Connecting the Dots

Ladies, you know that foresight that comes with pairing your discernment 🤔 with the data 📝 you’ve collected from a persons previous habits and behaviors? 

That tool 🔍that helps you compute the risk and rewards of engaging, or allows you an opportunity to reroute where necessary to avoid hazards ⚠️ ahead?

You might call it wisdom, discernment, a gut feeling, maybe your “knower.” Someone I look up to described this thing beautifully in his writing as “the power to see between the world of energy and experience.” Ultimately, it’s the epitome of IYKYK‼️ Whatever language YOU use to describe this gift, we must acknowledge it as such. Cuz sis, we be knowin’.

Personally, I started to develop this gift more concretely, in the last couple of years. Gradually, I’ve sharpened:

💎trusting my intuition

💎discerning and processing 

💎positioning myself to either prepare and or pivot 

💎protecting myself, and when necessary…

💎expressing my reservations

Recently, while having a serious conversation with a man, I began “connecting the dots,” and after doing so, he expressed his frustration with my perceived inability to compartmentalize. 

Huh? Compartmentalize? 🤔 That’s for men anyway!

In the book Men Are Like Waffles ,Women Are Like Spaghetti, authors Bill & Pam Ferrel describe women’s unique ability to “… link together the logical, emotional, relational, and spiritual aspects of the issue.” Now, why would I trade such a comprehensive viewpoint to fixate on the singular issue this man couldn’t seem to see beyond?

❓Was his comment and attempt to communicate masking as his desire to be understood? Possibly.

Reasonably, men can feel bombarded when faced with more problems than they have the capacity to resolve. But that didn’t seem to be the case here. It was more likely that he was overwhelmed and lacked the emotional maturity to simply communicate effectively.

In his opinion, my naïveté kept the conflict at bay, and that space is what he preferred. He insisted there was no relationship between the issues we were discussing and seemed attacked by my ability to piece together a picture he wasn’t aware was evident to me. In an effort to avoid accountability, he tried to persuade me against my own intuitive deduction, which confused me. This feeling wasn’t unfamiliar, it was reminiscent of other instances when:

☝🏾I was accused of prematurely jumping to conclusions

☝🏾My assessments were invalidated and I was required to offer an explanation for how I arrived at something

☝🏾I was gaslighted into believing that I haven’t given a man space to be different because I panicked at familiar red flags

☝🏾I was told I needed to practice grace and patience (challenged to persevere through more foolery😒)

Thankfully, growth has rendered me more responsible for my communication so I took a beat to explore both the legitimacy and projection in the previous scenarios. I slept on it and sought counsel for understanding.

Reflection has led me to these points:

💫I desire that gift inherent to my design as a woman to be embraced, or at least respected, by men

⏳I pause to clarify with myself how and why I’ve made connections 

🤔 I consider if I am identifying an issue with an isolated event

🤨 I wonder if my past experiences are bleeding into my ability to comprehend

👄When it is necessary to voice to my interpretation, I am responsible for executing a feminine yet firm delivery 

🌻 I am highly sensitive to the ambience and peace born in showing up as the woman I’m working to become (as such familiarity leaves me keen on others reception, blatantly or energetically, to my growth and wholeness)

🙅🏾‍♀️ When necessary, I create a safe distance from people who seem to desire my regression for their own comfort

I’m headed toward a soft life. I refuse to arrive there banged up from a tumultuous ride some men are happy to take me on. Although I am open to reasoning together, I’m not interested in trading what I’ve been designed to do well for a method that does not suit me. I trust where my spirit will lead me. In my quest for harmony, I will continue minding my intuition until I’ve aligned with men who can embrace or surrender to it, rather than resist it.

🐢 V.N.Y. 🦋