🧠 Weekly MindSweep No. 212 | Curated Conversation | Intuition
February 2026
*Week 212: Curated Conversation: Intuition
Week 213: Mind Your Business: Intuition
Week 214: Manage Your Mind: Intuition
Week 215: What’s On My Mind: Intuition
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In the MindSweep this week:
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Jamie’s Second Brain Corner: Links to references & MindSweep Mapping
Collaboration: with Shannon Giordano and the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce (First Friday of every month)
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When Your Intuition Speaks, What Do You Do With It?
I've come to recognize a certain moment because, well, it keeps happening. And I’m a pattern recognizer.
It shows up when I’m about to soften a boundary I already know should stay firm.
Everything looks reasonable at first. I reread the email, watching the cursor blink as I think about my reply. The request is polite and thoughtful. I can easily find reasons to say yes because it seems manageable and flexible. I say to myself.
I can make this work.
There’s no clear warning sign. Nothing feels off. It’s just a well-written request, and my calendar technically has room for it. Saying yes would seem generous, flexible, and mature. The kind of response that keeps things running smoothly and everyone comfortable.
And yet, before I finish the sentence in my head, my body has already responded.
It’s not panic or excitement. It’s not even the kind of resistance we usually talk about. There’s no rush of adrenaline or strong sense of dread. Instead, what I feel is much quieter. This isn’t the urgent kind of intuition that pushes for action. It’s a slower intuition that comes without pressure. I notice a subtle heaviness in my chest and a slight tightening that doesn’t demand my attention, but also doesn’t go away. It’s like something inside me is pressing pause. Not to stop me, but to slow things down so I can notice what’s really happening.
This is the moment I need to notice most.
When my intuition is clearest, it doesn’t get loud or try to convince me. It quietly offers a sentence I’d rather not hear. That heaviness is how I know it’s speaking, and it usually says:
This will cost you more than you think.
Almost right away, another voice appears. My logical side steps in, ready to make things feel manageable. It starts collecting reasons, reminding me of times when being flexible worked out. It brings up examples from the past when things went well and frames the decision as thoughtful, kind, and strategically smart.
For a moment, it feels like intuition. Except it’s not.
It’s familiarity and conditioning. Our brain tries to keep the peace and avoid discomfort by telling a convincing, responsible-sounding story, making it seem wise to ignore that quiet signal from your body.
When I’ve crossed these boundaries before, regret never comes right away. It always shows up later, quietly and predictably, as resentment, exhaustion, or a subtle sense of self-betrayal that’s hard to name but impossible to ignore.
When I look back, I always recognize the pattern. I knew. I knew, quietly and without explanation.
The question I am learning to ask now is not, “Did I listen to my intuition?” It’s, “What did I mistake for it?”
Intuition Is Not Obedience
We often treat intuition as something we must obey, like a command or a rule. For many creative, ADHD-wired entrepreneurs, this way of thinking causes more confusion than clarity.
Intuition does not always arrive as a clear yes or no. Sometimes it shows up as friction or hesitation. Sometimes, it’s a body signal that contradicts what looks good on paper. When we grow up learning to value logic, productivity, and being liked, we tend to ignore those signals, and especially if they slow us down. Remember, our brain loves to reserve energy!
This is where discernment matters. It’s the pause that lets you feel whether you are responding from wisdom or reacting from habit.
Discernment isn’t the same as obedience. Obedience says, “I have to act on this right now.” Discernment says, “Let me sit with this long enough to really understand what’s going on.”
Intuition doesn’t demand urgency. Fear does.
So do old habits and stories.
When intuition comes from experience, it’s quiet, specific, and balanced. It doesn’t take over your attention or push you to decide right away. Urgency, on the other hand, speeds things up and makes pressure feel important.
Intuition simply gives you information and waits for you to use discernment.
I’m not here to define your intuition or give you a perfect system. Curated Conversation is about noticing things clearly, together. Intuition doesn’t grow just in your mind, but also through your body, your experiences, and the people who help you see what you’ve normalized.
Noticing is the work.
A Discernment Pause, Not a Decision
If you are standing at the edge of a decision right now, especially one involving boundaries, try this instead of asking, “What should I do?” Pause and ask yourself:
What does this feel like in my body, without trying to explain it away?
For example, do you feel heaviness or tension that hints at hesitation or unease, or do you feel lightness that signals comfort? Is there urgency, or just discomfort? What story are you telling yourself to make this decision seem okay? If you didn’t have to decide today, what might become clearer? Then stop. Not forever. Just long enough to let discernment do its job.
