I remember having that kind of awareness myself, long before I had words sophisticated enough to explain it. It was just there, the way a room could feel full even when it looked empty, the way I could sense something about anyone before they said a word. It felt normal. I didn’t give it a second thought.

Then the unlearning began.

You tell a parent what you saw, and they say there’s nothing there, gently, maybe even lovingly, but firmly steering you back toward what’s “normal.” You don’t want to be like your crazy uncle. You mention it to a teacher or a friend, and the response shifts. Confusion, as if you’re stupid, and a little concern until you get called to the headmaster’s office/detention. The word crazy (again) hanging in the air even when no one says it out loud. Then slowly, without any single moment you could point to, you learn that what can’t be measured isn’t real, what can’t be explained shouldn’t be spoken about, what makes people uncomfortable should be kept quiet. To sum it up - SHHHHHHHHH!

So we become isolated so we stop talking about it. Eventually, we stop noticing it at all. Not because the gift disappeared. Because we buried it to survive, to be believed, to be accepted, to not be the odd one out at the dinner table or on the playground. Children are remarkably good at reading a room, and most of us read the room correctly: this isn’t safe to talk about here.

I think that’s the real loss in all of this. Not that the ability was fake, but that we were taught to distrust ourselves so early, and so thoroughly, that we forgot we’d ever had it in the first place. The forgetting wasn’t natural. It was trained into us, one dismissive comment at a time.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe. Remembering is possible.

It doesn’t happen all at once. It comes back in pieces triggered by something big enough to crack the walls we built as kids. A loss maybe, or a bad relationship. A dream too real and too specific to explain away. A feeling about someone or something that turns out, unmistakably, to be true. Slowly, what we once dismissed as “just imagination” starts to feel less like fantasy and more like memory. Like something we’re recovering rather than something we’re inventing.

I don’t think I gained a gift later in life. I think I finally gave myself permission to remember the one I’d always had.

I say this not to convince anyone of anything. I know how this sounds to the version of me that used to roll her eyes at exactly this kind of writing. I’m not asking you to believe in energy or spirit or any of it. I’m asking something smaller, and maybe harder: think back to who you were before the world told you to stop noticing. What did you see? What did you feel? And when, exactly, did you decide it wasn’t real?

Maybe you never decided at all. Maybe it was decided for you, quietly, by every adult who needed you to be easier to explain.

If any of this resonates, I’d love to hear about it, the moment you knew something you shouldn’t have been able to know, or the moment someone convinced you that you didn’t. That’s usually where and when the remembering starts.

I heard myself screaming in my head when I watched Victoria1, one of the worst human beings I’ve ever met, turn to a coworker she absolutely despised and said, “You are beautiful, inside and out.”

This is a woman who barely knew this person, and constantly made snarky comments about them behind their back. I happened to be crossing her path that moment. This got me thinking about what the phrase actually meant, and how widely it is overly misused.

Breaking It Down

“Beautiful on the inside” is very doubtful and impossible to verify or validate, think about it. The media has spent decades proving that plenty of people are straight-up evil on the inside. So really, saying it just means you hope the person isn’t evil or that they are not serial killers. That’s the bar, and it is extremely low.

“You’re beautiful inside and out” is basically the participation trophy of compliments. It’s what you say when you’ve run out of specific things to say and default to handing out vague spiritual gift cards instead.

Let’s break it down further to understand what it actually communicates:

“Beautiful on the outside” equals to: I noticed you have a face. I don’t care if you’re pretty or ugly, you just have one.

“Beautiful on the inside” equals to: I have not verified this claim in any way, but I assume you’re not, like, actively sinister.

Combined, it basically means: I like you, and also I could not think of literally anything else to say, therefore I deployed the compliment equivalent of a “Get Well Soon” card for someone as I cannot be bothered. I know you will like it, so this is my get out of jail free.

It’s the compliment version of a daily horoscope - vague enough to apply to absolutely everyone, including your dentist, that one coworker who reheats fish in the microwave, or eats onions in the office.

