I Know What I Know… Right?

Discerning intuition from control when you’re standing in the fog of transition

Before we dive in—if you’re navigating a life threshold of your own, I’m offering a free Transition Doula session in December for anyone who books a Passage or Integration package beginning in January. If you’re walking through change—joyful, challenging, or mysterious—I would love to support you.

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There are seasons on the path of intuition when we feel an unshakable certainty rise in the body. A quiet this is happening. A knowing without pressure. It doesn’t demand anything. It doesn’t negotiate. It doesn’t pace the room. It simply is.

And then there are seasons when our “certainty” is actually a clenched fist—stubbornness masquerading as intuition. A desire to bend reality to our timeline, our comfort, our craving for safety. It feels similar at first. Both stubbornness and intuition can be intense. Both can feel like a full-body yes. Both can convince us we’re in communion with fate.

But the difference becomes clear in how they behave inside us.

Intuition expands.
Stubbornness tightens.

Intuition is fluid.
Stubbornness is rigid.

Intuition opens our lungs.
Stubbornness holds our breath hostage.

I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to confuse the two—especially when we’re in the throes of transition, on the threshold of something we can feel but not yet touch. That space between what has been and what is becoming is where we are most porous… and most tempted to cling.

And I say this as someone who has always been stubborn.
If someone tells me I can’t do something, the fire in me immediately decides: watch me.

In college, a guy once told me I couldn’t carry two cases of water up to the second floor by myself. So—naturally—I did it. No hesitation. Just the pure force of a will that refuses to be underestimated.

That same energy showed up when I was pregnant with my first child. I told people I was going to give birth unmedicated at a birth center, and when the time came, my stubborn streak rose like a tide as I labored his almost ten-pound body into the world. It wasn’t about proving anything—it was a bone-deep certainty: I can do this. I know I can.

But here’s where things get interesting:
not all stubbornness is fear, and not all certainty is willpower.

Some of my biggest life shifts arrived through stubbornness that felt like devotion, not control.

When I first dreamed of starting the Goddess in Training podcast, I told people for years that it was coming. I said it before I had the equipment, before I knew the path, before anything made logical sense. It didn’t feel stubborn at all—it felt like knowing.
Speaking it aloud didn’t create tension; it created momentum.
The more I said it, the more real it became, and I surrendered into the unfolding rather than muscling anything into place.

That’s the nuance:
true knowing doesn’t require force.
It moves like a river, not a battering ram.

And yet, here I am—more than half a year past being laid off from my “real world” job—stepping deeper into the unknown than ever before. My days have been filled with a beautiful, spacious flow. More creativity. More alignment. More breath.
I don’t want to give that up.

At the same time, my very human self is hyper-aware of numbers, timelines, bills, and the practical mechanics of staying afloat.

And still… intuition keeps whispering.

Just as my unemployment ran out, a contract position appeared—last minute, unexpected, and perfectly timed. A soft landing exactly when I needed one.

But here’s the truth:
I don’t want to just fill the gap.
I want abundance.
I want overflow.
I want the stability that allows me to build this life the way I feel it wants to be built.

So now I find myself in that liminal dance between stubbornness and surrender.

Stubbornness says:
I’m not letting go of the vision.

Surrender says:
And I trust how it arrives.

Some days, the knowing sits low and warm in my belly: everything will work out. The abundance is already en route. This season of spaciousness isn’t temporary—it’s a preview.

Other days, I can feel myself tense, gripping the steering wheel of outcomes I’m not meant to control.
That’s not knowing—that’s fear in a pretty dress.

This moment—right now—is the initiation.
Learning which voice is which.
Learning how each one feels in the body.
Learning when to soften and when to stand firm.

I don’t think stubbornness and surrender are opposites.
They’re dance partners.

Stubbornness says, I know what I know.
Surrender says, And I’m open to surprises.

Stubbornness commits.
Surrender allows.

Both are needed.
Both are holy.
Both have shaped every transformative moment of my life.

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I call in Themis, ancient goddess of sacred order and divine balance — she who sees clearly in the darkness and weighs truth without fear or force. May her golden scales illuminate the difference between intuition and control, between the knowing that expands us and the grasping that binds us. Let her steady presence remind us that surrender is not weakness but alignment, and that right timing is a cosmic law, not a personal failure. Under her watchful stars, may we soften where we cling, stand firm where we’re guided, and trust the quiet inner voice that knows the way long before the path becomes visible.

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