What does ignoring your intuition actually feel like in the body? Not as an abstract idea, but as a lived moment when your body and nervous system says stop. Yet your mind, curious creator that it is, keeps going.
Many people are taught to override their bodies in the name of growth, healing, or resilience. Spaces even exist to expand it with or without the proper care.
But intuition often speaks through sensations, physical language, tight shoulders, shaking hands, tears rushing down your cheek, even before you know why.
Hi love, I’m Lumalia, a somatic meditation teacher and author behind the memoir Blooming Upside Down, curator of Luminosity, and photographer. In this essay, I explore one of those moments and the question it left behind: what happens when we finally learn to listen to our intuition for the first time?
Ignoring Your Intuition for the Sake of Connection
“Imagine you are in a straitjacket, your arms crossed over each other, and you really press your palms down on your shoulders like you cannot get out.
A vibrator was invented to help women diagnosed with hysteria have a cure.
Hysteria used to mean that women were wet, and that was once a bad thing.
Women in hysteria were in a trauma response.
Now hold your palms here. Then, when we are done, really use your imagination, press your palms flat like this, don’t fidget. Just hold the energy. Grow your capacity. “
You’re given the same prompt. Do you do it?
My whole body said FUCK NO.
She gave us this on the third day of the challenge, too. I stopped the challenge then. It was a no then. It was a no now.
Body intuition signals
I whispered, “What if we just try it? We can stop when we want. We’re in control. It’s 2026. This isn’t the 90s. You’re safe here. See the room you’re in. It’s safe here.”
The reply. “No. There won’t be integration after. This is too big. Eighty people. No way. There isn’t containment here.”
“But let’s just try. This is the first time you’ve interacted with the outside world all week, just try.”
I slide myself off the bed. Swirling my butt-length mermaid hair around itself three times and securing it with a tie. Turned on my camera and stood.
“It’s different. You’re here. I’m here with you.” I whisper to myself.
“Really use your imagination,” the teacher instructs, “let yourself really feel you’re in a straitjacket.”
Shaking. Twitches. Convulsions. Tears cascade down my cheekbones. My chest feeling a thrumb inside of it, heavy, upper back beginning to ping, as I repeat “I’m here with you. I’m here with you.”
Breathe in the noise, slow exhale. Feel what’s in this room. A bed. A window. My clothes. His clothes. It’s 2026.
“Now flatten your hands and keep your elbows up. Yes, like that. Don’t let them drop. Hold the energy. Keep your feet grounded. Press into your legs. Don’t sway. Just stay here.”
Left shoulder twinge. Ache. Pain. Level six. Stop. Arms drop, palms stay flat. Feet grounded. Breathe. Open your eyes even though they are supposed to be closed. I’m here with you.
“Ok. Now slowly release. Take your time to come back to the room. Do what you need to come back to our group.” Moments later. “Leave one word in the chat. But we’ll process more tomorrow. But for now, let me tell you about how to do more of this…”
Slamming the laptop shut. Grabbing my blanket, my pillow, bracing, holding myself. My heart is asking yet again, “Why, why did we not listen?”
Rushing to the mirror, eye contact, “I’m here with you. It is over. I’m here with you.”
Racing outside, socks in the doorway, slippers left on the staircase, rain pressing against my skin, dew, grass, bird song. Life. Present.
I spent the next twenty-four hours trying to come down. Trying to be ok. And only wanting to weep. To curl into a ball and remind myself I was here. It was 2026.
This is trauma. This is PTSD. This is pressing against your inner knowings “no.” 
When was the last time your intuition spoke before your mind understood why?
listening to your intuition
Ignoring your intuition rarely feels dramatic in the moment. Maybe you’ve felt this moment too.
The one where your body said no, but the room asked you to stay.
The one where intuition spoke quietly, because you’ve been rarely taught how to listen, and the world encouraged you to push through.
Sometimes ignoring intuition isn’t just personal—it’s cultural. We’re taught to override our bodies in the name of growth, healing, or resilience. I explored this tension in another essay about stepping out of the role of the cycle breaker, ending generational trauma narratives.
Learning to listen to intuition again doesn’t happen all at once.
Sometimes it begins with noticing the moment you ignored it.
Sometimes it begins with telling the truth about it.
I wrote the rest of this story—what happened after I closed the laptop and ran outside—inside Luminosity Journal.
It’s where I publish the deeper essays that don’t fit neatly into advice or instruction, the ones that explore what it really means to trust the body again.
If something in you recognized yourself here, you can continue reading inside the Journal.
Listening to Intuition begins with feeling connected in your body
Learning to listen to intuition again often begins with learning how to feel safe inside the body. I created a workshop more about this process in my workshop on coming back home to the body.
Meet the Magic of your Intuitions Wisdom
Learning to listen to your intuition is truly an art form that most of us are not taught from a young age, which is why I created Listen, a 30-day meditation challenge that uses the concepts of meditation, play, movement, and discovery to get real-life “reps” in practicing trusting your intuition.
Amplify your intuition with a community and culture that replaces fixing with celebration.
If you’re ready for a deep dive, join us inside Luminosity Society. Here we build new tempos for our intuition, practice magnifying our magic in community, and shift from a culture of fixing to one of celebration.
We go together in building the culture we all deeply crave: the one of play, celebration, and remembering our bodies aren’t just storing scores of trauma, they also hold symphonies.
Both the Back Home in My Body workshop, Listen, and access to all essays in the Journal are included in the Luminosity Society.
