I used my intuition to help be the light in a stranger’s life.

The long hotel check-in & the snowflake necklace

It was Thanksgiving week about 3 years ago, when I arrived at a hotel in Vestal, New York, with my two youngest sons. The drive from West Virginia to my childhood town had been full of traffic. We were anxious to check in and rest before going to visit my mom. 

I told my sons to sit on the couch and that I’d “be right back,” and “just be a few minutes” checking in. 

My son Christian, intuitive like me, said, “Yeah, I’ll bet,” and rolled his eyes at me.

Of course he was correct. It was not a few minutes at all! And it all started with my snowflake necklace. The hotel front desk person, Ann*, noticed it right away. 

“Oh, where did you get that beautiful necklace? It’s my mom’s birthstone!” she exclaimed.

“My sons got it for me for my birthday,” I said. “And we are here visiting my mom for Thanksgiving.”

Her face fell. 

“This is my second holiday without my mom,” she explained. “She passed away. I live with my dad now because my apartment got too expensive, and he was lonely after mom died.”

We spent time talking about her mom and how hard it was for her to lose her mom. Ann was only in her late 20s and not yet married and knew her mom would never be there for her wedding one day or to meet her kids when she had them.

I told her I was sorry but sure that her mom was looking down on her so proud of how brave she is and how she comforts her dad and works hard. She thanked me, tears welling up in her blue eyes.

Eventually, she checked me in, handing me my room keys, and thanked me for taking time to listen to her.

“What took you so long?” my son Christian asked. 

I smiled and told my boys her story. 

Then, on Black Friday, while my sons were sleeping in, I searched online for a snowflake necklace, identical to mine. I found it on sale and ordered it for Ann for Christmas.

That Christmas when I went back to visit my mom and stayed in that same hotel, my mom came to open presents with me by the hotel Christmas tree. I got out Ann’s present and went to see if she was on duty. Of course she was! God wink. I brought her over and introduced her to my mom and then gave Ann her gift. She was thrilled! She said wearing it would make her feel connected to her mom. She hugged us both.

We were strangers, brought together over the span of two holidays. I understand the heaviness of grief, because I’ve lost both my dad and my grandma. Also, some years the holidays have been hard for me because my sons were with their father for Christmas. But having my mom and giving that gift to a stranger, made everything a little merrier. All because I had followed my intuition and made time to listen to a stranger.

The waitress who needed comfort 

In 2022, before Christmas, I arrived with my kids and ex-husband back in upstate New York before Christmas. This time, we picked my mom up and she wanted to eat dinner at the local steakhouse.

We got seated in the busy restaurant and my mom, who has severe hearing problems despite her hearing aids, was having a hard time communicating with the waitress. From across the table, I apologized to the waitress, explained about my mom’s hearing and then gave her my mom’s order. 

Our waitress, Amy* came around to the booth behind me to talk to me. She had tears in her eyes. My intuition told me, this was not going to be about my dinner order, and that it was important to be patient.

“It’s no problem about your mom,” Amy said, “You are so lucky to have her. Today is the 5-year anniversary of my mom’s death. She died when I was in high school. My brother is coming home from the military today. My dad is making dinner. I feel like I should be there to comfort them.”

 I told her I was so sorry that she lost her mom so young.  I asked her if she shared this info with her coworkers. She was on the verge of tears.

“No. They are so busy, and I can’t call out sick. I’m just trying to hold it together,” Amy said sniffling.

Her eyes got me; they are windows to the soul, you know?

So, even though I’ve never done this while ordering a meal, I asked her if she needed a hug. 

“Yes,” Amy said.

So, I climbed over my son and stood up to hug her. She cried and I gave her my napkin to blow her nose. 

I told Amy that it's okay to cry and better than trying to keep it all inside. I told her to not forget in her quest to care for her family, to take care of herself too and allow others to comfort her too.

She thanked me and was better the rest of the meal.

My sons remarked that out of all of us at the table she had gone to me for compassion. They pointed out that she even went and climbed up in the booth behind me since I was sitting against the window and not the aisle. 

I smiled and then thought of how frustrated I get when my mom can’t hear me. But she was alive and with us and that woman lost her mom so young. I thought I was helping that waitress, but Amy was helping me too. 

The grocery cashier running on empty

One time during the tail end of the pandemic, my son Christian asked me if I could make him loaded baked potato soup. 

