Opening Up Your Own Intuitive Gifts: Gifts That Last a Lifetime
Letter #9 from the Intuitive Queen of the Intuition Empire (Aka Jennifer R. Young)
My Dear Intuitive Friends,
It is a week before Christmas and Hanukkah, and I know many of you who celebrate the holidays are busy buying or wrapping gifts for the holidays. I want to give you all a gift.
No, not something from a store or Instacart or even Amazon. I want to give you a gift that I think may last for a lifetime and it doesn’t cost me anything but time and effort typing.
What does it take to be intuitive? Some people say the key is to journal and to prioritize your intuition. Others say to be mindful and to get to know the use intuitive tools. Still others say to spend time in nature. I cannot tell you the perfect way to strengthen your intuition—I believe only you know that! What I can tell you, is the top three ways that I learned to strengthen my intuition. I can also explain how I've cultivated the ability to learn to listen to it and follow it in all areas of my life. Take from this what speaks to you.
Gift #1: Persistent Practice & Celebrate Positive Results
I say our intuition is like any of our muscles and physical abilities. It takes time and practice. If you go to the gym each week and lift weights, your muscles will get stronger and more supple. So, what worked for me was making a conscious decision to listen to my intuition and practice following it weekly. Also, when I would have an intuitive thought or dream and follow it, often something positive would happen as a result. I’d celebrate that positive result by documenting it, sharing my story with a friend, or just doing something special to celebrate my good results.
Here is an example. I was going to save this for my intuitive travel series, but I can’t wait to tell you this story. Remember in the pandemic, when everything was shut down and most people didn’t travel that year?
Well, during the pandemic of 2020, my two sons and I had one of the best vacations of our life.
How?
Do you even have to ask? By following my intuition!
Most years, I’d plan our summer vacation in December or January. 99 percent of the time I’d book a hotel and a flight. In December of 2019, I started to book a cruise for the summer of 2020.
Then, I stopped typing on my laptop, stood up, and literally said, “No! We can’t go on a cruise this summer.”
My sons looked at me curiously. Albeit they were understandingly perplexed; my sons were used to me acting this way. They asked where we would go instead.
“We will stay close to home this year. We’ll book a hotel somewhere in the south,” I said.
Then, my intuition told me to stay closer.
“No! Chincoteague. We are going to Chincoteague, Virginia, to see the horses,” I said.
I almost booked a hotel room there. But something stopped me again, and for the first time ever, I booked a two-bedroom cottage with a kitchen, den, and porch overlooking the inlet in Chincoteague. I felt better when I booked it; I breathed easier. I felt calm. The boys shrugged their shoulders, probably a little disappointed that their week-long cruise to tropical destinations had transformed into a quiet cottage on the coast.
When the pandemic hit, I forgot about the vacation. I was lost in a sea of masks, a quest for wipes and Lysol, and balancing working from home with my sons going to school remotely.
That August, the Key West Cottage managers reached out to me via email to remind me of our booking. They assured me that they could leave a key under the mat and not even have to see us when we got there to reduce risk of COVID. I worried about the air in the cottage being contaminated from other people. Guess what? The previous people were booked to leave 3 days before we arrived, giving the staff sufficient cleaning time.
We went and had the best time, so overjoyed about being safe and yet being able to leave the confines of our home for a week. To celebrate my successful intuition, I booked the boys and me an ecological boat tour of the island with Captain Barry. He assured us he would wear a mask and that we would be the only people on the tour.
Why is this important for you to know how I celebrated my successful intuition?
Well, because booking that trip and that tour helped save my life this year, 4 years later.
We liked the tour so much that this year, 4 years later, I booked that same tour for Labor Day. When we couldn’t go because of my mysterious breathing issues, Captain Berry's booking secretary called me and told me that my gasping and breathing was like how she used to be. She encouraged me to get a scope from an ENT. Intuitively, I followed her advice and it saved my life.
The rest is history; you can read about it in my previous blog, Just Breathe and part two Transformation Time. Thank God I listen to my intuition, or I wouldn’t be writing this blog or doing a lot of good things right now, like talking, breathing, walking around without gasping and wheezing...and more!
Gift #2: Confidence
Have confidence in yourself. Often, following your intuition requires this. Many others will give you opinions when you are making a decision. They will try to sway you and make you see the choice through their eyes.
While, I do believe in listening to others and getting feedback, ultimately, I believe in following that intuitive voice inside my head.
Because even if everyone (doctors included) says something and my intuition is screaming at me to make a different choice, I follow the voice within. I choose to be confident in my own intuition.
