Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumber the Podcast. I'm Bonnie. And I'm Audrey. And we're homeschooling moms to a combined total of 18 children. We know firsthand that motherhood is full of crazy chaos and overwhelming obligations, but it should also be full of love and laughter. Regardless of where you are on your journey, come join us as we work together to find joy in the chaos of motherhood.
Speaker: Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. You guys, today we are talking about something kind of interesting. This is episode 27, and we're calling it Mother's Intuition, but there's probably a million different names for it. It's kind of nebulous, kind of hard to define, but we're going to try to nail it down today and talk about it a little bit. I was thinking, you know how we gave an earbud warning on our episode on how to talk with your kids about sex? Maybe we should give a weird warning on this one.
Speaker: Yeah, like this is a little different. Yeah, because if you haven't experienced it, it might sound a little weird to you.
Speaker: Right, right, right. Yeah. If you're a new mom or a person who maybe you haven't quite wrapped your head around something like this, it might sound kind of hokey and weird, but we promise it's a thing. Okay. So we're going to start with a quick little humor segment the other day. So I have to preface this with the fact that my feet are kind of awful. Like they're always calloused, they're always dry and cracked. Part of it, I think it's just hereditary and part of it is the fact that I live in Phoenix in the summer.
Speaker: And I can't keep my feet moisturized enough. They're just always cracked and kind of grody looking. So my kids are always giving me a hard time about it. Every time I have my feet up on something, they're like, eww, mom's feet, eww, that's disgusting, whatever. And what's funny is I remember saying the same thing to my mom because hers are the same way.
Speaker: So the other day I was sitting there with my legs crossed and Alice, my two -year -old came up and started kind of playing with my foot that was crossed on my leg. And my 12 -year -old sits down on the floor with her and goes, hi, Alice.
Speaker: Alice, Callis, Alice, Callis. I thought I'm like, leave me alone. You're quite clever, but leave my poor feet alone. It's not my fault. Oh boy. Little nerd. All right. So you have a review for us, right? Yes, I have a review. This one is called Relatable and Joyful, and it's from Happy in MT.
Speaker: This is an easy listen because whether you are a mother of one or 10 children, the trials of parenting are the same. I love to tune in because the hostesses are relatable and radiate encouragement to their listeners. Sometimes it's just nice to know we aren't the only ones thinking or struggling in a certain way. So thank you for that review.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so sweet. And I'm so glad to hear that because that's pretty much the whole purpose of why we're here is just to be relatable and let you guys know that your crazy is not unique. Everybody has crazy and maybe not everybody's sharing it, but it's there. Do not feel alone. And if you do, go listen to our episode on loneliness. Three episodes ago, I think, yeah, 24. Okay, so yeah, Audrey, start us out.
Speaker: All right, so now let's talk about mother's intuition. Now there's lots of names for it. We didn't exactly know what to call it, but we're going to call it mother's intuition. But there's other names for it, like a gut feeling or an inspiration, a hunch, a feeling, a premonition, a sixth sense or instinct. A lot of different names on this thing that's kind of hard to put your finger on.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think that as we start to describe it, you will probably figure out whether you've felt it before or not, and maybe you already know you have. But I think that most mothers, if not all, have had this experience once or twice, and we're going to talk a little bit about it. I honestly believe that it's something divine, some kind of power given to us to help us raise up the next generation because it's a tough job motherhood is, right? And so we'll talk about what exactly it feels like and what to look for.
Speaker: Okay. And we'll talk about why and when we feel it. Yep. And then we're going to talk a little bit about what to do if we don't feel it and how to become more sensitive to these little hunches that might not be super, super strong. And lastly, we'll talk about how to deal with bad stuff that happens that we never saw coming.
Speaker: Right, because sometimes this intuition can warn us of things, but if it doesn't, we need to also be prepared to deal with the bad stuff that happens, right? Because there's good and bad in life, no matter what. Yep. So to start out, we're going to talk a little bit about what it feels like. So like we mentioned, it can be hard to describe. I personally have felt it as a nagging thought that won't go away. So a thought that pops into my mind and I just can't shake it.
