Dealing With Premonitions

Some people might call it a strength and others a weakness but to me premonitions are an unwanted, possibly hellish burden. A warning with a shocking message attached to it. It’s a questionable and foreboding suggestion wanting my support and trust. And like omens, I feel they come from a dark and unnatural, foreboding place. Unlike death and taxes the two infamous things looming on the horizon that we can all predict—to a point. For me personally, there are just enough foreshadowing thoughts basking around in the crevices of my brain to freak me out and keep me on my mortal toes.

Pretty sight from yesterday's walk

But the sun comes up and hopefully the flowers will bloom and that’s how far we--as humans--normally reach because we don’t have any idea how—exactly--the flowers will bloom—what will be the shape, size, scent and color. Will they bring friends such as butterflies and birds? Will it be a huge mega blossom leaning to the right or will there be a galaxy of small starry blooms creating a chorus-- rather than one or two headliners stealing the show?

 I put my faith in God and have to question things that don’t sound, or look right. I’m disgusted about the fact that I have what I perceive as ‘negative’ powers because—please sing along-- “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” I’m talking about premonitions—or inclinations based on intuition that something ominous will happen-- not good, happy things. The word premonition has negative connotations and most people know I’m a glass is half full, hopeless optimist. Sometimes however-- despite all my analytical skills and faith-- there are people—accidents—doctors--things that shout me down to size, wallop me on the head and shock the dickens out of Christmas. In other words, it’s not foolproof and I get big, sad surprises too.

 Sometimes these premonitions come to me in my dreams or while driving. My first manuscript is a story woven together from several of these dreams called The Fifth Commandment. It took me years to gather my courage to publish it as a short novella and now  I’ve finally released it for editing--hoping that by putting it out there—releasing into the wild-- my mind can move back to finishing my WIP/the sequel to my romantic novel, Penniless Hearts.

 As far as premonitions, here are a few of my frightening examples:

 I write a hypothetical –fiction--blog post and something happens to make it true.

I’ve answered the phone knowing who is on the other end.

And it can be much much worse—even deadly.

Imagine driving down the road and I’m your passenger. A car speeds by and I say something like, “that guy should slow down or he might meet his maker.” Sure enough, one minute later, we see that same car and it’s totaled. I hold my breath and begin to shake. 

Or the bus trip to Laughlin. I had ridden hundreds of buses but why did I say, “This one is going to break down,” five minutes before we were standing on the side of the road waiting for a replacement? My seatmate joked that the whole fiasco was my fault!

There are many ways to help clear my mind but here are my top six:

 1. Meditate 2. Breathing exercises 3. Spend time in nature 4. Walk my dogs 5. Pray 6. Write or journal

What I’d like to know is why a premonition isn’t a positive thing? As in, why can’t I come up with winning Lotto numbers ahead of time or find out some good news before anyone else? Why aren’t we privy to how the flower will turn toward the sun and blossom on your birthday? Is it because good things are supposed to be surprises? And what about super bad stuff that surprises us—takes us for a loop no matter how sensitive we are to predicting the worst. If we knew all the good things that will happen to us, would we wade through all the bad? Probably not. (Although many great books of fiction start out slow—and end up having exciting plots that you couldn’t predict.)



What about you—have you had any premonitions lately?