Your Nudge Is Waiting

One morning this past month, I was in the middle of my morning practice, just past the ginger shot and glass of water and about to pour my coffee, when something hit me square in the face.

A nudge, clear and completely non-negotiable: Go get in the ocean.

I live on the Arabian Sea here in Goa. I walk the beach every single morning, and in the last year and a half, I have been in the water exactly three times.

I am not a strong swimmer. I don't love getting wet.

If there is one thing my morning practice has taught me, the work of protecting the first hours of my day and learning to hear myself before opening up to everything else, it is this:

When a nudge like that comes in, it is time to move.

So I went.

What a Nudge Actually Is

We have been talking lately about focus, not as a productivity tool, but as a spiritual practice, a way of directing your attention in service of your own life rather than handing it over by default.

Part of that is learning to actually hear yourself, not just in the everyday sense, but your higher self, the part of you that is connected to your blueprint for life, to your spiritual guides, to the deeper knowing that doesn't come from logic. It is always leading you back to your path or further down it.

A nudge is not an anxious thought; it doesn't spiral or try to justify itself with logic. It is clear and specific, and honestly, it usually seems a little odd.

Most of us have been trained to talk ourselves out of it, to find the reasonable explanation for why now isn't the right time, to file it away for later, and I am here to tell you: don't.

Into the Water

I dragged out my swimsuit, marched to the beach, and found a spot.

There was a woman just ahead of me, older, maybe in her seventies, with long silver hair and fading tattoos, walking into the waves in a bikini with the ease of someone who had long since stopped asking for permission. It felt sort of like a synchronicity that she was there, really part of the whole experience. Like a future version of me was there to guide me.

The water was warm and electric. I thought, "Why do you not do this every single day?" It felt so welcoming.

The waves were large.

I can swim, but the water isn't my home by a long stretch. I was making my way out to the surf zone, preparing to body surf or play around in the waves as I usually do.

And then I watched the silver-haired woman dive straight through a wave, headfirst, clean through the middle of it. I had never done that, and it looked slightly terrifying, but I instantly knew this was something I was supposed to see. Another woman off to my side was also diving under the huge waves as they loomed large, rising one after the other. I am from Minnesota and more of a lake swimmer, and it felt so uncomfortable, but I tried it, headfirst into the next rising wave just as it started to crash.

The Lesson

On the other side of that wave, it was quiet. The churning was behind me, and I was through.

The same voice that had told me to come here in the first place said, very clearly:

Do you see it?

Face your waves head-on, because when you're looking away, you get knocked on your ass. You can jump and hope the wave carries you somewhere good, ride it body-surf style, but while you are "going with it," you're also being carried back, one step forward and two steps back, as they say.

What moves you through is diving in, taking it head-on, going through it.

These metaphors were so apparent as I was out there in that moment. It was so clear.

Do it again.

I did it again and again, ten, fifteen times, maybe more, and I got good at it eventually, a little more confident wave by wave. Each time, the moment of going in was a little scary. I did not want to put my face in the water, but I did it. There was a brief, dark quiet and then peace and space and calm.

Then it was time to get ready to meet the next one.

Do or Do Not

Walking out of the water, I started thinking about what in my own life needed that kind of meeting.

The things I've been circling. The decisions I've been softening with "soon" and "when the time is right." The things I had been looking away from, setting myself up to get smacked by them.

As I walked up the beach, the nudge voice urged me to apply the lesson. I caught myself, dripping wet on the beach, saying out loud, to no one: "I'll try."

Which sounds reasonable, and which sounds like intention, but as soon as it was out of my mouth, I felt the difference. I have seen it too clearly as a coach, when a client gives themselves the exact advice, the exact thing they need to do with all their heart, and it will work, and they say, "I'll try," and I know they mean "maybe."

Yoda was right, and I'll defend that claim:

"Do or do not. There is no try."

Not because struggle isn't real, and not because grace and compassion don't apply, but because deep down, we know when we are doing a thing and when we are circling it.

I'll try is circling.

Diving through is doing.

Your Nudge Is Waiting

The voice that told me to go to the ocean, I know that voice now, and it's the same one that showed up when I stopped filling every quiet moment with noise, the same one that has, honestly, never steered me wrong.

It's not asking me to be fearless or to have it all figured out before I begin; it's asking me to go in headfirst anyway, even when the waves are large and I don't love getting wet and there's a part of me that would rather wait.

Yours is there too, and it may be asking you to do something inconvenient, something that doesn't quite make logical sense yet, something that requires dragging out the metaphorical swimsuit and marching off when you weren't planning to.

Follow it anyway, face the wave, go through it headfirst, because it knows the message you need now, the action you need to take, and how to guide you on your path.

If you're working on learning to hear your own nudges, and you want a community of women doing the same thing, I'd love for you to find us in the Turquoise Trail. We're building a real space for women who are ready to lead their own lives from the inside out.

Join us at turquoisetrail.life

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