Speaker: even if it doesn't make sense to me. It can also be like a vague sense of uneasiness or a feeling that something isn't right. So in our episode on kids and cell phones,
Speaker: which was number 15. I share an experience of when my oldest son was sneaking his iPad when he wasn't supposed to be. And I really had no reason to believe that anything untoward was happening with his iPad, but I walked in one day and could just feel something off, right? And granted, part of it was he's not a great liar, so that his face was a little bit
Speaker: guilt -ridden but even when he offered an explanation something told me that explanation wasn't the full story and i was really grateful for that because i was able to probe a little bit deeper and find out that he'd been watching tv when he was supposed to be studying i mean it wasn't a big deal but it was an important infraction of our household rules that i wanted to get to the bottom of and not allow that that deceit and sneakiness to go on so that was one experience for me
Speaker: Yeah, I have felt it in all those ways you mentioned too. And then sometimes I have like a tingling at the base of my skull. If it gets really strong, like on the, you know, they say moms have eyes in the backs of their heads. I don't know if this is where that saying came from. That's where your eyes are. Yeah. Yeah. I have like, like a pressure or like someone's pushing on the back of my head or sometimes
Speaker: the hair on my arms will stand up, like if it's a really intense feeling. So you know how it feels like when somebody is standing behind you and you can't see them, but you can kind of feel that they're there?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Like when a kid's leaning over you and you're asleep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's kind of how I can feel it. Like when I'm awake. So I was explaining this to some of my kids a little while back. Oh, a couple of months ago. And some of them were a little bit skeptical and they said, mom, you can't really, um, you can't really feel
Speaker: Like where we are or I you know, I explained to them that I'm most connected to my baby Like if I'm nursing it so that's the one like I have the strongest instinct for
Speaker: And so my, you know, my teenagers, they're a little bit skeptical. They said, okay, yeah, right, mom, we don't really believe you, but we're going to see if you really have this superpower or not. So we're going to do this little test. So they, um, they said, now you just go stand in the bathroom where you can't see outside and we're going to go, one of us is going to go and take the baby outside and stand somewhere. And then the other, and then come back in. So one person outside with the baby and other kid come back in and I tell,
Speaker: the person who came back in where I thought the baby was and said, okay, fine, whatever. And they went and came back in the house and I said,
Speaker: spot right where the baby was on the front porch and they're like, oh mom, you must have peaked or something. So then they said, well, let's do another check. So they went outside again and had the person holding the baby move. Well, the behind the scenes is that the person with the baby didn't know what was going on. It was the 13 year old and he was a little annoyed. So he didn't go the place where they told him to go with the baby. They told
Speaker: him to take the baby into the greenhouse. And he got annoyed and he took the baby somewhere else. So the one came back in the house and I said, okay, mom, where's the baby now? And so I said, um, it feels like they're just right outside the, you know, right outside. And I explained where it was that there was a vehicle parked outside. I said, it feels like kind of like right out there.
Speaker: And the teenager goes, nope, nope, you're wrong. I sent him to the greenhouse. And she went outside to get the child with the baby. And they were right where I said they were. Wow, that is crazy. So now my teenagers think, believe me that I have superpowers.
Speaker: Yeah, you do. Super mama powers. That is really cool. That is really cool. Yeah, I felt similar things with my babies, like when they sleep in my bed. It used to bother me because in my early motherhood years, I couldn't get any sleep. I felt like I was kind of hypersensitive to the baby being there, whatever. And now I can sleep deeply, but I know exactly where my baby is. Isn't that funny? Like a kid will come wake me up and lean into the bed right by me and my eyes will, you know, snap open. I'll go, baby's right there. Watch out.
Speaker: I didn't even know the baby was there. I'm like, I just know. Is that funny? Yeah. So this is kind of like that. We're just talking a little bit about this feeling that science can't seem to explain, but we really feel that it exists. So I'm going to move on to why we feel this thing. So everybody's personal beliefs differ. I personally believe it comes from a higher power.
