It’s important to trust your gut. Your intuition. That little voice in your head.
All too often we ignore that little voice, or we doubt it and trust what someone else is saying instead of our own true instincts.
As a victim of narcissistic abuse with lingering C-PTSD, I had a hard time learning to trust my gut. That’s what happens when you spend too much time with people who constantly doubt you, criticize you, gaslight you, and tell you that your perceptions are wrong, or that you are “crazy.” You can get through it for a few days, maybe even weeks or months, if you are strong. But years of it will take a toll on even the most confident human beings.
If you are “groomed” by those around you to doubt yourself and put your trust in “authorities,” then you have been perfectly prepared for a life of brainwashing. You are likely to unquestioningly believe whatever the media, the government, the church, the school, your teacher, your parents or anyone else says before you trust what you are seeing with your own eyes.
I spent years training myself to trust my intuition. I turned off the TV. Spent untold hours surfing the internet. Read articles from alternative and foreign media. I took notes and connected the dots and began to form a more accurate picture of this world, which is quite different from the one we are told we live in by “authorities.”
So I was quite pleased with myself when, in 2018, my intuition was put to the test.
My husband and I used to take daily drives around the lake where we lived back then. It was a time when we could talk about our day while enjoying the lovely scenery in the quiet, country haven where we lived.
One day, shortly after leaving home, I spied a dog limping along by the side of the road. I thought maybe he had been hit by a car, so I asked my husband to pull over.
He looked like a German Shepherd to me, though I am not very knowledgeable about dogs. I have never owned a dog, but I have had cats and horses, and I’ve always felt a strong connection with animals.
The dog was very calm and friendly. I let him smell my hand. He whined sadly and wagged his tail a little. I ran my hands down his legs tenderly, feeling for any injuries, and then carefully ran my hands over the rest of his rather skinny frame.
He didn’t yelp or flinch during my examination and I didn’t find any abrasions or cuts, but the dog did have a limp and, seeing the grey hairs on his muzzle, I concluded that he was probably an older dog, and that he might have gotten loose from someone’s yard. He was wearing a collar, but there were no name-tags.
We had rescued stray dogs before, so I asked my husband if we could bring him to the house while we tried to find his owners, and he agreed, albeit a little reluctantly. We had six cats at the time, and they were not going to be eager to welcome our new guest.
We opened the back door of our SUV and encouraged the dog to get in, but he balked. Then he turned around, limped back down the road, and led us to a small ravine which extends down to a field below, bordering the lake.
It was March and there were still drifts of snow by the sides of the road and the field was almost completely buried under winter’s deluge. The lake was still partly frozen over, though the ice was thawing and the ice-fishers had already packed up their buckets and their huts.
Lying in the ravine was a child’s bicycle. A small purple bike designed for a little girl.
The dog returned to the bike and lay down next to it, protectively. Almost as if he was guarding it.
For some reason, I knew in that moment that the dog was connected to the bike. I didn’t know why, or how, or whose dog it was. I just knew with certainty that he was connected to that bike. This was my intuition speaking to me, and by 2018, I had learned to listen.
I asked my husband to call the police. The bike looked like it had been abandoned in a hurry. What if the child had been abducted? And what if the dog was guarding the bike because the dog was connected to the child?
A sheriff’s deputy arrived shortly after. He was tall, looked to be in his mid-30’s, with a lean, hard face, blonde mustache and muscled physique. His dark green uniform was clean and pressed. He had a khaki scarf neatly knotted around his neck. He was efficient and professional, but he immediately made it clear that he didn’t care for my analysis of the situation.
“Look, lady,” he said, in that condescending tone all women have heard, “You don’t know where the bike or the dog came from. Stop saying they’re connected. You don’t know that. All we know is that there’s a bike here and a dog here.”
I told the deputy that if we found the owners of the dog, we would find out who owned the bike, but he was dismissive and warned me against jumping to conclusions.
“Look,” he said, “The dog is limping. He looks like he may have been hit by a car. If you want, I can call animal control to come get him.”
Where we lived, calling animal control was about the same as a death sentence. We told the deputy that we would assume responsibility for the dog and try to find his owners ourselves.
A second officer arrived, one of the local municipal police, and he at least made an effort to climb down the ravine and look around the field below, occasionally calling out, “Hello? Is there anybody here?”
Meanwhile, I again tried to convince the dog to get into our car. He jumped in, but he didn’t want to stay. When he tried to jump back out again, I said, “sadis!” And he sat down instantly. I don’t know why I said “sit!” in Russian. It just popped into my head, and out of my mouth, and the dog clearly understood me!
I tried to tell the cops that the dog understood Russian commands, but by now they were just ignoring me, the same way all women are ignored when we talk about our “feelings.” I could almost hear their thoughts. Stupid woman, shut up. Nobody cares what you think!
Just then, a neighbor drove by and leaned out his window asking what was going on. My husband and I filled him in, and he said, “there are some folks who live up the road who speak Russian. I wonder if it’s them?”
The deputies ignored this information, too, and after propping the bicycle up against a nearby road sign in the hopes that its owners would find it there, they both took off, probably relieved that there wouldn’t be any paperwork.
Shortly after that, we had a dog in our back yard.
The dog, however, did not care for the enclosure we had built for our cats and he quickly discovered that he could wriggle through the cat door. Big as he was, he was still a bit thin for his size. So we let him stay inside where it was warm because his poor old bones probably needed the heat anyway. Our cats let us know of their displeasure, but they kept their distance, wary of the large canine. The dog, on the other hand, was curious about the cats and he barked at them, but the moment the cats felt threatened, all I had to say was, “sadis!” and he promptly sat down.
We bought dog food and the dog ate hungrily, revealing that his appetite was good. I thought it was an excellent sign and I was very grateful because at that time we were bankrupt, thanks to medical bills, and we couldn’t really afford another trip to the vet.
It didn’t take long to find his owners, thanks to an online neighborhood forum. And wouldn’t you just know it? They were Latvian immigrants who spoke Russian.
Well, of course they were!
At first, they sent us photos of their dog, whose markings were identical, and it was clear to us that this was this was their dog. Then, they came to our home, overjoyed to be reunited with their beloved dog, whom they had named Lucky.
They pulled into our driveway in a big pickup, with their teenage son riding in the back. He was wearing a black ushanka, a Russian fur hat, with a pin on the front featuring the red star of the Soviet Union.
Lucky wagged his tail enthusiastically and barked, clearly happy to be see his own family again, and the boy jumped out of the pickup and embraced his dog.
It turned out exactly as I had thought. Both the dog and the bike belonged to this family. They lived up the road a few miles, and the dog had gone missing a few days before, having joined up with a pack of strays which were running around loose in the woods.
Then there had been a family argument and their teenage son, Lucky’s closest companion, had run away from home on his little sister’s bike. While he was on the road, he had met up with some of his friends and they had taken him in their car. He had left the bike in the ravine by the side of the road, where Lucky found it and huddled down, probably hoping his young owner would return.
I don’t know if that deputy ever learned the truth, or even if he gave the call a second thought. But I will never forget Lucky, and I will never forget how it felt when my intuition was validated.
I had been right all along, even when no one believed me.
So, the moral of the story is this:
Learn to listen to your intuition. Learn to pay attention to that little voice. Trust your eyes and your other senses, trust your perception, even when everyone else doubts you. Turn off your TV and learn for yourself how this world works. You have a working brain. Use it! Don’t let others abuse it.
You never know what a difference you may make.
I certainly made a big difference to Lucky.
About the author:
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television.