Practical Magic: What Intuition Has Taught Me About Rocks Through Car Doors and Front-Row Seats to Machu Picchu

I love working with people. On Saturday I got to be part of something special. I worked with a family who'd been through a heavy summer, helping them explore how emotions can live in the body. The kids were old enough to understand what nerves and feelings are, so we talked about what we can control, what we can't, and how we might intentionally let something go to make space for something new. Everyone really got into it. We moved around the table writing down things that were sitting with us and took turns to let them go. We spent some time sharing about what the challenges had unexpectedly provided; connection as a family, a new framework of trust, being able to pull together. We ended with speaking aloud one word to bring into the home. The energy following had real levity. Being able to hold space in this way, witnessing the shift, and knowing those kids now have more tools they can return to, was a gift.

That session got me thinking about something bigger: intuition. The quiet, everyday conversation that shows up as a whisper, a nagging feeling, or that feeling of flow state.

The Rock Through My Car Door

About a year ago, I was refocusing on my health. I had blood work done then went for a coffee (a ritual that first started with my Mum's blood work when diagnosed with Cancer a decade ago. A coffee/little treat post needles is now used as a marker that we've done a hard thing and need a pause). I decided to go and sit in a local park to read in the sun. This is a park I love, where I'd once trained for marathons, practiced headstands, walked with family. The whole time I stood in the coffee queue, a small voice kept telling me to just go home. Just get your coffee and go HOME!

I didn't listen. I went to the park anyway, had a genuinely lovely time, read my book, soaked up the sun.

Then, as I was leaving the car park, a rock kicked up from a mower on the verge and put a fist-sized hole clean through my passenger door. The sound! Gunshot was the only thing that came to mind. I pulled over, I was shaking. I knew something had just happened to my car once I'd recognized that I was unharmed. The first thought that landed: I should have gone home.

Nobody was hurt. But it was a loud, physical reminder that intuition is trying to tell us something, whether or not we want to hear it.

The Flip Side: A Front-Row Seat to Machu Picchu

Years earlier, during yoga teacher training in Peru, I hadn't planned my train ticket to Machu Picchu properly to end up with the group. I had pre-booked a ticket that resulted in me being separated from my new friends, on a different train, and everyone refused to change my ticket.

When I boarded, I found I'd somehow landed seat 1A. Glass on every side of me, above me, around me. An unimpeded view of rivers threading below, bridges rushing past, mountains rising on both sides. It felt like flying. Someone brought me a croissant, as if the universe had decided I should be thoroughly looked after. People lined up in the aisle just to take photos from where I was sitting. I hadn't earned that seat through any planning. I'd simply shown up, said yes, and let things unfold.

What I remember most isn't just the view, it's the feeling. Think of that feeling when you area almost late and you find the PERFECT car park. Combine that with the awe of a spectacular view and then layer in surprise snacks. That particular kind of weightlessness that shows up when you stop gripping the plan and let yourself be carried instead. I had quiet, unhurried time to myself before I'd even reached the ruins. People drifted in and out of the empty seat beside me for easy, rolling conversation. Nothing was forced. Everything just arrived, exactly as it needed to.

That's flow. Not the hustle version of flow, where you're pushing hard and everything clicks into place through effort. The soft version, where you release your grip on how things are supposed to go, and gratitude does the rest of the work. I didn't know what I was booking. I just trusted, and that trust was met with more beauty than I could have planned for myself.

That's the other side of intuition. When you listen, or even just stay open, life sometimes hands you something extraordinary, and all it asks of you in return is that you notice it.

Building the Muscle for Joy

What I've come to believe is that joy is something we can practise, the same way we build physical muscle. The season changing. in Calgary The smell of rainforest leaf litter after rain. A t-shirt that's perfect for someone you love, found by accident in a thrift store. None of these require grand circumstances. They just require being available to notice them.

I've also watched people get overwhelmed by joy and shut down, as if it's too much to hold. Scared of a pendulum swing without resources. My hope is that we can build the capacity to stay expansive instead, to let joy in and actually feel it, storing it in our bones for our future selves to draw from.

There's a song by Gang of Youths that captures this for me: "The Heart is a Muscle", and it needs to be strong enough to hold both joy and sorrow, because it holds everything.

Not every choice will be the right one. But we can keep asking: what's the next right thing? That question alone can lead you somewhere joyful, somewhere you didn't plan for, somewhere magic.

This is part of what I mean by Science, Holding and Flow. Life offers us information constantly, through our bodies, our nervous systems, our gut instincts.

Learning to listen, and learning to stay open to joy when it shows up, is its own kind of practice.

If this resonates and you'd like support building that practice, whether through Reiki, Body work or Somatic Counselling, I'd love to work with you. Sessions are available in person in Calgary or by distance, wherever you are.

Tending the ember, honouring the echo.

Hayley