The Quiet Yes

Learning to trust our intuition

There’s a voice inside us that’s quieter than our doubts, subtler than logic, and more constant than fear. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t justify itself. It never tries to convince us.

It just knows.

That voice is our intuition.

And if you’re anything like me, in fact, like most women I know, you were taught explicitly, or through the slow drip of patriarchal culture, not to trust it.

We’re well-trained in the masculine arts of seeking validation, gathering data, proving our decisions, deferring to ‘experts’ / the loudest voice in the room. We second-guess what we feel, we apologise for knowing, and we override inner clarity in favour of external approval. Every damned time.

But when we do that, we slowly lose the connection to something essential. Something ancient. Something profoundly personal and deeply universal.

Our own knowing.

This is an invitation back to it.

To tuning in.

To trusting.

To remembering the kind of clarity that can’t be explained—but can (and I now know, should) be followed.

The Nature of Intuition

Intuition isn’t a magical superpower reserved for mystics and mediums. It’s an innate human capacity. A way of processing and perceiving stuff that doesn’t run through the usual filters of analysis and reason.

It’s the felt sense. The deep knowing in the body. The inner yes (or no) that arrives before you even start on the pros-and-cons list.

The amazing woman who taught me to reconnect with my own intuition,

Deb D | BeHER

, calls it our 1st sense not our 6th!

I believe our intuition is our soul’s way of taking everything we’ve lived, witnessed, learned, and sensed (consciously or unconsciously) and presenting us with a direction.

A whisper.

A nudge.

A quiet pull.

(Or sometimes a scream).

Intuition often doesn’t make sense.

It simply makes truth.

Why We Lose Touch With It

We live in a world that prizes logic, productivity, and certainty. Intuition doesn’t tick those boxes. It asks us to pause, slow down, and pay attention to something we can’t quite explain.

So we stop listening.

Or worse, we hear it, but ignore it. We override it with the more socially acceptable voice of ‘rationality’. I know I did - for years. Sometimes I wonder what I’d be doing in my life right now if I’d taken my fingers out of my ears sooner…

I think we’ve also internalised the message that knowing without proof is dangerous. That it makes us unreliable, irrational, emotional. That if we can’t back it up with data or credentials or a 5-point plan, it doesn’t count. FFS, I’m making myself angry typing this!

And breathe…

The deeper truth is this:

You don’t need to justify your knowing to anyone.

Not even to yourself.

How to Tune Back In

If your intuition feels distant, rusty, or hard to reach, it’s ok - I promise you, that’s exactly how I felt! You’re just out of practice.

Here’s how to begin tuning back in:

1. Get Quiet Enough to Hear It

Intuition doesn’t compete with noise. If your life is full of hustle, constant input, and overthinking, it’s almost impossible to hear the quieter voice of your intuition.

Make some space for stillness. Silence. Solitude.

Not for the sake of ‘doing it right’, but simply to turn the volume down on everything else so you can hear what’s true underneath.

2. Notice the Felt Sense

My intuition speaks through my body. It might be a contraction in my chest, a lightness in my tummy, heat in my hands, or simply a sudden stillness.

Start noticing. What does yes feel like? What does no feel like?

You might not have words. That’s okay. The body speaks in sensation, not sentences.

3. Stop Looking for Justification

Intuition often arrives without giving you reasons. Don’t be tempted to go hunting for evidence, to back it up with logic.

Resist the urge. Let your knowing stand unaccompanied.

4. Follow Small Nudges First

Start building trust by acting on small intuitive pulls. Take the detour. Make the call. Say no. Say yes. Pause the launch. Go to the place. Write the thing.

Each time you follow through, you’re building trust.

How to Trust It

Trusting your intuition doesn’t mean everything will always feel easy. That’s a topic for another essay: why do we always think things should be easy?? Sometimes your intuition will nudge you toward discomfort. It might ask you to end something that looks good on paper. It might tell you to leap before you have the ‘how’.

It might ask you to wait, when you’d rather push forward.

Trust doesn’t mean it’ll all be smooth.

It means you’re willing to honour your deeper knowing, even when it doesn’t match your timeline or plan.

Here’s how to strengthen that trust:

1. See the Pattern

Look back. When you followed your gut, what happened? When you didn’t, what happened?

You’ll start to see the pattern. Your intuition has been guiding you all along. Whether or not you listened is another story. When I did this, I was gobsmacked - all the evidence I needed was there. It always had been.

2. Expect Resistance

Your logical mind will pipe up. I guarantee it! Your fear will whisper worst-case scenarios. Your conditioning will say ‘be sensible’ or worse… ‘be realistic’.

That doesn’t mean your intuition is wrong. It means you’re a human.

Trust anyway.

3. Let It Be Unclear Sometimes

Don’t try to force clarity. Your intuition will speak when it’s time. You don’t need to yank answers from the soil before the seeds are ready.

What Happens When You Do

Ok, this is exciting. It must be… I’m typing faster! When you live from your intuition, you become wildly / weirdly magnetic - not because you’re trying to be, but because alignment has its own frequency. You show up whole.

You stop asking for directions from people who were never meant to hold the map to your life. This is huge.

You stop outsourcing your authority.

You stop betraying yourself to make others comfortable. I used to do that all. the. time.

Decisions become SO much easier to make. Your boundaries become clearer. Your path might get less conventional, but infinitely more alive.

Intuition reconnects you to life as it really is: surprising, cyclical, mysterious, meaningful.

Not a straight line.

And best of all: you know / remember that you are never without guidance.

Even in the dark.

Even when you’re afraid.

Even when you don’t know what’s next.

Because something in you does.

One Final Note

You don’t need to ‘perfect’ your intuition. You don’t need to be right all the time. This isn’t a performance.

It’s a relationship.

One you get to return to again and again, as many times as you forget.

It will always welcome you back.

All it takes is a pause. A breath. A hand on your heart.

And the courage to believe the quiet yes.