Speaker: I think that running a household and being a mom is one of the most stressful, multitasking, exhausting jobs, both emotionally and physically. And raising kids is both hard and scary and a little overwhelming, especially in today's day and age where we don't know where the
Speaker: threats to our children are going to come from? Are they going to come from a car in the street or from the internet in my back room? But I think that because of that, we're given this gift, almost like an otherworldly gift to help care for our kids in the best way possible. And it's going to warn us of things. It's going to let us know when something is not quite right. We need to address something. We need to fix something. Our kids need us, et cetera. Absolutely. I 100 % believe this is a gift from God to help us protect our kids.
Speaker: That's my belief in it. Also, like you said, I can't explain it with science. How come I can feel so connected to my family? How come I can feel where my baby is? It gets stronger when we go in a crowd and I kind of
Speaker: I don't know, get amped up and like I had this connection to my family where I can feel where they are. And it's stronger, you know, for the younger kids, my teenagers, I'm not quite as connected to them. And that's probably good. Fine. Go away. I don't need to be connected.
Speaker: Well, yeah, and also they're gradually turning into other adults that don't need you as much. And so their connection should lessen. And I find that interesting that it becomes stronger for you in a crowd because obviously the danger is higher, right? Of your child getting lost or of someone taking the child, et cetera. So to have this ability to keep track of your kids or just to be on high alert is very interesting. The other interesting thing is now people might think I'm a terrible mom because of this.
Speaker: When my family is all together and some one or two people are missing, I don't always know right off the bat who it is because there's a lot of kids. It takes me a minute to go through everybody and go, oh, it's so and so that's missing. But I always know when someone's missing. Isn't that funny? So it's like, I'll look at everybody and just instantaneously I feel that something is
Speaker: lacking in the group. Somebody's not there, but I can't always tell it immediately. I have to run through the kids' names to go, oh yeah, it's fine or whatever. Yeah. Well, I have a story that I'll relate later when we talk about how to deal with when bad stuff happens that totally falls into that category.
Speaker: Okay, cool. Okay, so some examples of when I have felt this feeling are, like I mentioned, when kids hide things from me or try to lie to me. When kids have been in danger, like we mentioned, wandering away or getting lost or being confused about where they're supposed to be. Birth decisions, when contemplating birth decisions, I've felt this a lot because I feel like there's so many options.
Speaker: give birth in a hospital or a birth center or a home or have an epidural or don't or schedule a C -section or induction, et cetera, et cetera. So every time I try to make a big decision regarding the birth of a child, I felt led one way or another. In fact, I think I shared in a previous episode that I felt led to go to the hospital with my two babies ago and I had no idea why. And then eventually I figured it out. I was going to be in danger and I didn't need to go, which was just so interesting that my spirit and mind kind of knew before, or rather my heart knew before my mind did.
Speaker: Yeah, I love that story. And then just a quick example that I saw in my own childhood, my mom definitely had this gift as well. And her gift was especially strong in helping us decide which of our friends was going to be a good influence on us. So I remember distinctly bringing a friend home once from a newish neighborhood. And my mom said, when that friend left, she said, you know,
Speaker: I don't think that girl's the nicest girl. I don't think she's a great influence on you. And I just met her, and I thought it was so judgmental and so mean of her to say that. And I told her so. And I just walked off in a huff. And sure enough, within about a year or two, that friend's true nature was revealed. And she was not a very nice friend. And she kind of did me wrong a couple of ways. And I just thought, dang it, my mom was right again. How does she know this? And she was just trying to protect me from someone who didn't have my best interest at heart.
Speaker: Yeah. You know, thinking about it now, I think my mom and I had a pretty strong connection when I was a young child. And I remember a story. Now, again, my memory is really bad about childhood stories, but apparently we were sitting in a parking lot and some of us had gone into a store, Target. I remember it was Target.
Speaker: and the rest were waiting on the vehicle and time was passing. It was getting close to the time where we had to be somewhere else. And so my mom apparently, folklore goes, she said she just thought really, really hard about me as she was staring at her watch. This sounds so weird. But then in the store, I
Speaker: I felt like somebody was watching me and so I looked at my watch and then we, oh, you know, it's time to go. We got to hurry up. And so we went out to the vehicle and my mom, I remember asking, well, why did you come? What time was it? You know, how did you realize? And I said, I had happened to look at my watch exactly at the same time that she was thinking about me. Weird stories, huh? Yeah. She's like telepathically communicating with you. Get your buns back in the car right now.
