Author: Judith Driscoll

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Course Episodes HOme

How to Listen to Your Own Higher Wisdom

Graphic design of letter blocks spelling “How To Do It” surrounded by circular icons labeled The Elements
A simple reminder: You already know how to do it—your intuition just needs room to speak.

For anyone learning to trust their intuition

Most of us are taught to trust outer authority—experts, systems, institutions. But there comes a point when that model breaks down. Something inside us starts tugging for a different kind of guidance: one that doesn’t require an hourly fee, paperwork, or a formal request.

That’s where intuition comes in.

You don’t have to “get” intuition—you already have it. What most of us need is to begin using it again, with trust and consistency.

You Already Know More Than You Think

In a recent Heal with Kelly podcast interview, Vishen Lakhiani, founder of Mindvalley, says:

“Intuition is a muscle. The more you practice it, the better you get. But as we grow up, we’re often taught to ignore it, to stop believing in it. That’s why, for most people, the ability fades. Not because it’s gone—but because it hasn’t been used. The good news is, you can bring it back.”

This is a powerful reminder. Your capacity for intuitive knowing hasn’t disappeared—it’s just waiting for you to reconnect.

The Illusion of Separation

In the same podcast, Vishen reflects:

“The greatest lie is that we’re separate.”

At our most alert, task-oriented level of mind (the beta brainwave state), we often feel cut off—from each other, from nature, from our Source.

But when we enter more relaxed states—especially the alpha and theta brainwaves we access in meditation, daydreaming, or quiet reflection—that illusion begins to fade. In those moments, intuition becomes more accessible, not just as inner knowing, but as connection—to something larger than ourselves.

That connection is where higher wisdom flows.

Why I Can’t Tell You How to Get There

When I was in my 30s, I had an EEG that showed I naturally spend most of my time in those relaxed alpha and theta states. For me, intuitive access isn’t something I have to work for—it’s just where my system tends to live.

That doesn’t give me much to offer by way of an understanding about how to get there. But it’s also why I encourage you to explore what helps you shift into a quieter, more intuitive place. It might be breathwork, time in nature, journaling, or music. It might be prayer or stillness or movement. It might be letting go of the need to know, or a concrete, intellectual grasp.

There’s no one right way. And your way might change over time.

Let the Practice Be Messy

Tuning into your inner guidance is vulnerable. Especially at first.

You may sense something but hesitate to believe it. You may get something that, if you trust and follow it, would steer your path in a completely new direction.

You may wonder if you’re making the whole thing up. That’s normal. Learning to trust yourself takes time.

Don’t put added pressure on yourself. A writing prompt during a quiet moment might be helpful:

  • “A word or image popped into my head…”
  • “There’s a feeling I can’t quite explain…”
  • “What would my life look like if my thinking (about this topic) turned on its head…”

Then you can ask yourself:

  • “Do my intuitive responses mean anything?”
  • “Does this new feeling resonate at all?”

You’re not trying to be conclusive—you’re inviting an internal dialogue. That’s where intuition really comes alive: not in perfect answers, but in original, creative thought and exchanges between your higher wisdom and your here-in-this-world self.

When You Get Stuck

If your mind blanks or doubt creeps in, pause. Try something simple:

  • Ask your intuition a yes/no question.
  • Hold your hands out like an old-fashioned scale.
  • If the right hand feels heavier, let that be your “yes.”
  • If the left feels heavier, that’s your “no.”

Ask small questions and follow the thread:

  • “Is this about the past?”
  • “Is this something I’ve experienced before?”
  • “Is there a word I need to hear?”

You’re not solving a puzzle or looking for definitive answers. You’re staying in conversation with your more creative, more expansive, self.

Honor What Comes Naturally

Your intuition will likely express itself in certain ways—through feeling, images, sudden words, or even body sensations. It might be a knowing that doesn’t anchor itself in any of these ways. You might notice that certain questions or topics open the channel more easily. That’s worth honoring.

Try saying:

  • “This is what I’m most tuned into.”
  • “This is where I feel most confident.”
  • “These are the kinds of questions that light up my insight.”

You don’t have to be an all-knowing oracle like the ones on YouTube. Just notice what’s already coming through clearly for you. That’s where your guidance flows most easily.

You are your own best expert.

The world doesn’t need more polished advice. It needs more people willing to listen deeply, speak honestly, and trust the wisdom that arises in stillness.

Let yourself practice. Let yourself be unsure. Let yourself receive.
That’s how your inner voice gets louder.
That’s how you become the guide you’ve been waiting for.

I’d love to hear how this lands for you. Or if you just want to say hi, click Say Hello below. I’m here.

