Trusting Intuition

March 22, 2023

"Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone.”
—Mahatma Gandhi

Intuition. When I used to hitchhike around the country in the 1970s, I called it “road sense.” My intuition became honed, for safety and survival. It became so honed that from a distance I could sense the vibes of a car’s driver without even being able to see the driver. If my intuition sensed negative vibes, I pulled my thumb down and turned away until that car had passed.

Another time, I sensed such good and positive vibes that I beamed my intention long distance to that driver, “Please pull over and offer me a ride” and they did! The ride was indeed pleasant with a good-hearted person.

On a road, a Black man in jeans bends down to talk through a passenger window to the car's driver.

Intuition works the other way, too. One day on the Northern California coast I was hitching to get to the closest laundromat, which was in a town about twenty miles away. An elderly lady stopped and gave me a ride. In the car, she told me that I was the first hitchhiker she’d picked up since World War II; she said that she could just sense that I was an okay person to give a ride to. We had a pleasant conversation all the way to the laundromat.

Hitchhiking is risky. I did have bad experiences. Each one could have been avoided. My intuition had warned me not to take those rides, but my “logical” mind overrode my intuition, saying, “I’m tired. It’ll be okay. I’ll endure.” (Bad advice, oh so-called “logical” mind!)

Intuition. I’ve learned that I’m in a category called “Highly Sensitive People.” Perhaps that means that my intuition is more finely tuned than most. I do know that I respond emotionally to a person’s energy. If someone is ungrounded and unfocused, scattered in their energy and movements and behavior, I become highly uncomfortable in their presence. I feel unsafe. My intuition informs me that I must remain guarded. Therefore, I now choose to spend my time, as much as possible, with people whose vibes jive more with my own; with whom I feel safe, can relax, and together share a pleasant ride through life.