Nearly a decade ago, I was considering a career change. I was a card carrying member of the WGA and had sporadic on-again-off-again work in film and television that was more off-again than on. While the idea of leaving a career that I loved so much terrified me, the idea of staying on the roller coaster of my career was equally terrifying. I went to an orientation at Antioch University for their Masters program in Clinical Psychology. I was running late. A few minutes after I sat down in the back of the room, a folded up note made its way to me. There was nobody else to pass it to so I opened it and the paper said, “Are you Whitney Boole?” As far as I could tell, I knew nobody in that room. I later discovered that someone I knew when I was five years old recognized me and sent that note back. But to me, this didn’t just feel like a note. It felt like a sign that I was in the right place. And I was. I love what I do and I am grateful I took the chance to pursue it even when I thought the door might slam on me.

I do believe in signs — it’s less about magic in the world and more about how we reflect on what we see.

A piece to that story that I don’t often share is that on my first day of grad school when driving into the parking garage, the garage gate closed down on my car as I was driving through it suddenly and oddly (I never saw or heard of that happening to anyone ever). I went in any way. I guess I could have interpreted that as a sign that I was not in the right place, but I chose to see it as an obstacle that I would overcome. And I did.

Signs are not always easy to see or accept. Being present to our experience, internal and external, is so important. I only learned this after spending many years disconnecting from my own feelings and intuition, dismissing them as misguided only to suffer the consequences that resulted from not appreciating them and taking in what I needed to learn from them. Connecting to my feelings and intuition has been a journey for me and one that I have helped many of my clients navigate as well.

When clients ask me if I believe in signs, the answer is absolutely yes. But you don’t have to look for magic falling from the sky to see signs — gaze inward. The meaning we see in the signs out in the world comes through the lens of our feelings and intuition.

Signs aren’t about what’s out there — they’re about what’s in here.

Yesterday, I found a bush filled with caterpillars — felt like a sign to me. It inspired me to post this blog today.