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Auto-thoughts Beliefs Consequences Course Episodes Discourse Emotions Family Markers

Inner Terrain: What You Repeat, Believe, Feel, Absorb, and Grow

Diagram showing directional pathways between A, B, and C—representing auto-thoughts, beliefs, and consequences—with arrows indicating how each element influences the others in a symbolic garden layout.
A symbolic diagram of inner terrain, where auto-thoughts (A), beliefs (B), and consequences (C) influence one another in a dynamic feedback system.

A daily walk through the terrain of your mind

We want to fix ourselves.
Of course we do. We want the pain to stop. We want the patterns to change. We want to feel better—now.

But real healing isn’t always quick. And it doesn’t usually start with fixing.
It starts with understanding.
And understanding can take years—even decades.

So here’s what I’ve learned:
What if healing begins with a daily walk through the garden of your inner life?
Not a metaphorical stroll, but an actual practice.
A ritual of noticing what’s growing in the landscape of your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

Every morning, I take this walk.
And every day, I discover something new about what’s been quietly taking root in my mind.

The Daily Garden Walk: What You Notice

Picture yourself stepping onto a familiar path.
This is your inner terrain—part wild, part tended, all yours.
As you walk, you start to notice the weeds and seeds—things that were already growing before you ever thought about healing.

What You Repeat: The Woodland Sorrel

There’s woodland sorrel everywhere—carpeting the path, creeping into every flower bed.
You didn’t plant it, but somehow it’s taken over.
Delicate little heart-shaped leaves, almost pretty—until you realize it’s absolutely everywhere.

That’s what your repeating thoughts are like.
They show up quietly, innocently:

“You’ll never get this right.”
“People don’t really care what you think.”
“There’s no point in trying.”

You didn’t consciously plant these thoughts.
But they seeded like crazy, and now they’re the background soundtrack of your mind.

What You Believe: The Buried Junk

You notice a bare patch where nothing grows.
You’ve tried planting there, but the soil won’t cooperate.

So you dig a little. And you hit something hard. Not a rock—an old pipe.
You keep digging and start unearthing the most ridiculous things: rusty farm equipment, a single tennis shoe, and—I kid you not—a bra that someone apparently buried before moving out.

That’s what your buried beliefs are like.
They’re not visible on the surface, but they’re absolutely shaping what can grow:

“You’re too much.”
“Love has to be earned.”
“It’s not safe to want things.”

These beliefs weren’t meant to be planted in your garden.
But there they are, taking up space underground.

What You Feel: The Wilting Corner

Something’s drooping in the corner.
Not because it’s a bad plant, but because it’s been ignored.
You water the showy flowers, the ones everyone sees.
But this little corner? You forget it exists until you notice the wilting leaves.

That’s your emotional landscape.
The feelings you don’t make time for—loneliness, disappointment, that low-grade sadness that never quite goes away.
They’re not dying, exactly. Just… thirsty.

What You Absorb: What Flows Downhill

There’s runoff seeping into your garden from uphill—road salt, fertilizer from the neighbor’s lawn, whatever got washed down from higher ground.
Your soil absorbs it whether you want it to or not.

That’s what absorbed patterns are like—the family rules, cultural messages, and social expectations that flow into your life without asking:

“Don’t make waves.”
“Be grateful for what you have.”
“Good people don’t get angry.”

You didn’t plant these rules.
But you’ve been living by them for so long, they feel like natural law.

What You Produce: The Demanding Beauty

And then there’s the plant that’s absolutely thriving.
It’s gorgeous, productive, everyone compliments you on it.
But honestly? It’s exhausting. It demands all your water, all your attention, all your best soil.
It produces beautiful fruit, sure—but you’re depleted.

These are the consequences of everything else—what you produce as a result of your repeating thoughts, buried beliefs, ignored feelings, and absorbed patterns.
The results that look good from the outside but cost you something essential.

The Practice

This walk isn’t a one-time garden tour.
It’s a daily ritual.

I don’t march through with pruning shears, ready to hack everything down.
I just… notice. What’s spreading? What’s struggling? What’s been planted by someone else’s hands?

Some days I pull a few weeds.
Other days I just water what’s wilting.
Sometimes I discover something beautiful I’d never seen before, hidden behind all that sorrel.

The point isn’t to have a perfect garden.
The point is to know what’s growing in yours.

Because once you can see what’s there—really see it—you can start making choices about what deserves your attention, what needs to be composted, and what you’d like to plant instead.

Your inner life is a garden.
It’s been growing all along, with or without your conscious participation.

What’s growing in your inner garden right now? Take a moment this week to walk your own path and notice what you find.

