Listening beneath the surface

Some peo­ple are born lis­ten­ing below the noise.

We notice the shift before the storm breaks.
We feel what’s com­ing before any­one names it.
Emotion moves through us like weather—settling in the chest, chang­ing the light of a room, ask­ing to be acknowledged.

This is not excess.
It is attunement.

My Great Gran was like that.

She didn’t announce her know­ing. She lived it. She could read a room the way oth­er peo­ple read a sky—by the way the air changed, by what went unsaid, by the ten­sion set­tling into her shoul­ders. She trust­ed her gut with­out apol­o­gy. If some­thing felt off, she didn’t debate it. She adjust­ed. She paid attention.

I believe I car­ry that piece of her.

For me, intu­ition has always lived in the body first. I feel things before I under­stand them. I sense emo­tion­al under­cur­rents before any­one speaks them aloud. I want to know how some­one became who they are — because sto­ries explain us. Context mat­ters. To me, con­nec­tion with­out under­stand­ing feels unfinished.

For a long time, I treat­ed that need like some­thing to manage.

I learned to make myself small­er in rooms where depth felt incon­ve­nient. I learned to offer warmth with­out expec­ta­tion, curios­i­ty with­out reci­procity. I learned to call restraint wisdom—even when it was cost­ing me something.

There is a temp­ta­tion, espe­cial­ly when rela­tion­ships strain or frac­ture, to explain dif­fer­ence as defi­cien­cy. To turn mis­match into diag­no­sis. To reach for frame­works — psy­cho­log­i­cal, spir­i­tu­al, devel­op­men­tal — that orga­nize human com­plex­i­ty into tidy stages and conclusions.

I under­stand that impulse. I’ve felt it myself.

But human growth is not a straight line. It doesn’t unfold the same way for every­one, and it doesn’t move neat­ly from one chap­ter to the next. We revis­it trust after betray­al. We rene­go­ti­ate iden­ti­ty after moth­er­hood, grief, or leav­ing home. We relearn auton­o­my after sea­sons of self-aban­don­ment. None of this means we failed to devel­op prop­er­ly the first time around. It means we are still alive.

There was some­one I kept at arm’s length for years.

My intu­ition read the land­scape quick­ly: con­ver­sa­tions stayed shal­low, atten­tion curved inward, emo­tion­al exchange felt lim­it­ed. I wasn’t unkind — but I wasn’t open. I trust­ed my knowing.

Then I ques­tioned it.

I told myself that maybe I was being unfair. That dis­cern­ment might be judg­ment wear­ing a holy face. I was doing my own inner work, learn­ing how easy it is to con­fuse pro­tec­tion with dis­tance. So I opened the door. I offered access. I shared pieces of my past — not for sym­pa­thy, but for under­stand­ing. Because who we’ve been explains who we are becoming.

And I was told, plain­ly, that my past was not some­thing they were inter­est­ed in hearing.

That moment clar­i­fied some­thing sacred.

Not every­one is unwill­ing to go deep.
But not every­one has the capacity.

There is a difference.

What often gets labeled as emo­tion­al imma­tu­ri­ty is, in many cas­es, dis­cern­ment. What gets called a lack of trust is some­times earned cau­tion. What appears to be dis­tance can be a bound­ary formed after long sea­sons of giv­ing with­out being met.

So I adjust­ed. I stayed where it was safe. Conversations became lighter, more con­tained. I told myself that not every con­nec­tion needs depth — and that is true. But what I ignored was this: some of us do. And pre­tend­ing oth­er­wise costs us something.

When the betray­al came lat­er — qui­et, ordi­nary, unmis­tak­able — it didn’t shock me. It griev­ed me. Not just because trust was bro­ken, but because my intu­ition had already spo­ken. I had known the shape of this end­ing. And still, I doubt­ed myself.

That grief wasn’t just about the rela­tion­ship.
It was about silenc­ing a voice I had inherited.

My Great Gran used to say you don’t argue with your knowing—you lis­ten, or you pay for it lat­er. Not as pun­ish­ment. As con­se­quence. The body remem­bers what the mind tries to override.

That reck­on­ing taught me some­thing I want to name gen­tly and clearly:

Needing depth is not ask­ing too much.
Wanting to be under­stood is not self­ish.
Craving emo­tion­al hon­esty is not a flaw.

It is a calling.

We do harm when we turn rela­tion­al pain into a hier­ar­chy — when one per­son is cast as more evolved, more healed, more devel­oped, while the oth­er becomes a les­son or a cau­tion­ary tale. Growth that requires some­one else to be dimin­ished is not growth at all.

Some peo­ple con­nect through prox­im­i­ty, shared activ­i­ty, sur­face ease. Others con­nect through sto­ry, mem­o­ry, mean­ing. Neither is wrong, but they are not inter­change­able. Expecting some­one with­out the capac­i­ty for depth to hold it will leave you feel­ing unseen, no mat­ter how kind they are.

And you are not wrong for notic­ing that.

Intuition is not cru­el­ty. It is care. It is the part of us that says, this is safe, or this will cost you. Learning to lis­ten to it doesn’t hard­en the heart, it pre­serves it. It is ances­tral wis­dom still doing its work.

I am learn­ing that open­ness does not require access. Compassion does not require self-aban­don­ment. And depth does not need to jus­ti­fy itself to those who don’t speak its language.

If you are some­one who feels deeply, who lis­tens close­ly, who longs to be known beyond the sur­face, there is noth­ing bro­ken about you. You are not too much. You are not demand­ing inti­ma­cy that doesn’t exist. You are sim­ply tuned to a dif­fer­ent frequency.

And the work is not to qui­et that tun­ing.
The work is to hon­or it.

Some con­nec­tions will remain shal­low, and that is OK. Some doors will stay closed, and that is wis­dom. But there are peo­ple who will meet you in the deep — not afraid of his­to­ry, not bored by nuance, not threat­ened by feeling.

My Great Gran trust­ed that kind of know­ing with­out need­ing anyone’s permission.

I’m learn­ing to do the same.

Let this be per­mis­sion to stop doubt­ing your dis­cern­ment.
To stop shrink­ing your need for mean­ing.
To stop mis­tak­ing lone­li­ness for failure.

Depth is not some­thing to apol­o­gize for.
It is some­thing to steward.

And when you find those who can meet you there — stay.