When I was fourteen, I traveled with my family to Vancouver (and then onto Alaska).
I loved the energy of being in a big city that felt foreign. I had the ‘gut tug’ that maybe I was meant to live in one some day. I grew up near Philadelphia and NYC, and knew they weren’t ‘it’.
Then, a couple years later, I learned a family friend, who was a year older than me, was going to this school, George Washington University, in DC.
I felt a major body response. I can only describe it as a knowing.
I didn’t know anything about the school, and had only been to DC once before, but just had a sense that I was meant to go there.
I applied early-decision…and I didn’t apply to any other colleges (as only a 17 year old would do!).
I was accepted in the first cohort of early admissions, and knew I’d be going to GW in November of my senior year.
It was the first time I ever felt so certain about something, without any idea why.
I was so excited, proud, and realized then that this inner knowing was always there, and I could trust it.
And since then I’ve (mostly) followed it, and when I haven’t I’ve learned very valuable lessons.
I will say that I was aware of it before this – I often had ‘senses’ of things, but I didn’t trust them (and was often taught things that went against it).
People thought I was crazy to leave the small town of 12,000 people I grew up in. I was one of a few people that left the state for school. It was hard to leave my family.
But it was without a doubt the right move for me. It was the beginning of my path – I met people that are still my closest relationships. I saw other possibilities for careers. I saw people making a living for the first time working for themselves (and that 100% planted the seed of possibility for me).
Question for you: Think back to the first time you felt your inner knowing. What was it about? How did you know you have it?
I firmly believe every single person has this inner knowing, and the ‘work’ is to find our way back to it (not somehow create it outside ourselves).