Speaker: It's so cool. It's really cool. Yeah. Okay. So times when I have felt this really strong is so in a different place than we live right now for people who know me a long ways away. There was a gathering that we used to go to regularly for religious reasons. And unbeknownst to us, there was a sexual predator in
Speaker: this gathering. And we were new to the area and it was known to other people in the group, but nobody told us of it, even though we had kids. And so several years later when we moved away, okay, back up a second. So I had a really, really bad feeling about this person and I would not let this person near me
Speaker: and my kid and every time they pass by, I'd switch my kid to the other hip, just things, little things you do as a mom, just to keep, just my instinct was telling me, this isn't a good person, I don't want him near my kid. And I felt really bad because it was in a religious context and I felt like I was just being judgmental or not a good person.
Speaker: So then years later, when we moved away, someone from that area called us and apologized and said, you know, we're really sorry. They talked to my husband and they said, we're really sorry that we never told you that this person was a sexual predator and we feel really bad about that now. Wow. Gee, thanks. Yeah. My husband said, well, that's really nice of you to call and apologize now, but Audrey already knew that. My wife didn't need your warning. She already knew something was not right.
Speaker: Yeah, and then that is not the only time that it's happened. There has been another instance where we've found out later that someone was a sexual predator and my instincts had already
Speaker: told me that. And I, again, it was in a religious context. And again, I was, you know, spending hours crying on my husband's shoulder. I hate to be this judgmental. I'm sorry, I don't like this person, but I just cannot have them in the same room as my kid. Yeah, that's so interesting. Yeah. So then other times, like I mentioned, was in crowds. I can, it just gets, I don't know, the protective instinct in me gets really strong and I kind of can feel where my kids are when we're in crowds. Yeah.
Speaker: That's really cool and interesting that you talk about having that feeling specifically towards another person. I just wanna take that as a second to remind moms that you know best for your children and you don't have to have a reason to do something one way or another, right? Like my mom, she could not have explained why she got a bad vibe from that girl. And maybe the girl herself didn't even know that she was gonna, you know,
Speaker: that she had bad intentions towards me, but it turned out that, you know, she hurt me later on. So I just feel like we should really give value to those feelings and inclinations and follow them. An example is my, we decided a long time ago that we didn't want our kids to do sleepovers for a variety of reasons and have been pressured into multiple of them, mostly with family members. So cousins are always like, Oh, you know, cause we have lived by a lot of extended family members. Oh, just come sleep over or come sleep over.
Speaker: And I would bet my life that every one of my extended family members is a wonderful person who would never harm my child or expose them to anything. But for some reason, I still just don't feel good about letting my kids sleep over. And at multiple times, I've let them, even though it's against my better judgment. And I need to just have the courage to say, no, I can't explain why the answer is no, but the answer is just no. You just have to respect it.
Speaker: Absolutely. That is my number one tip to if you don't feel, we're going to go on here to if you don't feel it, how to get this feeling to increase for you. But that's my biggest tip is to listen to it because I would rather be wrong and my kids be safe and protected than ignore it and my kids get hurt.
Speaker: Yes. Amen. That's just my position. Right. And how would you feel later on if you felt that little warning or nudge and you didn't do anything about it? I've had that happen. And you think, oh my gosh, that really was a thing. That was something trying to tell me that something bad was happening. So excellent advice. Okay. So yeah, we're going to move on to what to do if you out there listening to this have no clue what we're talking about and think that we're really weird.
Speaker: This is just a bunch of mumbo jumbo, but you'd like to feel this and how to fix that, or if you don't feel it very often. So I've found that personally, I have to be really vigilant about practicing self -care. So I have to be emotionally healthy, not super stressed out. I have to be spiritually aware, so doing the things that I like to do to keep myself spiritually healthy. For me, that means having a little bit of quiet time every day, as impossible as that sounds, even if it's in the toilet, wherever it has to happen.
