The belly knows.
I wake in the night with that hissing and sizzling in my gut. That is my intuition talking. It is not to be silenced and it won’t let me sleep.
There have been times my belly said go forward, or stand still, or run away. It has said, jump on that approaching bus, now! Forget about the bus behind that you were waiting for. It has said, the money doesn’t matter–do not get on that plane (and I didn’t, and it was, more than once, the best flight I never took).
Last night my belly shook me awake to say, hey! You know that to-do list you made last night? It is bullshit. You can’t do that. You will be a stressed-out wreck if you try to cram that all into this very crucial week. Don’t worry about disappointing people. Damn the embarassment, just be honest – get on the phone, write that email, simplify your life. Do one thing at a time. Focus on what really needs to be done.
And so I got up and I postponed some work, I canceled some activities, I ate some crow. I may have looked like a flake but i made the right decision. When i listen to my gut, i always do.
Yaaaaay for you, dear friend!
Ah, this post reminds me of a brilliant piece of science fiction. It would take me some meditative effort to think who wrote it, so…
In the story of the future lifestyle, kind of Philip K Dick’esque, a man stepped out of the ordinary routine of his life to do erratic things on impulse, much as you speak of, and in the end, he murders a random person… Its kind of shocking. Maybe the mundanity of his utopian lifestyle is too much, too much orderly, too much controlled. But the act is so meaningless…