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Nature Nudges

My Suburban Yard Had Plans for Me

I didn’t plant the violets. I never had to — they’ve always grown here, scattered generously across my half-acre in Minnesota. But I only started noticing them differently long after my brain injury — after I had already become a vegetable gardener, after I’d learned to grow my own food and even started foraging. The real turning point came when I discovered how much more wild foods had to offer me. I was reading about plant compounds that support immunity and skin healing, and there they were: violets. Already present. Already offering.

It wasn’t the first time this happened. Over and over, plants I hadn’t planted began appearing right when I needed them. The more I noticed, the more I wondered: is this coincidence… or communication?

Healing Isn’t Always Linear (Or Visible)

More than a decade ago, I sustained a moderate traumatic brain injury during a horse-jumping lesson. There was internal bleeding in the brain, and I spent time in the hospital. I don’t remember everything, but I do remember needing a walker for a while because my balance was off. I remember not being able to tell which keys on my own keychain unlocked what. I was advised — unofficially — not to see clients for thirty days. My speech was too slow, but no one told me directly. That was the beginning of the long, invisible part of recovery.

What’s lingered isn’t just memory lapses or fatigue. It’s a deepened sensitivity — to food, to chemicals, to people’s energy. Anxiety and obsessive thoughts (Pure O) crept in where clarity used to live. Years later, after a stage 2 melanoma diagnosis in 2012, I doubled down on healing. I started eating more vegetables than I ever imagined possible, started foraging, growing, and blending every bit of nourishment I could coax from the earth. That was the turning point. And that’s when I began noticing what had been quietly growing around me all along.

The Plants Were Already Offering

At first, I thought I was doing all the work — researching, testing foods, logging symptoms, eliminating triggers. But something shifted when I stopped looking only at what I was putting on my plate and started paying attention to what was growing just outside my door.

The violets had always been there, but now I saw them. Chickweed appeared in soft green carpets. Dandelion pushed up through the pathways. Virginia waterleaf caught my attention with its speckled leaves, just as I was learning how deeply nourishing it could be.

They weren’t just plants anymore. They were patterns. They showed up right when I needed what they offered — cooling, cleansing, nourishing, supporting. They weren’t the foods I thought I needed. They were the ones I actually needed.

What Science Now Confirms

For a long time, I thought this was just personal — maybe even poetic. That the plants growing around me seemed to match my healing needs. But then I started reading the science, and the pieces fell into place.

Healthy soil isn’t just dirt. It’s alive — teeming with bacteria, fungi, and microbial communities that shape the health of the plants growing in it. When those plants are picked and eaten soon after harvest — especially raw or lightly rinsed — they carry that microbial life into our gut. And what’s in the gut, we now know, speaks directly to the brain.

Research has shown that exposure to certain soil microbes (like Mycobacterium vaccae) can reduce anxiety-like behaviors and even increase serotonin production. Other studies link the richness of the soil microbiome to the richness of the gut microbiome — and in turn, to better mood regulation, immune function, and nervous system resilience.

What I’d stumbled into intuitively — eating what grew near me, simplifying my diet, trusting the weeds — is something science is only just beginning to understand: that the land and our bodies are in conversation. That healing might not come from far away, but from just beneath our feet.

Relational Eating and Green Messengers

These days, I don’t think of food as just fuel, or weeds as things to fight back. I think of them as signals. As responses. The violets, the chickweed, the dandelion — they were already growing while I was still trying to figure out what was wrong with me. They weren’t waiting for a diagnosis. They were already offering support.

My diet isn’t restrictive anymore — it’s relational. I eat what calms my nervous system, not what excites my cravings. I notice what helps me sleep, what keeps my thoughts from spinning, what makes me feel steady in my skin. And often, those things grow just outside the door.

I don’t romanticize the hard parts. The brain injury, the melanoma, the anxiety that still flickers at times — they’ve been real and sometimes brutal teachers. But in their aftermath, I’ve become someone who listens more closely. Not just to symptoms, but to signals. And the land — full of green messengers — has been one of the clearest.

What’s Growing Around You?

It’s been nearly 17 years since the brain injury and over a decade since the melanoma diagnosis — long enough to forget some of the hardest parts, but not the way they reshaped me. I didn’t expect healing to come through food. I certainly didn’t expect it to come through the weeds. But looking back, I can see a quiet intelligence in what showed up uninvited. The more I paid attention, the more it felt like the land was listening, too.

Maybe healing doesn’t always start with effort. Maybe it starts with noticing what’s already growing — and asking why it’s here.

