A Year of Listening in the North Country

When I look back on 2025, what stands out most isn’t what I built or even what I accomplished. It’s the way I learned how to listen.

This was the year I began saying no—not defensively or dramatically, but quietly, often without explanation, and sometimes without certainty about what would replace the thing I was declining. It was the first time in my life that I stopped orienting myself around what made sense on paper and started paying attention to what felt right in my body, even when that feeling led me somewhere unfamiliar.

Leaving my stable, meaningful job in April was the clearest expression of that shift. It wasn’t a reaction to burnout or dissatisfaction. In many ways, it was a good job, one I had poured myself into and grown within. But something in me had begun to pull away, and once I noticed it, I couldn’t unnotice it. I didn’t have six months of savings set aside. I didn’t have a clear plan for what would come next. What I had was a steady internal signal telling me that staying no longer aligned, and for the first time, I chose to trust that signal without demanding proof.

What I didn’t understand then was that making the decision would be the simplest part. Staying with it would require a different kind of courage. Less than a month later, I was challenged in a way I didn’t anticipate, threatened because my choice didn’t fit neatly into someone else’s expectations. I remember thinking that this might be the moment I turned back, the moment I decided that listening to myself had been a mistake. Instead, something unexpected happened. That experience clarified my resolve. It stripped away my lingering belief that safety comes from approval and showed me that intuition doesn’t promise ease; it offers direction.

By the middle of the year, I began to see a pattern forming. Saying no wasn’t closing my life down; it was creating space. Space I didn’t yet know how to fill, but space that felt necessary. For the first time, I wasn’t rushing to replace certainty with another version of certainty. I was learning how to stay in the not knowing without abandoning myself.

That understanding deepened this week during my conversation with Greg Williams on North of Normal. Greg shared a story about traveling to New Zealand with seventy-five dollars in his pocket, eventually finding himself with just fifty cents left and no clear plan for what would come next. He talked about the friend traveling with him, the one who kept listing all the reasons it wasn’t going to work, warning him that he was in trouble. When Greg spent a dollar on a drink, his friend thought he was reckless. Greg’s response was simple: now he wasn’t thirsty, he still had fifty cents remaining, and it was a beautiful day.

What struck me wasn’t the optimism of that moment, but the orientation behind it. Greg wasn’t waiting for certainty before moving forward. He wasn’t freezing in place until fear resolved itself. He kept walking, kept asking for work, kept placing himself in the path of possibility. Because he did, something met him there. A job. A place to stay. Meals. Time. What he called miracles, but what felt to me like the natural result of movement paired with trust.

Listening to him, I realized how often we misunderstand intuition. We tend to think of it as a feeling that arrives before action, when in reality it often clarifies itself through action. Intuition doesn’t remove uncertainty; it asks us to move with it. That has been especially true for me as a solo business owner this year. There have been many moments when I couldn’t see where the income would come from, moments when fear tried to convince me that panic was preparation. I’ve learned the opposite is true. Panic narrows my world. Staying open keeps it expansive.

That lesson was tested in a very real way when I was recently offered a high-level position with another company. I was told to ask for what I wanted, not what seemed reasonable or polite, but what I actually wanted. So I did. I asked for a six-figure salary. Saying it out loud felt bold, almost surreal. I wasn’t even sure I wanted the position, but I recognized the opportunity for what it was: a chance to practice claiming my worth without shrinking.

When I was told yes, something happened that surprised me with its immediacy. Before my mind could analyze or negotiate, my body answered. I knew I couldn’t take it. There was no fear in that knowing, no anxiety, just clarity. In that moment, I realized something fundamental about myself: I am not driven by money. I had never truly tested that before. Now I had, and the answer was unmistakable.

Turning down that offer didn’t feel like loss. It felt like alignment. It showed me the difference between opportunity and calling, between something that looks good and something that belongs to you. It also showed me that intuition isn’t proven when the stakes are low; it’s proven when the answer costs you something and you choose it anyway.

As the year comes to a close, I feel less interested in certainty than I ever have, and more committed to alignment. I’m no longer chasing reassurance or trying to outthink my own knowing. Instead, I’m learning how to stay in relationship with that quiet internal voice that doesn’t argue or justify itself, but responds clearly when I’m willing to listen.

This year taught me that miracles do find us, but so do distractions disguised as miracles, and discernment matters just as much as faith. It taught me that saying no is not a failure of imagination, but often an act of devotion to a deeper yes. And it taught me that intuition is not a trait you either have or don’t have; it’s a practice, one that strengthens every time you choose honesty over urgency.

As we move into a new year, I want to invite you to approach it differently. Not by setting resolutions you feel obligated to keep, but by paying attention to what your life is already asking of you. Notice what expands you and what contracts you. Practice asking for what you want, even if you’re not sure you’ll accept it. Practice saying no when something feels off, even if you can’t yet explain why.

You don’t need the full plan. You don’t need permission. You only need the willingness to trust yourself enough to take the next honest step. That is where intuition stops being an idea and becomes a way of living. And that, I’ve learned, is where a year truly begins.

-Amanda