And is often underdeveloped
By Donna Hoffmeyer
(original post on Medium)
“““When I retired from the military in 2020 I was a tense ball of knots. I had zero idea what my next move was going to be. Actually, that is not true. I knew I did not want another boss, nor did I want a 9–5 job. I knew one other thing.
I was a hot mess. I know there are plenty of you out there that can relate. Even if you were not in the military, I’m sure you can think of a period where you were a hot mess. If you can’t, you are either 10 and haven’t had enough life under your belt…or you’re lying to yourself.
If you’ve been reading these blogs, you have found that my “hot messness”, led to my crash and burn upon retirement. It needed to happen. I needed to crash and get a little crispy.
It is what comes next that is critical.
Intuition, instinct, ESP, clairvoyance, discernment, divination, sixth sense, gut, and many other names are given to the ability to look inward for the answers. Intuition is not something the military issued to us, but it is something we may have developed in our military careers for our job. The key phrase here…for our job.
It is also needed to move through a successful transition. Think about it. Transition, even though it feels daunting and scary, is a magical period. It is the period the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. It is a period where we can recreate ourselves; try an entirely new career; start a business; get back to the hobbies we loved; or reconnect with parts of ourselves that have been hidden for decades. If we want to become that beautiful butterfly, we have to listen to our core…where our intuition lays.
Intuition is your soul’s way to show you the light. Ignoring it will only keep you in the dark. ~Maria C. Dawson
Now granted, many of us, myself included, can say they have a pretty good gut and have navigated out of a few sticky situations; whether that be a deployment crisis, office politics, or unit chaos. However, after spending a career in the service, we tend to have lost some of our gut instincts when it relates to ourselves.
Let me explain.
When we enter the military, we are immediately taught teamwork and completing the mission as a team. Subsequently, we are given our job, our next base, and our assignment (including the plethora of additional duties). We have our peers and hope like hell we gel for the next 2–4 years, or it will be a very isolating experience.
Choices are not seen as first, second, or third…rather an either/or…making them all the options you would consider; and even then you may find yourself on a non-voluntary assignment to Korea because that is where there is a current need.
Deployments happen…you’re going.
Your medical and dental appointments are made for you. The taskers for the job are endless. Someone needs you to be in this meeting, that working group, that board. Do a solid job, you get more work. No one is around to do that job…congratulations…it’s yours. Do not have any working knowledge for the job..it’s okay, we believe in you. Your annual review is based on a checklist of items. Check them off, you can compete for the next rank, blow them off…no chance of promotion.
The point of this small diatribe is that we do not have a lot of choices in the military. Oh they will make you think you have a choice, but they are all guided for the greater good of the military…not your greatest good. Don’t get me wrong…you can learn a ton about yourself when you are put in suboptimal situations. There are always lessons to learn and our journey carries us down these winding roads to learn.
However, I contend that in such a controlled setting, we tend to lose a bit of our intuition. The intuition we need to aid us in our transition to the civilian world. Often, we do not realize this ability is malnourished, until we transition out of the service. Let’s relate it to a break-up of a long-term relationship.
When my first husband and I divorced, the best advice I received was from a chaplain. She said, “You will be certifiably crazy for the next two years. Your gut will be off. You will not trust your intuition when it comes to your judgment of people.” She was right.
I challenge that this is similar to us leaving the military. We leave our work relationship (the break-up) and enter a transition period. Everything is new, different, unfamiliar — new culture, new sets of rules, new language, new people. We have no idea how to process all this information and determine what path is best for us because we have spent many years doing what we were told to do; needed to do; and do for others, and not listening to what we needed to do for ourselves. Not even sure we even registered ourselves on the priority list.
After years of indoctrination, being told when, where, and how high to jump, and keeping true to our ethos of “service before self”, we are then let loose to forge our way in the civilian world…and not a clue how to do it. We do not trust our intuition to navigate this foreign land. We do not trust our intuition to lead us to new adventures that may have been internally calling to us for years.
Yes, yes, yes…there are plenty of people that will help you find that dream job. There are also resources to determine your skill set and what job would be best suited for you.