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Course Episodes Inner Terrain

Chaos for the Soul: Weeds Before Wildflowers

I was doing a reading for someone who shared that she’d been struggling with focus and memory. She was worried—wondering if something deeper might be going on. Later, I messaged her and asked if we could have a different kind of conversation—one not about intuition, but about food.

“Have you ever tried a whole-food, plant-based, no-refined-anything diet?” I asked.

She said she hadn’t, but was open to making incremental changes.

And I’ll admit—I flinched inside.

Not outwardly. I kept my tone steady, supportive. But inside, something tugged at me. Incremental sounded like hesitation. Like one of those well-meaning stalls people use when they’re not quite ready to change. It caught me off guard—mildly aggravating in a way I didn’t fully understand at the time.

Later, in reflection, I realized:

I’ve made nearly every major life change in small, uncertain, winding steps. I just didn’t recognize them as such until afterward.

The Irony of Resistance

That’s the tricky thing about discomfort—it often points to something we’re not fully owning. Her hesitation wasn’t what really bothered me. It was the way it challenged something I hadn’t fully admitted to myself: I still carry a fantasy that deep change should come quickly—through clarity, conviction, maybe even willpower. Not weeds.

She wanted to take the scenic route to change. And I, who has taken the scenic route for the past two decades, didn’t trust it would work.

But it has worked.

I quit smoking in 2002—not from a single vow or dramatic break, but through a series of quiet reckonings. I’d never even thought of myself as a smoker. I only smoked during times of stress or neediness, when something inside me felt unheld. I had a similar addiction to processed sugar that didn’t get resolved until more than a decade after a melanoma diagnosis. But slowly, those needs began to find better outlets. One small shift at a time.

And really, most of my changes came that way.

They didn’t arrive like lightning. They came like land slowly healing—first with tough, scrappy weeds no one admires. Then maybe clover. Then wildflowers. At first it looked messy. Uneven. Like nothing good could come of it.

But here’s the thing: the weedy period—the one that looks the worst—is often doing the most important work. Actual honest-to-goodness weeds break up compacted soil, draw nutrients up from deep underground, and begin restoring the balance that allows other life to take hold.

It’s not pretty. But it’s essential.

Over time, the roots of my convictions went deep, my internal “soil” got stronger, and the whole inner landscape eventually changed. Today I don’t eat processed foods or animal products at all.

The Unseen Power of Small Steps

There’s a strange kind of grief that can show up in the early stages of change. When I let go of food I used to use for comfort—or people who were only in my life because I couldn’t imagine life without them—I felt a kind of absence. Like something had been scooped out of me.

Back then, I couldn’t yet picture what would fill that space. I couldn’t see the strength or softness that might grow there. So it felt lonely. Empty. Sad.

But little by little, I started choosing differently.
Eating differently.

Surrounding myself with people who support who I am now—not who I used to contort myself to be.

Changing what I turn to when life feels unbearable.

And while none of those steps seemed particularly radical in the moment, taken together they’ve added up to something very real. Something solid.

How Values Take Root

I used to think values were things you declared: I believe in this now. I stand for that. But more often, they arrive like seeds. Quiet. Unassuming. You don’t even notice they’ve landed.

Maybe a person who has accomplished something you admire says something that lingers.

Maybe a film shifts how you see the world—about animal rights, or food, or healing.

Maybe an illness makes you rethink your own body, your own choices.

At the time, you don’t make drastic changes. You just carry that seed with you.

Over time, it starts to shape your choices. Not dramatically, but subtly: what you put in your grocery cart. Who you spend time with. How you speak to yourself.

One day you look back and realize: you’re living differently.

Not because you overhauled your life in a weekend—but because that value grew stronger than your resistance.

It didn’t arrive with a trumpet. It quietly took root and stayed.

The Long Arc of Healing

After my melanoma diagnosis in 2012, I followed the Gerson therapy diet for two years. I was deeply committed. Eventually, I returned to what I thought of as “healthy eating,” with some Mardi Gras–style lapses along the way. Years later, I developed basal cell carcinoma on my face.

Based on two authors’—Anita Moorjani and Lissa Rankin—mind-bending books that made a case for looking into root causes of cancer we often don’t consider, I started making a concerted effort to find my voice.

At the time, I still didn’t fully see the pattern. But looking back, it’s clear: healing wasn’t a finish line I crossed. It was—and still is—a landscape I keep tending. Every return, every recommitment, every small decision has helped shape a terrain I now trust.

If You’re on the Slow Path

So now, when someone tells me they want to make incremental changes, I take a breath. I remember that slow change is still change. That nothing done in the direction of healing is ever wasted.