Speaker: Praying regularly, reading things that promote spiritual or mental health. So for me, that's self -help books. I really love entrepreneurial type reading. I like reading scripture, other inspirational stories. And also for me personally, it means avoiding toxic relationships. So if there are people in my life that tend to up my stress level or make me ruin my day or whatever, I try to avoid that. And then finally, just trying to show love more to my own family members and those around me.
Speaker: Yeah. So those are a few things that help me feel it a little bit more often. So I also have to have a very strong connection to the spiritual realm. And for me, this means prayer and meditation to start my day. It's like it centers and grounds me. And if I don't start my day with prayer and meditation and reading the Bible, then I'm just like,
Speaker: a Kimbo all day long, like I'm sort of off balance or off kilter. So yeah, that definitely is the way that I have to stay in connection. Oh, okay. So I'll ask you a question about that, Audrey. If you get, I know a lot of moms are probably thinking, yeah, right. Spiritual time, first thing in the morning while my kid is like dragging me out of bed. So if you happen to not wake up before your kids do, how do you recover from that? Do you still try to get that in first thing in the morning or do you try to find some time later on in the day?
Speaker: No, absolutely. It has to be first thing in the morning for me. And I have trained my kid that if they see me on my knees beside my bed praying, they can't interrupt. They have to go to somebody else if they're bleeding or whatever. There's absolutely zero interruptions if I'm praying. That's very smart. I just had a thought because I'm in that phase of life where I am not waking up before my toddler. She is a little stinker. She's always waking me up at 6 .30 in the morning.
Speaker: But I just had a thought that I might try to do, because that's something I've struggled with recently. I usually try to do it later on in the day, but it does start my day off just on the wrong foot if I can't.
Speaker: just kind of reconnect spiritually first thing in the morning. So I've had a thought to just escape to my closet. So the bathroom, the kids always know to come look for me there, but my kids don't know to look for me in the closet. So I'm going to try that. That was a very tired thought. I'm going to go try that and sneak in with my baby and maybe do the first feed of the morning on the floor of my closet while I pray. Well, the Bible does say go in your closet and shut the door. Yeah, clearly they knew. Clearly they knew. That's what moms have to do sometimes.
Speaker: If some thought or idea is nagging, nagging you, go check it out or go research it. The second story that I was telling you about a sexual predator, we actually went and researched the public records with this person's name at a courthouse. Because I just couldn't have any peace and it was like I didn't even want to go to that situation anymore.
Speaker: And so we went and researched and sure enough, they were registered sexual offender. And so if you have a thought, don't ignore it, just go research it, go check it out, do the best that you can and listen to it. Right, right. I was also going to mention that I personally know I need to listen to this thought or feeling and act on it if I want to hear it more often. So if I ignore it multiple times, it starts to go away. It's not interesting.
Speaker: Yeah. And I'll refresh everyone's memory back to episode 12 when we talk about mothering with intention. We talk about having the courage to do things that nobody else is doing or that people can't understand why you're doing. And that goes for this as well. If your mother's intuition is telling you one thing and you can explain it and nobody understands why you're doing it,
Speaker: have the courage to do it anyway, okay? Have the strength to do something different, even if you have no clue why it's happening. Maybe later on, like you did, Audrey, you'll figure out why you felt that way, and maybe you never will. In fact, I almost feel like it's more common to not find out. But as we kind of attune ourselves to that little prompting, we will be able to feel it more and more and trust it more.
Speaker: I agree. 100%. Yeah. Most of the time we don't know why we're feeling it. Yeah. So be aware that there is a sixth sense. We talk cents. S -E -N -S -E is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. Not dollars and cents. But yeah, we had, so I mentioned in our loneliness episode that my husband and I went and took a sign language class.
Speaker: What I didn't share was that we took this sign language class from a lady who was blind and deaf. Wow. So yeah, so how do you take sign language? How do you communicate? Well, her other senses were very, very heightened because she had lost two. And so her sense of smell was incredible. Cute little story. She knew we were pregnant before we did because she could smell.
