I Didn’t Call It Intuition, Until the Pattern Became Impossible to Ignore

For a long time, I didn’t think of myself as intuitive.

Not because anything unusual was happening, but because what was happening felt ordinary. Subtle. Easy to dismiss.

The moments didn’t arrive with drama or certainty. They arrived quietly, woven into everyday life.

The first time I noticed one, I was in my early twenties. I had just purchased my first brand-new vehicle. I remember sitting behind the wheel, keys still warm in my hand, when a thought came through fully formed: You’re going to have this truck for a long time.

I didn’t question it. I didn’t analyze it. I didn’t label it intuition.
I simply noticed it and moved on.

I owned that truck for fifteen years.

At the time, it felt coincidental. Looking back, it was the beginning of a pattern that would take decades to fully reveal itself.

Over the years, similar moments continued to appear, always during transitions, always understated.

When we bought our first home, there was a quiet sense we’d be there far longer than planned. We were.

When I bought a two-door BMW I loved, I had an unexpected knowing that I wouldn’t keep it, that something would change. Not long after, I became pregnant, despite never planning to have children, and the car no longer made sense.

Another vehicle came with a persistent feeling of unease. I couldn’t explain it, but I couldn’t shake it either. When it was damaged while parked in a hospital garage, while my newborn lay safely in my arms, I felt relief instead of anger. This must have been what that feeling was pointing to.

At no point did these moments feel mystical. They felt like a practical gnosis.

It took years for me to see what I was missing: intuition doesn’t usually announce itself. It shows up as a quiet sense of “this matters” or “pay attention here.”

The pattern continued through major life events, purchasing property, navigating financial uncertainty, and even moving into a home where I immediately sensed my marriage would end. I tried to override that knowing. I worked hard to prove it wrong. Years later, we divorced in that house.

What finally changed for me wasn’t trying to explain these moments; it was stepping back far enough to see them as a whole.

I wasn’t being given predictions. I was being given alignment.

The insights didn’t remove choice. They didn’t make life easier. They simply offered information: neutral, calm, and available only if I was paying attention.

Once I stopped dismissing these experiences as coincidences, something shifted. I began trusting my ability to notice patterns without needing to define them.

You don’t have to call this intuition.

You can call it awareness.
You can call it pattern recognition.
You can call it listening.

Whatever the name, it starts the same way, by noticing what’s already been happening.