17 years ago, I was pregnant with my son Christian. I had high blood pressure. My doctor sent me to Fairfax Hospital when I was 29 weeks pregnant. I checked into the hospital (after a stint in the ER) at 2:22 a.m. and was given a shot to accelerate my unborn son’s lung growth in case he came early. They put me on the 2ndfloor of the high-risk unit, in room 222. If you know that 2, and 22, and 222 are my lucky spiritual numbers—you can imagine that I felt confident that I was going to be okay and my baby too.
The doctor and all the nurses told me I’d be in the hospital for 11 weeks. 11! They were confident of it, and I did not like the sound of it, but there I laid, waiting for my baby to arrive.
Six days later I had a very upsetting dream and a strong intuitive feeling. I called my then husband in tears.
“I may die tomorrow, our baby too. Would you bring me my laptop and come spend the night with me tonight in the hospital?” I asked.
I wanted to write one more chapter of a children’s book that I’d been working on for years for my son Colin. I also wanted to see my husband one last time, just in case.
It was like his 2nd or 3rd day of his new job, but my then husband acquiesced and brought me the laptop and spent the night.
The next morning, after he went to work, two nurses came to visit me. I was crying, again, because my mom refused to come to see me until Christian was born—10 weeks later. I was scared and wanted my mom. But the glowing halos distracted me.
I stopped crying and remarked, “You each have such beautiful halos. Where did you get them? I want one too. They are so pretty and sparkly.”
The nurses looked at one another, confused, and raised their eyebrows. They began to whisper and then left the room to order me bloodwork.
Not long after the bloodwork, my high-risk OBYN doctor appeared.
“Jennifer,” he said soothingly. “The OR is so quiet today. It’s empty. Why don’t we do surgery today? We can get you out of here.”
It was September 13, my mom’s birthday. I was 30 weeks pregnant.
“Today?” I said. “Right now?”
“Right now,” he said.
“Should I call my husband,” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Now.”
My husband rushed to the hospital. I was whisked off to the OR. Christian was born a few hours later—2 pounds, 11 ounces.
Days later my doctor explained to me that the halos the nurses had were a visual disturbance. My liver was shutting down, because I had a rare condition called HELLP (H hemolysis, which is the breaking down of red blood cells; EL elevated liver enzymes; and LP is low platelet count). This caused me to see halos because of the visual disturbances when your liver is shutting down. In addition, I also had high-blood pressure.
He said we were both very close to dying. My intuition had been right. My husband staying with me did two things: it made me less scared to face the next day because I felt less alone, and it allowed me to work on my writing, which calmed me down. And the whole experience built up my own confidence in listening to my inner voice.
Gift #3: Trust
This one can’t be bought or faked or given to you by me or anyone else. It’s hard to learn to trust in your own intuition.
I believe you must find the strength and ability to take a leap of faith—and put trust in your own inner voice. As you practice following your intuition, and feel confident in it, don’t forget to trust it. Sometimes it takes time and effort to do so. And certainly, just like it takes time to trust another person, it often takes time to learn to trust in yourself.
In the past, I found myself only applying my intuition to certain areas, mostly health of my children, in friendship, and little things in life. But not in love or in my career, until recently.
Now, I am attempting to follow it in all areas, and I’ll tell you it takes a heck of a lot of trust in myself, in God. If you don’t believe, then trust yourself and the universe.
I knew a man in Charles Town who told me a story about trust. This friend was fixing an electrical issue I was having in my basement. While Joe* (not his real name) worked, I told him I was upset, because I kept having dreams about his parents who had long since passed.
Joe turned to me and told me this story.
When his mother was a young girl, she often had intuitive dreams. Her father (Joe’s grandfather) would often go on business trips. He would fly away for a week, buy her a gift, and come home. One week, she woke up crying and screaming. His mom told his grandfather not to leave that morning on business. He asked her why.
“Because the plane will crash into the water, and everyone will die. I don’t want you to die!” she cried.
No matter what logic and reassurances he spoke of the man could not convince his daughter that it was safe for him to fly. So, he canceled his trip and spent the day with his daughter.
That day, the plane crashed and everyone on it died.
Joe’s mom had trusted her intuition no matter how crazy it sounded. His grandfather trusted his daughter’s intuition. They both survived because of it.
Here I felt crazy telling Joe about my dreams of his parents, and I almost didn’t bring it up to him. But I trusted I was meant to tell him for a reason. And in turn, he assured me his mom had been just like me.
Well, I wish you all luck with your intuitive practice. Be confident and trust in the power of intuition that lies within you! I know these are not gifts that you can put under the tree and unwrap. But they are gifts that are free and ones that may just change the course of your life and your loved ones too. Happy Holidays!
I listened to these sons while I wrote my blog
“Morning Train, 9-5,” By Sheena Easton
“Love Will Keep Us Together,” By Captain & Tennille
“We Belong,” By Pat Benatar
Until next week my intuitive friends!
Love,
The Intuitive Queen of The Intuitive Empire (Jenn 2.0 Fully Oxygenated)