Speaker: Yeah, it was always a cute story. So, um, she normally sat in her chair and everybody would go by her and shake her hand or sign goodbye into her hand. That's how you communicate with someone blind and deaf. You sign into their hand. And, um, but this day, um, she got up and went into the hallway and everyone had to, it was a narrow hallway and everybody kind of had to squeeze past her to get out that day.
Speaker: She wanted to get close enough to everybody to smell them and figure out who in the room was pregnant. So she knew it was somebody, huh? Yes, she knew somebody was pregnant. Crazy. So as I went by, she grabbed my hand and she said to me, now you take care of yourself, Audrey. And then I was like, OK, whatever. And we went out. Well, next week we'd done the little tests, all the two pink lines. And so we went to sign the language class a little bit early that week. And I went in and I said, I signed into her hand
Speaker: Uh, so last week you smelled something different about me, huh? And she says, yes, yes. I say, well, you were right, but we're not ready for everybody to know yet. Well, how sweet of her to not like out you guys to like, I smell somebody's pregnant.
Speaker: The question is, what is she smelling? I don't know. Incredible. Yeah. So anyway, she had gone, this lady, her story is incredible. She's passed away now, but she had gone on to get her master's degree in psychology and she was a clinical psychologist and saw
Speaker: clients. And she would use what they told her and what her interpreter would sign into her hand, but she would also use the sixth sense to determine what they were feeling and what they were experiencing. And so she could use that source as an information as well to communicate with them and help them out. It sounds
Speaker: really weird, but it's true. It's there. I think a lot of people would argue that those who have lost one or two senses have heightened other senses, like other worldly senses, because they've developed them. But I honestly think it's kind of a gift, right? That it's like, okay, God's thinking, well, you can't see and you can't hear, but I'm just going to give you this. You're going to be really, really sensitive to this or this or to give them more of an equal playing field. Can you imagine how difficult that would be? Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: It was incredible. I could tell stories about her all day. She was an amazing lady. That's cool. That's really cool. Okay. So my last tip for if you want to feel this feeling stronger or if you've never felt it before and you want to feel it, it's going to sound a little judgy, but you have to spend time with your kids. So attachment parenting. If you send your kids off to camp when they're out of school for the summer or if they sleep in separate rooms or if
Speaker: You don't breastfeed or a lot of these things that people don't like to be judged for, but you want to have that connection to your kids and you want to feel this mother's intuition. You've got to be connected to your kids. So in my experience, that is a way to feel it, is get close to your kids. Wow. That's a really interesting concept. I've never thought about it like that, but I have realized that.
Speaker: I am a lot more in tune to my kids' needs and things that are going wrong when they're home all the time, right? So if they have a camp or something where they are gone for a day or two at a time, I find that I'm not as sensitive to their needs. I can really pick up on things quickly. And that could also just be the fact that I see them and I'm used to their body language and their faces and their expressions and things.
Speaker: But yeah, that's really interesting. Interesting topic. Yeah, but when you have little kids that can't communicate with you, you can kind of figure out what's the matter with them somewhat from experience, but also I think it's some of this intuition and instinct kicking in. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and we're designed to be with them, close by them, right?
Speaker: Yeah. Okay, so we're going to move on, shift just a little bit to those times when maybe you are used to feeling this. You're used to getting a little nudge or a little warning about something that might not be going right for your family. But what happens when something bad happens and you didn't get a little nudge or a little warning sign? That can be disappointing, right? So I'll actually share a quick little story that I read in a church magazine recently. A woman was walking through a neighborhood with her two small children.
Speaker: And she saw a bunch of papers strewn across somebody's yard. And she thought, huh, I'm just going to gather these up so they don't get blown all over the neighborhood. So she ran around, gathered up all the things. And halfway through her gathering, she looked down and realized it was pornography. Somebody had like left this stack of dirty pictures all over the yard. And she was like,
Speaker: Disgusted. Gross. Why? Anyway, she's like, well, I'm going to finish picking it up. Finish picking it up. It was just kind of frustrated. Like my kids could have seen this. Why did I, you know, have to go this way, et cetera, et cetera. And just kind of frustrated. And then about five minutes later as she was finishing up and ready to leave the neighborhood, a school bus full of kids pulls up.
