Today’s blog post was inspired by a Facebook post from a friend…thanks Ronn.

Call it a whisper. Call it your inner voice. Call it a gut feeling. Call it a hunch. Call it fate. Call it God. Whatever you want to call it, it is telling you something. It is telling you to listen. It is telling you to take action, or not take action. It is telling you. It is warning you. Intuition. Your intuition is the unexplained feeling that something is true, even when you have no evidence or proof of it. Your intuition tells you when something is wrong or when something is about to happen. How many times have you said to yourself, “I knew that was going to happen” or “I should have listened to my gut.”

It happens to me all the time. However, I never used to listen enough. I knew it was there. I think I just didn’t want to listen. From the time I was in my late 20s, periodically, I would get a “bad feeling.” This usually meant that something not good was about to happen or had happened. It happened when my uncle died. It happened when a friend got a DUI. It happened when there were near misses when my husband avoided car accidents. It is kind of scary to have these feelings. It is kind of scary to know that you can feel or tell or hear when something bad happens. Not that we can really do anything about it, because really, our life is already planned. God has us covered.

Sometimes the feeling is so overwhelming it takes over. Everything feels kind of warm and kind of weird. Almost every time, the tears flow. I can’t help it. It is that overpowering. It lasts anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. Sometimes I can’t shake the feeling for a few days. More often than not, it involves someone close to me. Sometimes I don’t know what happened or if anything happened at all. Maybe that means it is someone I am not super familiar with. I have no idea. It is quite interesting though. I’m not quite sure I want to cultivate it just yet.

A couple weeks ago I had an appointment in Rapid, and I left early in the morning, taking the back way, which is usually filled with wildlife. Anyway, the day before I kept “seeing” in my head, visions of deer. It happened several times that day and even the morning I left. I listened that day. I was extra cautious. If I would not have been paying attention, I would have hit deer in several places along the way. Places where I usually don’t see deer. Places where they seemed to come out of nowhere. I was ready though, because I listened. I was thankful I listened. I was grateful I listened.

Do we all have this inner voice, or do some of us just listen more? I think we all can listen to ourselves more and trust our inner voice or our gut feelings more. I like to call it trusting my faith, guardian angels and God.

Do you listen to your gut or your inner voice? If you want to learn to listen more there are things you can do to help foster your intuition. You can start journaling. Try your hand at the surge of consciousness exercise. Begin with a prompt such as “What is the best decision? or “What do I need to know? Start writing what pops into your head. Just do it. Don’t wonder why, don’t think about it. Just write it. A few days later you can go back and read it, now with a more objective perspective. See what it means to you then.

You can also use meditation. Meditation clears your mind of crazy thoughts, worries and overthinking. It helps you to tune in. It helps you dig deeper into your feelings. Even 5 to 10 minutes can make a difference. Pay attention to any interesting, or what you perceive to be odd, thoughts that may arise after your meditation.

Try getting creative. Draw a picture. Paint something or start writing. Get lost in the activity and feel free of any distractions or worries. This is pretty similar to meditating. During this time, you mind is receptive to awareness and ideas or insights. Creativity provides an outlet for your to express emotions you otherwise would be aware of.

When I was researching things to help foster your intuition, I realized that the things I listed are things that I started doing within the last year and a half or so. Not realizing that I was helping this process. Not realizing that I was moving towards understanding my intuition more. Not realizing that I was moving towards a closer relationship with the spirit world, with guardian angels and with God.

The next time you hear that voice, or you see that vision, or you just feel something in your gut, stop and really listen. Hear it. Feel it. Use it. Be grateful for it.

The Sooper Dooper chronicles – the morning ladies

If you were lucky enough to work any mornings at Soooer Dooper, you got to work with Pat, Charlotte or Lorraine. If you were really lucky, you got to work with all three at the same time. As high school employees, we were lucky to be exposed to such good people at such a vulnerable time in our lives. They were like moms to us and they treated us like their own kids.

The morning crew. The morning ladies. The faces of Sooper Dooper. They came at 7 or 8 and worked until 2 or 3. A few times I worked in the morning when one was on vacation, a fill in. I also worked during the summer, pretty much full time.

Going in to work in the mornings was amazing. The smell coming from the bakery was unbelieveable! The smell. The hugs of comfort from baking bread. Sooper Dooper had a full service bakery. They had the best long john’s, cinnamon rolls, breads, and pullaparts to die for. They also had delicious cookies. One particular cookie was kind of a sugar cookie with apricot and then folded over. I can’t remember the name of them, but they were delicious!

Pat was tall. Her real name was Pearl, Pearl Palmer. Pat was in charge of ordering the candy and the cigs. The candy was all up front. So were the cigs. The cigarette rack was up above one of the big candy shelves. A person had to reach up to find the kind they wanted. When we were working, we had to make sure the cigs were stocked. There were a lot of smokers back then.

Pat was such a nice lady. She passed away in 2013. I can still see here with her paper and pen, writing down the candy order…

Next up we have Charlotte. Charlotte Hiller. Charlotte was short. She was feisty though. Nobody got away with anything when Charlotte was working. She loved all of us kids though. We had some really good talks. Any of these ladies would have done anything for any of us.

Next up was Lorraine Ebach. Another lady with a big heart. Such hard workers, all three. They taught us all how to work hard and not complain. Who wanted to listen to a bunch of teenagers complain? You’re right, nobody!

They all took care of the front of the store and greeted customers as they came through the door. It was their job. They did it well. They were all friendly and made everyone feel at ease. Even when they had to train new kids.

The front of the store had three checkout lanes and one emergency lane. The emergency lane had an antique till that was manual. You even had to add the tax separately to the order. No automatic adding there. There were only a few of us who knew how to use the antique. It was really cool looking, but man were customers stacked up when the power went out and that was the only till to use.

I see Charlotte and Lorraine once in a while. They always remember me and are just as nice as they were 30 plus years ago. I appreciate the Sooper Dooper years. The Sooper Dooper years were good to me.