Intuition isn’t a final answer. It’s a signal. Signals are there to be understood, not just followed or ignored.
Your Brain Is Involved Here
From a neuroscience perspective, intuition isn’t mystical. It’s biological.
It’s your brain pulling together past experiences, emotional memories, and body signals faster than you can think about them.
Parts of your brain that handle emotions and body awareness help your nervous system notice situations that feel like past experiences, especially those that affected your safety, energy, or sense of self. That’s why intuition often shows up as a feeling before you can put it into words.
When something feels wrong before you can explain it, it’s often your nervous system trying to protect your energy or sense of self based on what you’ve been through before.
Fear, on the other hand, usually brings urgency and mental noise. It pushes you to fix things right away and uses logic to justify avoiding or pleasing others.
Discernment lets a third process start working. This part of your brain slows things down, brings together different signals, and helps you update old stories instead of repeating them.
If you feel unclear, conflicted, or hesitant, it doesn’t mean you’re failing to trust yourself. It might just mean your brain needs more space.
Staying With the Signal
Every time I notice that quiet heaviness before softening a boundary, I'm reminded:
Intuition isn’t an order. It asks to be noticed.
February isn’t about becoming more intuitive. It’s about slowing down enough to notice the difference between intuition and the stories we’ve learned to trust instead. It’s about seeing the difference between real guidance and fear masquerading as logic, and between real flexibility and self-abandonment.
This is especially important for ADHD creative entrepreneurs, because we think quickly, spot patterns, and look for meaning. Without discernment, we can just as easily argue against ourselves as support our own growth.
So as we begin this month together, I’ll ask you this:
Where in your business or your life have you been calling something intuition when it might actually be conditioning?
What if you allowed yourself to slow down and sit with your feelings a little longer before deciding?
That deliberate pause can help you distinguish intuition from conditioning, creating space for real change. That moment of pause before saying yes is a chance to reflect and understand yourself better.
Treat it as an invitation to deeper self-awareness.
Next week, in Mind Your Business | Intuition, we will explore what this looks like in the day-to-day reality of creative entrepreneurship, where instinct, risk, identity, and money all collide.
For now, notice what your body recognizes. From there, we’ll move forward together with clarity and purpose.
My questions for you this week:
Where in your business or your life have you been calling something intuition when it might actually be conditioning?
What if you allowed yourself to slow down and sit with your feelings a little longer before deciding?
Reply and share with me!
✨ You Belong Here. I can help.
Intuition is powerful, but it is not a business plan. If you want support turning what you sense into decisions you can trust, I work with creative entrepreneurs as a brain-based business strategist, blending neuroscience, discernment, and real-world strategy to help you move forward with clarity, not urgency.
Curated Conversation
If this conversation resonated, you don’t have to sit with it alone. Curated Conversation is a weekly live space for heart-centered, ADHD-wired entrepreneurs to slow down, reflect together, and learn to distinguish intuition, conditioning, and fear disguised as logic.
If you’ve never joined us, your first month is free. Come sit in the room. Listen if you want. Speak if you’re ready. Stay if it feels like home.
Mondays at 8 a.m.
Start with coffee.
Belonging included.
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Jamie’s Second Brain Corner:
Words in bold within the Weekly MindSweep are all topics we’ve covered in Curated Conversation. You can dig into them here by searching for the word.
What I’m reading
Brain On Fire.
The title grabbed me; the story changed me.
Brain On Fire is a powerful memoir that tells the story of journalist Susannah Cahalan’s sudden struggle with psychosis, which was later found to be caused by a rare autoimmune disease called anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. The book mixes medical mystery with personal storytelling, showing how easily identity and thinking can be shaken when the brain is affected. It also highlights how determination, science, and advocacy can help find answers when symptoms are overlooked. This memoir serves as both a warning about the limits of medical knowledge and a moving story of recovery, resilience, and the need to listen to patients.
Collaborations!
Join us Friday, February 6, 2025
Join Shannon and me at the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce with guest speaker Dana Cox of Humanitiv for Designing for Humans: How Understanding Your Customer Drives Real Business Growth. When you look at your business through your customer’s eyes, everything changes. In this session, Dana introduces practical, human-centered design tools to uncover customer needs, remove friction, map the full customer journey, and create clear, trust-building experiences that drive growth with tools you can start using right away in any business or nonprofit setting.
Free: Registration is required: https://bit.ly/MWCoC_Feb2026
In other news…
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