Speaker: and lets these kids out and she's like, oh my gosh, I was where I was supposed to be. I was cleaning this up so that these poor kids did not stumble across these gross images and have those imprinted in their mind better for me to see them. And I thought that was so sweet that she could have been frustrated that she didn't prevent her own family from being exposed, but instead she was kind of helping out a greater good. I thought that was interesting. That's a very sweet story. So what do you think, Audrey? What do you think about this concept?
Speaker: get over the fact that you might not get a warning or a little nudge before bad things happen. Right. Well, I've had little premonitions like a glass is going to fall off the edge of a counter. Just like I think I told in the episode
Speaker: Oh, I don't remember what it was, where my kid tripped and fell in the yogurt, went all over the floor, like I saw that happening right before it happened, you know? Yeah. And then you just kind of kick yourself for, oh, why didn't I, you know, stand up and carry the yogurt downstairs myself, you know, that kind of thing. Right. And then another thing I have noticed is that when I am pregnant, I do not have this intuition and this instinct as strong for my other kids because so much of my focus is inward at that time.
Speaker: that it's, yeah, it's just kind of - That baby's taking a lot of energy from you. I know it. Yeah. Interesting. So I will share one other little story. We got a lot of stories going on in this one, but anyway, about just the little things happening, little premonitions about things happening. So one time I was in a hurry to get out the door to go run some errands and I just made myself a big giant green smoothie. I put it in like a giant Mason jar.
Speaker: And I had the thought as I was rushing out of the kitchen to put one of those lid with the holes in it, you know, put a lid on it and a straw in it. And I remember kind of responding to that thought, I don't have time, right? And so I rush into the car and I get in the car. And of course the mason jar is too big to fit in my cup holder. So I'm holding it with one hand and I'm backing out of the driveway with the other hand. And as I turn the wheel, I smack the jar.
Speaker: And it goes everywhere. I smack the bottom of it, so it gets taught. And it's all over me, all over the car, all over the seat, all over the dashboard. And I'm like, oh yeah, did I have time for that? Nope, sure didn't, but I had to go back inside and change it all up. And that sounds silly, but I know that that was a premonition.
Speaker: to put a dang lid on the thing. And that reminds me of another little tip that if you're not sure if that thought is just something that's coming from you or if it's coming from somewhere else, if you kind of respond to the thought, it's coming from somewhere else, right? Like that was me saying, no, I'm not going to do that. I don't have time. So the thought did not originate with me to put the lid on it.
Speaker: It came from somewhere else, right? That's true. Because I tried to rationalize with it. So that's kind of been my gauge since then is like, okay, am I rationalized with this thought or should I just shut up and listen to it? Am I going to prevent something from happening? And that leads me to the next point that I wanted to make. I've often found that some lessons need to be learned the hard way, right?
Speaker: So maybe, you know, that story I've told multiple times and I have remembered it for a long time, whereas I might not have remembered following the premonition because I wouldn't have known what it, what it prevented. Does that make sense? If I had put the lid on, I never would have known that that was a thought coming to help me. Right. And so, um, sometimes these lessons need to be learned by going through them. And sometimes there's something silly like spilling a smoothie. And sometimes there's something huge, huge that can really disrupt our family for years and years and years.
Speaker: It could be a car accident, a death, an accident. Sadly, that's just life. We go through really hard times sometimes and sometimes we're warned about them and sometimes we're not, but there's always a lesson to be learned either way and that's the trick is to keep our eyes open to it. Yeah. I have a hard lesson that I learned in listening to my intuition or just maybe accepting it.