But coming from Victoria specifically? It’s less of a compliment and more of a legal disclaimer, the verbal equivalent of “no comment,” dressed up in rainbow glitter.

Honestly, if Victoria - or a person that has never greeted you with any respect- ever tells you you’re beautiful inside and out, do not relax. That’s not a compliment, that’s a warning shot.

RUN!

When I heard that, I was startled. “Your baby is not dead. He will be born tomorrow.” I told her I could see his face. He had tanned skin. She had chosen a name - Elijah, and he would have curly hair - beautiful green eyes. I told her the father was a one night stand, a young guy with a very common name that sounded like a Joe, who she’d met at Central Park, in New York City on a college trip.

Her jaw dropped. “How do you know this?” I said, “I just do.. I can feel and hear your son. He is alive.”

When I tried probing into her story, I discovered she had gone to an otherworldly spiritual practitioner who told her not to give birth without healing her first, then warned her that without his healing the baby was to be born dead.

This story stuck with me because of what was happening underneath it. Liz was carrying so much fear and grief that she’d stopped being able to hear the one voice that actually knew the truth of her own life- her own. She needed someone else to say it out loud before she could believe it. And I think that’s true for most of us, in one form or another. We wait for outside confirmation of things we already sense.

Trust Your Soul

Here’s the part I want you to really sit with: Liz already knew. Before she ever walked into that little shop, some part of her- the part underneath the fear- knew her son was alive. She just hadn’t found her way back to trusting that part yet.

That’s what this is really about. Not who to believe. Who to come home to.

Your soul doesn’t speak in paragraphs. It doesn’t argue, and it doesn’t need to convince you of anything. It speaks in a tightening in your stomach when something is off. It speaks in the sudden drain you feel around a certain person. It speaks in the hesitation right before you say yes to something you don’t actually want. It speaks in the quiet, stubborn certainty that shows up even when everything around you is telling you the opposite.

Most of us are trained out of listening to that voice from childhood. We’re taught to defer to the expert, to the authority, to whoever sounds most certain. The teachers, the coaches, mom and dad, you get the drift. So by the time we’re adults, we’ve gotten very good at asking other people what’s true for us, and a little rusty at asking ourselves. Learning to trust your soul again is really just learning to come back to a language you already spoke fluently once.

So what does it actually look like to trust your soul?

It looks like noticing the gut-drop the moment something contradicts what you feel in your body, and not immediately overriding it just because it’s uncomfortable to sit with. It looks like being willing to stay in uncertainty a little longer instead of grabbing the fastest answer. It looks like treating outside guidance such as readings, advice, opinions, even the ones that resonate deeply, as something to feel into rather than something to hand your power over to.

Your soul isn’t asking you to stop seeking guidance or connection. It’s asking you to stay the author of your own life while you do. The most powerful moments of clarity happen when what someone reflects back to you lines up with something you already felt humming quietly in your heart.

Liz’s story ends the way it does because somewhere inside her, she hadn’t fully lost her knowing. She was scared, she was grieving, but she was still reachable. That reachability, that thread back to her own truth, is what saved her son.

You’ll be happy to know that I saw liz end of that same year, she was glowing. She came with Elijah, a beautiful baby boy with green eyes just as I predicted. She told me that I resonated.. She knew I was telling her the truth.

That thread exists in you too. It’s been there the whole time, under the noise, under the fear, under everyone else’s certainty about your life. You don’t have to search far for your superpower. It’s already yours. It’s the quiet knowing you’ve been taught to doubt.

Trust it anyway.

This substack is your backstage pass to the messy soul magic that includes intuitive guidance, probably me oversharing, tools to help you feel more you - but with better vibes. It’s woo with a wink, healing without the holier-than-thou, and a spiritual glow-up without having to give up caffeine or sarcasm or without losing yourself as a person.

If your soul’s been whispering, “Is this all there is?” Come on in. Let’s laugh, cry, connect, and get your energy sizzling again (in a cosmic kind of way).

Let’s ignite your energy and Sexify Your Soul. You ready?”