You Were Never Disconnected. You Just Stopped Listening.
I’ve been thinking about something lately, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that we’ve been going about this whole business of finding ourselves backward.
Especially those of us who have reached retirement and suddenly find ourselves wondering what the hell we’re supposed to do with the rest of our lives.
We’re told to reinvent ourselves. Rediscover ourselves. Find our purpose. Get into alignment. Become our authentic selves.
Good grief. That’s an awful lot of work for somebody who just spent 40 or 50 years working.
And what if the entire premise is wrong?
What if there’s nothing to find?
What if you’ve never been disconnected from the very thing you’ve spent your life searching for?
Let me explain.
You Cannot Be Disconnected From What Created You
I believe every human being originates from the same Source. Call it God, the Universe, Divine Intelligence, or whatever name makes sense to you.
The name isn’t nearly as important as understanding the relationship.
We originate from Source, and therefore we remain connected to Source.
Always.
Not just when we’re meditating. Not just when we’re praying. Not just when we’re feeling particularly spiritual or having one of those wonderful days when everything seems to fall into place.
Even when we’re making a royal mess of things.
Even when we’re frightened, confused, angry, disappointed, or wondering how we managed to arrive at 70 years old without figuring out what we want to be when we grow up.
The connection remains.
Our job isn’t to establish alignment with Source. Our job is to develop the quality of the alignment we already have.
And I believe the way we do that is through an intentional partnership with our intuition.
Somewhere Along the Way, We Stopped Trusting Ourselves
Think about your life for a minute.
When you were a little girl, you probably knew exactly what you liked and didn’t like. You knew what made you happy. You knew when something didn’t feel right.
And you weren’t particularly interested in explaining yourself.
Then life happened.
Parents told us what was best for us. Teachers told us how to behave. Churches told us what to believe. Employers told us what was expected. Husbands, children, friends, and society all had their opinions about who we should be and how we should live.
And because we wanted to be loved, accepted, successful, and responsible, we listened.
Lord, did we listen.
We became so accomplished at listening to everybody else that we gradually stopped listening to ourselves.
We learned to question our instincts. We learned to justify our desires. We learned to seek permission before making decisions.
And somewhere in that process, our own intuition became just another voice in a very crowded room.
Often the quietest one.
But here’s what I want you to consider.
Your intuition didn’t abandon you. You simply became accustomed to listening to everything else first.
The Partnership That Changes Everything
For years, I had an ongoing internal dialogue with a voice I call the Nag.
You probably have one, too.
Every time I considered doing something different, the Nag had an opinion.
You shouldn’t do that.
What will people think?
That’s ridiculous.
You’re too old.
What if you fail?
What if you make a fool of yourself?
And my personal favorite, who do you think you are?
Well, I’ll tell you who I think I am.
I’m a woman who has lived long enough to recognize that most of the things I worried about never happened, and many of the things I was warned against turned out to be some of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.
Eventually, I began to wonder what would happen if I stopped giving the Nag so much authority.
What if, instead of arguing with myself, I developed a partnership with my intuition?
What if I began trusting that quiet inner knowing instead of demanding that it present a 10-page business plan before I acted?
And what if I made that partnership intentional?
Not something I turned to only when life became difficult.
Something I practiced every day.
That’s when things began changing.
Not because Source suddenly decided to pay attention to me.
Not because I had finally earned some special spiritual privilege.
But because I was improving the quality of a connection that had been there all along.
Retirement Gives Us an Extraordinary Opportunity
Here’s where this becomes especially important for those of us in our retirement years.
For decades, much of our lives revolved around obligation.
We had schedules to keep, people to please, responsibilities to fulfill, and expectations to meet.
We became extraordinarily good at doing what needed to be done.
But now?
Now we have an opportunity that may be unlike anything we’ve experienced since childhood.
We can begin asking ourselves what we actually want.
Not what our children want. Not what society expects. Not what somebody thinks a woman our age ought to be doing.
What do WE want?
And perhaps even more importantly, can we trust ourselves enough to follow the answer?
I believe we can.
But after decades of allowing other voices to dominate our decisions, that trust may need some attention.
That’s why I talk so much about developing a partnership with intuition.
Because I don’t believe retirement is supposed to be another assignment we have to complete successfully.
I believe it can be the season when we finally stop asking everybody else for permission to live our own lives.
You Don’t Have to Become Somebody New
I want you to think about that little girl you once were.
The one who dreamed without checking whether her dreams were practical.
The one who knew what delighted her before somebody explained why she shouldn’t want it.
The one who was curious, imaginative, adventurous, and wonderfully unconcerned with whether everybody approved.
She’s not gone.
And you don’t have to reinvent yourself to find her.
Perhaps you simply need to become reacquainted with the part of yourself that knew how to listen inwardly before the world became so damn noisy.
That’s what developing a partnership with intuition means to me.
It’s not surrendering our judgment or abandoning everything we’ve learned.
It’s allowing our accumulated wisdom and our inner knowing to work together.
It’s learning to recognize the difference between fear and guidance.
It’s giving ourselves permission to make choices that feel right without requiring everybody else to understand them.
And it’s recognizing that our relationship with Source isn’t something we have to earn, achieve, or deserve.
It’s our birthright.
So Here’s What I’d Like You to Consider
What if you stopped trying to get into alignment and started paying attention to the quality of the alignment you already have?
What if you began each morning by asking yourself one simple question?
What do I genuinely want today?
And then, instead of immediately allowing the Nag to explain why you can’t have it, you listened.
Just listened.
You don’t have to turn your life upside down tomorrow.
You don’t have to make some grand declaration or announce a dramatic transformation.
You can begin with something as ordinary as deciding how you want to spend your afternoon.
And then trusting yourself enough to do it.
Because after 60, 70, or even 80 years of living, perhaps the most extraordinary thing we can do isn’t become somebody new.
Perhaps it’s finally allowing ourselves to live in partnership with who we’ve always been.
And wouldn’t that be one hell of a way to spend the rest of our lives?
We’re Not Done Yet.
And if you’re wondering how to begin developing that partnership with your intuition, that’s precisely why I created Building Believable Trust. It’s a practical guide to learning how to recognize, listen to, and trust that inner knowing you’ve spent so many years second-guessing.
A little video into:
It’s available for $25 on Gumroad, for those who are ready to explore what trusting themselves might actually look like. Because the connection has always been there, my friend. The beautiful work ahead is learning to trust it.