“Of course!” I said. 

“Have you made it before?” Christian asked.

“No. But I can manifest anything we need!” I assured him.

I soon found a loaded baked potato soup recipe and headed out to the dangerous territory: the grocery store. Yes, in September of 2020, going to the store was a brave quest indeed.

When I unloaded my groceries onto the counter—frozen hash browns, bacon, cream cheese, shredded cheese, sour cream, cream of chicken soup, and sourdough rounds—the cashier gave me a quizzical look. 

“What in the world are you making?” she asked. I explained to her the baked potato soup for my son.

She remarked that she had a lot of frozen hash browns at home and asked if the recipe was complicated. I said no. Then her tired eyes told me this was going to be more than just a conversation about soup. 

It turns out she thought she was retired, but they needed money so she went back to work. Martha* had been working a lot of hours at Martins, the grocery store. She said her husband didn’t know how to cook and as soon as she got home expected her to make dinner. 

“I’m getting older and my knees and back ache after standing all day,” Martha said, tears welling up in her eyes. “And the last thing I want to do after work is cook.” 

“Well, this soup may be just the solution,” I said, “You can put it in the crock pot before work, and when you come home your house will smell like baked potatoes and dinner will be ready to eat!”

There was no one in line behind me. I was able to stop and write down the recipe for Martha. At the end she grabbed my hand and thanked me for listening to her. She vowed to look up other crock pot dishes in her cookbooks too.

It took me at least 15 minutes at least to get through a line of one; but I had no regrets. I went home to make the best soup ever, proud that I could help brighten someone’s day. 

Compassionate listeners at the nail salon

Have you ever noticed synchronicities in the universe? I’m talking about when you say a word and then at the exact same time that word comes up on the radio or on TV. Or you bring up a topic and then five minutes later someone texts you about that very topic. 

I like to call these spiritual synchronicities. It’s like God or the universe delivering little messages of hope to you right when you need them.

It happens to me all the time—at home, with friends, and even during my every day mundane errands. For example, it happened to me at a nail salon in Lewes in October. 

The day before I was first hospitalized for breathing issues in August, I went to that very same nail salon. After that day, because of my surgery and recovery time, I didn’t get to go out to do regular activities for about 7 or 8 weeks. When I was finally ready to emerge back into society, my nails were atrocious. So I headed right back to that same salon I had gone before my medical odyssey.

It felt so good to be out around people, but I felt a little shell shocked. My surgery and recovery had changed me, and yet the salon had stayed the same. I looked around the bustling salon with new eyes, and wondered to myself if anyone could understand how I was feeling. 

Well, then, whether it is a spiritual synchronicity or God wink—you decide—a younger, blonde woman seated at the pedicure chair right beside me started telling my story. The young woman, Amanda*, mentioned to the nail tech that this was her first time back to the salon after almost 2 months of being chronically sick and having a life-saving surgery! Amanda said it felt so strange to be back out in the world again.

"Excuse me," I said. "I don't mean to eavesdrop, but I know exactly how you feel!"

We sat and had our pedicures and shared our stories: the mysterious illnesses we both had undergone; the pain (my struggle to breathe and walk and hers, a pain that turned out to be a large growth in her abdomen that had to be removed); our surgeries; and the recovery time. 

What are the chances? Both of us returning to the same place, changed by our experiences being ill, both wondering if anyone could relate. And we ended up there at the same place, at the same time, seated right beside each other!

Sharing our stories helped us both to heal. We took time to offer compassion to one another that day and to feel less alone. We were strangers brought together by a power greater than us.

Walking home by the light of my intuition 

Because I had let my intuition be my guide, each of those strangers touched my soul. 

They say we are all just walking each other home. The way I see it, it’s up to us how we want to walk. We can choose to walk alone, let ourselves get lost in our own heads, and be consumed by our own struggles. Or we can keep an open heart and an open mind when we encounter strangers, and listen for the intuitive messages that the universe or God is sending to us, and act upon them. I choose the latter.

Next week, intuition with family relationships and parenting. A perfect topic for Thanksgiving week!

Until then!

Songs I listened to while writing this blog:

"Songbird," by Fleetwood Mac

"Only the Lonely," by Roy Orbison

"With a Little Help from My Friends," by The Beatles

Love,

The Intuitive Queen

(aka Jennifer R. Young, Version 2.0, Fully Oxygenated)