Hissy Fit

As I sat in the school gym watching my son's basketball game, the fire alarm went off. For the first minute or so, no one moved. We all just sat there waiting for the loud, annoying sound to be silenced. Then, two administrators left the gym to see what might be wrong. In the meantime, the crowd just sat there, chatting, still waiting for the alarm to be quieted. When five minutes had passed, and the alarm was still wailing, I leaned over to my friend and said sarcastically, "What? Are we supposed to wait on the smoke to come rolling in before we decide to move?"

She laughed, confirming that it was kind of dumb that we were all just sitting there, and told me a story about nobody paying any attention to two car alarms going off in the parking lot of a shopping center she was leaving. Again, sarcastically, I said, "Meanwhile, a woman was probably getting attacked, just praying that someone would pay attention to her car alarm." Fortunately, that wasn't the case, but what if it was? Have we become so numb to warning signals and alarms that our first inclinations aren't "What's wrong," but instead "Turn that thing off?"

As I continued to sit in the bleachers, listening to the deafening alarm thunder through my head, I wondered if the school was on fire, or if it was a false alarm. I also began to wonder what other "alarms" was I completely ignoring in my life. I looked around the crowd and wondered what other "alarms" they were ignoring too.The situation reminded me of a lesson I learned when I went to Oprah Winfrey's Live Your Best Life seminar in 1998. She talked about listening to your inner-self sooner than later, and paying close attention. Thirteen years later, on her final show, she talked about it again, stating it the same exact way-that's how powerful this message is.

"Your life is always speaking to you-first in whispers. It's subtle, those whispers. .And if you don't pay attention to the whispers, it gets louder and louder. It's like getting thumped upside the head, like my grandmother used to do. ... You don't pay attention to that, it's like getting a brick upside your head. You don't pay attention to that, the whole brick wall falls down." -Oprah Winfrey from the final Oprah Winfrey Show

With this lesson in mind, if we have become numb to the alarms, it's only natural that we must be ignoring the whispers, too. I see it happening all around me:

. Dating a man trying desperately to make him "the one",
when he is absolutely not "the one".
. Ignoring health signals, when your body is begging
and pleading for change, giving warnings along the way.
. Staying in dead-end situations-career, relationships, etc...
- when your gut told you to move on long ago .
. Staying on the wrong path, even if it's making you physically ill.
. Children acting out, giving parents signals to reel them in,
desperately needing boundaries and to be truly parented.
. Not fighting against deadly addictions, waiting on rock bottom,
a.k.a. the brick wall.

So what is your life whispering to you right now? Even worse, what alarms are you ignoring? The best way to comply with your inner-self is to wake up and shake off the numbness! Whether the alarms you hear are internal, or actually blaring in your ears, don't ignore them. Wake up and listen.

One great thing about being a woman is the gift of women's intuition-a gift more beautiful than a diamond, more useful than a computer, more convenient than a remote control. It is our inner voice, the voice of reason, the voice from our soul, our super power, and it will only let you down if you don't listen. Shhhh.do you hear it?