It's Foolish to Follow Your Intuition

Seven lessons on the nature of intuition and the folly of following it.

Jan 08, 2025

It was the most foolish thing I’d ever done.

I woke one spring morning and, before my eyes even opened, I made the biggest decision of my life for no rational reason.

Would I remain at the University of Illinois for graduate school, where I’d established a close relationship with a faculty mentor, a research project in a relationship laboratory, and countless friendships?
Or would I scrap it all to attend Penn State University, where I knew no one and had no idea what turns my life might take?

My eyes were still closed when I thought, “If you don’t go to Penn State, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what-if.” And just like that, the decision was made. I followed the guidance of something within me that didn’t have any name, into a future that didn’t have any guarantees.

In the end, I met my wife at Penn State. We got married there. We had our first child there. I went there the loneliest of souls and left with a family. I went there to become a researcher and left a therapist. I went there asking almost no questions of existence and left there asking all of them. I went there wondering what the voice was that sent me there. I left still wondering.

Now, though, exactly twenty-five years later, I’m ready to give that voice a name—it’s the voice of intuition.

Yeah, but what is intuition?

It’s impossible to know for sure. That’s what makes following it so foolish. It is a voice within you, constantly guiding you, and yet, where does that voice come from, and where is it leading you? It’s impossible to tell. If a voice like that was coming from the closet in your bedroom, you’d pull the covers over your head and think seriously about getting treatment. However, when that voice comes from a closet within us, we call it intuition. Foolishness for sure. And yet.

Every time you follow your intuition, your faith in it deepens.

Intuition told me to start a blog, even though it was verboten at the time for a therapist to write about his personal life.
It told me sit down one morning in the makeup aisle of a Target store and write a letter to my daughter, even though everyone was staring at me.
It told my wife and me to quit our jobs and move into the country to raise our family, a decision we could properly explain to no one at the time.
It told me to write my first book about shame and to turn my third book into a novel.
It told me to cancel my contract for a second novel.
It told me to write a book called Openhearted, which I’m near completing.
It told me, inexplicably, to spend my holiday revising the second novel instead of working on Openhearted.

My faith in it has become so deep I dared not disobey. I’ve come to believe that it’s the voice of my soul, and that my soul is the dwelling place of God, and that anything drifting up from that holy place within me (as Frederick Buechner describes it) is worth taking seriously.

As you follow your intuition, you don’t just develop more faith in it, you also become more familiar with it.

Here’s are 7 things I’ve learned about intuition along the way:

Intuition is the opposite of ambition. Ambition has a plan for your future and strong opinions about where that future should end up. Intuition will only tell you about the next step. It seems unconcerned with conclusions.
Intuition will never burn you out. It may ask much of you, but it will never tempt you into that wasteland of imbalance, overextension, and depression.
Intuition is oblivious to the opinions of others. This is why it seems foolish: it oftentimes can’t be explained to our people, who have very clear ideas about how we should and should not be living our life.
Intuition is your future self calling to you from beyond time. It’s almost always asking you to relinquish your stranglehold on who you think you are so you can become who you actually are.
Intuition confounds the mind but calms the soul. It’s felt as peace in the body, even when it terrifies the mind. It neutralizes the nervous system. Internal tumblers fall into place. Wholeness happens. The soul is soothed.
Intuition is satisfying in and of itself. Once you follow it, your integrity is its own reward. You can look at yourself in the mirror. You like who’s looking back.
Intuition is drowned out by unexpressed pain. If you can’t hear your intuition, it’s probably drowning in your sorrow. Cry a lot. Then your intuition will be heard again.

What is your intuition telling you right now?

My intuition is telling me to pause my weekly Substack posts until the manuscript for Openhearted is complete. It’s telling me to pour all my undiluted creative energy into the book until it’s submitted to my publisher on March 3rd. That scares me. I’ve got wounds around being forgotten. A part of me wonders: if I go quiet for a couple months, will you still be here when I return? It feels foolish to risk it. Intuition, however, just shrugs its shoulders and wags its finger, beckoning me.

I dare not disobey.

So, I'll be back in March with more free posts. Between now and then, our Human Hours will continue as usual for paid subscribers, the third Friday of each month, as we write this Openhearted book together. In the meantime, I’ll leave you all with this question:

What is your intuition telling you right now,

and how might you live a little foolishly

by following it?