Follow your gut?

I was asked today to follow my gut, and realized that I lost contact with that creative, intuitive, spontaneous side of myself awhile ago. I'm at the precipice of making a big life decision, and I don't even know what my gut instinct is telling me? Okay, so that's not entirely true, but this decision-making process does not feel simple like I've know intuitive decisions to feel before. It feels fraught with details and complications...

I'm reminded of a an experience I had this past summer at Dreamtime. As is customary every year, the festival organizers get up onstage, and say a little something. This past year, one of the organizers, walked us through a guided visualization where we stepped into our full, vibrant, creative, spontaneous, empowered selves. In that moment I knew that returning to graduate school in the fall, was not the right life path. I cried with the shock of that realization. And sat with it for a couple days, and realized that I'd put so much time, energy and money into this whole graduate school thing, it would be absolutely silly, in so many ways, to stop now - especially because I was so near the end.

Well, apparently, the end is not soon enough, nor where I thought it was.

For the last four months, I've been interning on a hospital psych unit for children and adolescents. I felt alive, excited, and vibrant the first week or so I was there. After the (very brief) honeymoon period was over, I've dreaded getting up in the morning to make the long trek down to the hospital. This dread was not about the commute (although it can be horrendous) but about the constant fear, inefficacy, and overwhelm I've felt.

In a meeting this morning, I was presented with an ultimatum of sorts: commit to the internship at the hospital, or leave, take a break, reapply in March, and restart my internship next fall, at the hospital or elsewhere. I have one week to make my decision.

My gut instinct says "LEAVE! Take time to nurture and resource yourself. Get clear on your goals and intentions of becoming a therapist, and try doing this again in the fall." And there's this other nagging voice that says, "But aren't you running away, and not facing all of your fears and issues about stepping into this professional role by leaving and not finishing what you've started?"

As I perhaps prepare to not finish what I started, I'm reminded of the guided visualization this summer - how clear the "not returning to school" bit felt, and how I didn't listen. It's been muffled, silenced, stuffed, rearranged, ignored, and severely neglected, yet that voice has been there all along. With all it's been through, the voice has gotten softer, less sure of itself, but remains none the less. And while it seems I may have to strain to hear it, I hear it now and am willing to listen...