If your progress looks uneven, tender, or slow—if your transformation feels more like compost than fireworks—you’re not alone.

You’re not failing.

You’re in the middle of becoming.

 

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Categories
Course Episodes GO Tools

GO: The First Tool for Rewriting Your Story

Graphic design of letter blocks spelling “How To Do It” surrounded by circular icons labeled The Elements
A simple reminder: You already know how to do it—your intuition just needs room to speak.

Before we change anything in our lives, we have to learn how to see. That’s why the first step in The Healing Elements is noticing. We start by observing the patterns—those repeated thoughts, deeply held beliefs, and emotional states that shape what we expect from the world. Most of us don’t even realize we’re running old scripts until we feel stuck, disconnected, or overwhelmed.

Once we notice, we can begin to work with those patterns directly.

That’s where the first tool comes in: GO.

What Is GO?

GO stands for Generate Opposite. It’s simple, but not simplistic. And it’s often the key to real movement—the kind that feels like forward motion after a long time of circling the same emotional terrain.

Here’s how it works:
Take a recurring thought or belief that feels limiting or painful. Write it down. Then write its opposite. And for the next few days, speak the new thought as if it were already true.

Let’s say the original thought is, “I don’t deserve to be happy.”
Your opposite might be: “I deserve happiness.” Or even: “My joy is natural and safe.”

The goal isn’t to wallpaper over something difficult. The goal is to offer your mind and body a new emotional posture—one you can begin to inhabit through language, imagination, and presence.

Sometimes we think affirmations are silly because they don’t match our current reality. But what if they’re not meant to match it? What if they’re meant to reshape it?

You Can Start with Emotion, Too

GO works with emotion as well as thought.

If you’re feeling anxious, try to generate an experience of calm or safety. That might mean stepping outside, talking to someone you trust, or engaging in something that brings joy or inspiration.

A new thought is powerful. But a new feeling—especially one you create on purpose—is transformative.

Two Loud Teachers

My first real encounter with GO didn’t look like a self-help moment. It looked like two screaming goats.

Leo and Orion arrived with tiny voices and cherubic faces. But as they grew, their vocal cords matured into something else entirely. Let’s just say their bleating could pierce through walls—and often did.

Their cries always escalated when I was immersed in something quiet: writing, reflecting, or planning.

My first internal reaction?
“Shut up.”

And that was the thought I wrote down.

Then I asked: What’s the opposite?

“Speak up.”

It startled me. I hadn’t realized how much of my life had been spent managing silence—keeping things in, playing small, avoiding conflict. Behind that two-word outburst was a much deeper belief: “It’s not safe to be fully seen.”

That’s the one I rewrote next:
“It’s safe to be real.”
“My voice is welcome.”

I didn’t believe these yet. That’s not required. But I spoke them anyway. Wrote them down. Lingered with them.

And over time, I began to notice when I did feel safe, when my voice was heard, when something in me settled instead of bracing.

The Story Beneath the Story

GO helped me recognize how my external world was echoing back my internal state.

Even my melanoma diagnosis showed up with a kind of message: stop disappearing.

I don’t think I “manifested” illness on purpose. But I do believe my soul was asking for something different. It was trying to reroute my attention—not just to my health, but to my life.

There are patterns that want to be undone. GO helps loosen them. It offers an experimental framework: What if the opposite were true? What if you lived into it just a little?

A Few Helpful Affirmations

Of course, it’s not magic. But sometimes it feels like it.

Here are a few affirmations I worked with during a time when I needed a new story:

  • I know who I am.
  • I love myself.
  • I matter.
  • I feel connection.
  • I am deserving.
  • I am lighthearted.
  • Life is magic.

Some were the direct opposite of an old belief. Others were simply the emotional tone I wanted to amplify. Either way, repeating them gave me a sense of spaciousness—like my mind could stretch a little wider.

Try It for Yourself

So here’s what I invite you to do:

  1. Choose a thought or belief that feels limiting or painful.
  2. Write its opposite.
  3. Say it out loud, as if it were already true.
  4. Try writing the opposite emotion, too—what you want to feel instead. Let it sit alongside the new thought.

You don’t have to do anything else right now. Just begin with the act of generating the opposite.

There are many ways to expand from here—imagining the opposite vividly, play-acting it in daily life, or looking for evidence that it’s already starting to take shape. But we’ll get to those in other posts.

For now, just GO. Let the opposite idea exist. Speak it. Let it change the shape of your thoughts.

This is how stories begin to shift—word by word.


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Auto-Thoughts

Quick, automatic thoughts that pop up in daily life—often shaped by old beliefs and past experiences.