Speaker: a lesson in accepting it. I've had several miscarriages and after one of my miscarriages, I was actually early second trimester and so quite far along and I experienced something known as phantom fetal movement and that is where the baby is gone. It's died and it's gone. It's out of your body, but you still feel the baby kicking and it's a very, very
Speaker: intense mental, emotional thing because the baby's gone and you know it's gone, but you still have baby kicks. So they have, you know,
Speaker: They have equated it to muscle memory, like maybe you're just more sensitive to feeling your uterus, or maybe it's just grief, a way of your mind working it out. For me, it was actually a physical thing. So I felt like I was
Speaker: mentally going crazy. Like I knew this baby was gone, but I could still feel it kicking and I could still feel specific baby movements like hiccups. It was still, I would still feel hiccups inside of me and it wasn't there. It was gone. And so one time I even like, I just remember ripping up my shirt and staring at my, you know, perfectly flat belly and actually seeing
Speaker: the motion of hiccups on my belly moving. I would just break down in tears. I didn't understand what was going on and why this was happening to me. Finally, I talked to my husband about it and I said, honey, I think I'm going crazy. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to be committed because I still feel it moving. It still gets hiccups. I still feel it kicking and turning.
Speaker: I don't know what's going on. And, you know, just weeping and sobbing on his shoulder. And he says, okay, I'm going to submit to you an idea. And I know that you've researched this and what science says and all that and what the internet says, because I told him all, you know, everything that I looked up. He said, I'm going to submit to you that God left the spirit of that baby inside of you for a little while to help you heal.
Speaker: And that thought really helped me heal and get over it. And I did get pregnant again and have another baby, but I'm not going to rule out that it was a divine spirit to help me heal.
Speaker: Wow. That is both crazy and really inspiring, you know, to think that we have this connection to something, like you say, otherworldly, something divine. And being a mom is really, really hard sometimes, but it's also really, really a really awesome chance to connect with that spiritual realm. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, and I totally like it was a hard lesson for me to accept that that was going on, and that could be an option, but I'm really, really thankful to have this intuition when it helps me save my kids from danger or see where my baby is. I'm really thankful for the connection, and so I guess I've just become willing to accept things that are hard as well.
Speaker: Yeah, and to accept those things that you just cannot explain. Yeah. One last example I wanted to share was in learning to accept
Speaker: and find the lesson in these intuitive feelings is that my first birth was not what I had expected. It was kind of traumatic. It was really traumatic actually. And I came out of that thinking, I did all my preparation. I did the birthing classes and I researched and all these things and why did I have to have this birth that was so traumatic and freaked me out.
Speaker: It was not what I expected. It was not peaceful. And then the second birth was only slightly less dramatic and I'm thinking, come on, what's happening? But the interesting thing is the choices that it led me to make have really, really blessed my life.
Speaker: Those two kind of semi -traumatic births led me to look into home birth, which was one of my biggest blessings. I loved it. Led me into looking into some quote unquote alternative options for prenatal care and birth. And I'm so grateful that I found those things. And I can guarantee you that if those first two births had been by the book and nothing bad had happened, that I would not have looked into other options. I would have said, all right, that was good enough for me. And I feel like I was given
Speaker: an opportunity to have really, really exceptionally peaceful and spiritual births because
Speaker: those first two were kind of train wrecks. And I said, I do not want that again. And so I went completely opposite end of the spectrum. But it was one of those things that I could have really just been frustrated about because I really felt led to doing things the way I did with those births. I thought, but they were just stepping stones, I realize now. I wasn't supposed to find the solution in that first birth or the second birth, but they were stepping stones to finally lead me to that point where I could really feel some peace.
Speaker: Sometimes we can't see the whole story from the beginning, right? Yeah, exactly. So overall, we just want to finish with saying that this intuition, nudge, premonition, whatever you want to call it, is an amazing gift. It's something we can cultivate and really be blessed by and our entire family can be blessed by if we will do the work to tune into it and listen to it and follow it. Yes. And Bonnie and I are curious. Send us an email and let us know if you've felt something like this too, because
Speaker: We want to know we're not the only two weird ones out there. That's right. Or chime in on Instagram. This week we'll have lots of posts about this topic and maybe share some more stories. So chime in over there at Outnumber the Podcast on Instagram so that we can hear if you have also felt this or if we're totally crazy. Okay. And that's all we've got for you guys today. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next week.
Speaker: Thanks so much for tuning in. If you've enjoyed this episode, we'd be so grateful if you'd leave us a written review on iTunes. If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, you can reach us at OutnumberThePodcast at gmail .com and find us on Instagram at OutnumberThePodcast. See you next week.
