The gift of intuition

Welcome to the first episode of Connect to Centre, a podcast about rediscovering the inner compass we all carry — our intuition. You don’t need to be spiritual, or mystical, or even particularly introspective to benefit from tuning in. Intuition belongs to everyone.

This episode shares the story of how this podcast is both a gift to myself and to you. As my own path to connect with my inner knowing began to include heartfelt, spontaneous conversations with others about how their intuition shows up - these exchanges of insight became the seed for this podcast.

This episode also explores:

• What intuition really means (and how it might already be guiding you)
• Why intuition isn’t something you need to get, but something you can remember and reclaim
• The joy of hearing others articulate their inner knowing — and seeing yourself reflected in it

Whether you're new to this territory or have been walking the intuitive path for years, this episode reminds us that you are already intuitive. All that’s left is to listen.

Transcript

Hello curious friends and welcome to Connect to Centre. I'm Michelle, your host. This podcast is about intuition, inner knowing and finding our way back to ourselves. This is the first episode and it's something very special. The beginning of a journey for me and maybe for you too. In this episode I want to share how this podcast came to be because it's a gift I'm giving to myself and And I hope it's a gift for you too. Over the last few years, I've been immersed in understanding and developing my own intuition. It's been a very personal journey, not always linear and not always clear, but always interesting. And along the way, I found myself repeatedly drawn into conversations. These were never formal interviews or structured discussions. They're often spontaneous, sparked by... passing comments or shared feeling. But those conversations became some of my favourites. I'd ask, how does your intuition show up for you? And how do you use it in your life? And to me, their responses were like treasure. Each one added another piece to the mosaic of my own understanding. Sometimes what they'd say echoed my own experience and reinforced my own trust in my own intuition or helped me feel less alone. Other times their stories revealed something completely new, a different way of experiencing or sensing that I hadn't considered and could try. And that's to me the magic of intuition. It grows when it's witnessed. First, I'm endlessly curious about intuition. Not just mine, but everyone's. How we use it, how we ignore it. how it speaks through dreams and hunches and feelings and symbols. And secondly, I love exploring it creatively by learning how it's experienced by different people and then trying some of the approaches myself. When I talk to people about their intuition, what struck me was not only my own learning, but how excited they were to talk about it. Often they'd say, I've never really thought about it like this before, or I didn't realize this was something I could reflect on or grow. There was so much joy for me in that realisation. And just like me, often the people I'd talk to love hearing other people's stories too. There was this beautiful moment of resonance of seeing themselves reflected in someone else's experience as well. So that's when I knew this needed to be more than just casual one-on-one conversations and that's how this podcast was born. One of the things that I'll focus on repeatedly in this podcast is that you are already intuitive. One of the biggest hurdles people face is the belief that intuition is something you have to learn, or that it's only accessible by certain types of people. But your intuition is already working in your life. Maybe in subtle ways, maybe in loud and insistent ways, but it's there. Maybe you've learned to ignore it, or you've been taught that it isn't trustworthy, that the logical mind is superior. But It's usually still there, unconsciously guiding us. Before we go further, I want to pause and explain what I mean by intuition, because it's one of those words that can mean different things to different people. For me, intuition is the quiet inner voice, the deep feeling, the sudden knowing, that sense of truth that arises without needing explanation. Sometimes it's a whisper or a nudge or a vision or a feeling. Sometimes it shows up as a sense of expansion or a subtle contraction when something is off. Sometimes I think of it as my inner compass. And the beautiful thing is, intuition doesn't have to be forced. It's already there. It's something we remember, not something we acquire. Most of us have stories in our past experiences where intuition played a role, even if we didn't understand it. At one point in my studies, I was conducting a number of interviews, and someone contacted me to be interviewed. For reasons I couldn't explain, I felt uncomfortable when I scheduled that interview. My rational brain came into play to try and figure out why. This person had come in through an unusual route, but still an acceptable route. Was that why I felt uneasy, simply because it was different? But to me, it just felt like more than that for reasons I couldn't explain. My brain continued to try and rationalise. Well, even if there was something questionable happening here, what could go wrong? The interview was going to be at a cafe. Why not still go ahead? But I kept feeling uncomfortable in my body. And finally, I canceled the interview. This is probably a story that resonates with you and you've had some kind of similar experience. It doesn't matter what your spiritual beliefs are. You don't need to subscribe to any particular worldview to access your intuition. You can be religious or agnostic or scientific or some kind of spiritual or anywhere in between. Intuition isn't owned by any tradition. It belongs to the human experience. You don't even have to call it intuition. You can just call it your gut instinct, inner guidance or a whisper from your future self. What matters is that you listen. So in this podcast, you'll hear conversations with people from all walks of life where I'll ask them similar questions about how intuition shows up for them and how they've learned to work with it. There'll also be some solo episodes like this, where I share my thoughts and experiences and reflections, and maybe some practices, gentle ways you can start tuning into your own inner voice. This podcast matters to me, and hopefully to you, because I've met so many deeply intuitive people who don't use their intuition for themselves. They may use it to help others in their teaching, their parenting, their healing, but But when it comes to their own lives, they often are not consciously aware of its role. What I love about intuition is that it's there regardless, and that it will keep coming back and try and get your attention, even if you're trying to ignore it. I have many examples of where I've ignored my intuition, and it's found other ways to make the same point, such as trying to ring someone and finding that the phone is consistently engaged. So I wait a while and then when I try again, now mysteriously the whole phone network has gone down. Suddenly my phone just freezes. And I'm thinking, this is a bit bizarre. It doesn't seem to make sense that all these things would be happening all at once. And that's the point at which I realise there was a message here that I missed the first time when the phone was engaged. And I missed the second time. And even the third time when the phone froze. But now that I'm putting it all together, I can see, yeah, maybe I'm just not supposed to call them. Or at least not now. So if you find yourself in a situation saying, this just doesn't make sense. This can't be happening. This is all a bit weird. then this podcast might be useful. It's about using your intuition, not just to serve, but to live. It's about using your intuition in your own life, to choose the path that's yours, to listen to the wisdom of your body, to navigate uncertainty with trust. Because when we do that, when we start living from our inner knowing, something shifts. The world begins to feel more aligned. We become more ourselves. And when we do that for ourselves, then it ripples outwards and also affects others. So as we begin this journey together, I want to say thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being curious. Thank you for making space for your own inner voice. Thank you for being here. I'm so glad you are.