In this current time, many people would love to bring you on board.
But that is not what I am talking about.
What is your intuition telling you?
When the dream job is presented to you, do you get a knot in your stomach? Do you ignore that knot or do you listen to it?
Are you aware you are afraid to be without work and jump to the first job to quell the fear?
Do you dismiss the persistent idea and desire of starting your own business because you feel you do not have enough knowledge?
As you take your government civilian job, do you push aside that sick feeling, because you feel it is easier to go back to a world you know?
Are you not stopping to ask yourself why there are multiple roadblocks when pursuing a specific path or do you see it as just challenges to overcome to get what you want?
Are you listening to the innermost part of you?
An intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. ~Albert Einstein
In order to answer any of those questions, you have to get quiet. Not once. Once never works. The first time you sit in an attempt to clear your mind, all you will hear is chatter….lots and lots of chatter. To-do lists, grocery lists; the argument you had with your spouse; why you get angry when the kids leave fingerprints in the windows; who is saving the whales; do squirrels have a nut preference, etc, etc, etc….
You have to sit over and over and over…and over and over and over. It doesn’t have to be long at first. Start with 1 min, then 3 min, then 5 min. You can sit with your cup of coffee, lay in bed, sit in the backyard…anywhere you are away from distractions.
Call it meditation. Call it mindfulness. Call it clearing the mind. Call it sitting quietly. It doesn’t matter what you call it…just keep doing it.
It took me a few months before I got the hang of it, but then I got better and better at it. It worked best for me with gentle meditation music. What I found was once I started to quiet and clear my mind, I was able to connect to my intuition better.
When I dove in head first to start my business, 6 months after retirement, it didn’t work. Nothing would come together. I had a little pity party, but my gut knew it was not time and to give it more time….so I did. When I was offered an amazing job; a job I was extremely interested in, I declined. My comment to them was “This is the right place, but the wrong time.” I was lucky they understood what I meant, and asked for me to keep in touch for future opportunities.
What I did hear was “Just write”. That was it. Write. It wasn’t profound, it was not going to make me any money initially, but it fed my soul. It is what my core needed. So, I listened, and started this blog…and I just wrote…and am still writing.
Then one day, someone reaches out to me and says, I saw you on Instagram and I wanted to know more about you. My intuition said, meet her. I obliged, and we had a scheduled 30 min Zoom meeting that went 2 ½ hours. In that meeting, I was encouraged to start my LLC. My intuition again kicked in and said yes, this is the right time. My good friend and business mentor, Jay, looked at me as I told him the story and said “I told you the same thing…I guess you couldn’t hear it because it wasn’t the right time for you.” (Jay is also very intuitive.)
Since I have cleared my mind, my intuition is audible to me now. Even more importantly, I trust it.
Trusting our intuition regarding ourselves is a struggle for many of us. A very good friend of mine is extremely intuitive. When she is helping others, it is so impressive to watch her use her instinct and intuition to navigate complicated scenarios. However, when it comes to herself and her personal life choices, she often second-guesses herself. We’ve discussed this many times since she retired from the military. She knows it is her fear, anxiety, and need to control that impedes her trust and something she consistently works on.
Struggling with a loss of purpose often clouds our ability to see with clarity. It is hard to see the future when you are grieving the past. It is hard to see a future when there has been trauma. This is why it cannot be stressed enough, you have to get quiet, clear out all the negative energy, to allow yourself the ability to connect with your core…your intuitive self. It is only then that you will start to make choices that are aligned with your true self. Not with what grandma, dad, spouse, kids, or friends think you would be good at…but what you truly want.
Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. The rest is secondary. ~SPJ
It is by far an easy path. It is probably one of the more difficult paths to take, as it takes time, effort, self-reflection, and consistency. However, speaking from experience, it is worth every bit of effort. The effort is directly proportional to the returns. The more you put in, the more you get out of it.
When we are aligned, we trust our intuition, and plans come together; often in ways you did not anticipate. In the end, a world you have only imagined opens up to you.
And the butterfly emerges.
