The Comical Connections of Knowing...

When life apparently decides subtlety is overrated

Sometimes my inner knowing quietly chats away in the background. Sometimes it nudges. And sometimes it apparently decides subtlety has failed, puts on a fluorescent vest and starts directing traffic.

October has been one of those times.

I’ve been writing and pondering about Noise-to-Knowing™. About that interesting space between what we already know underneath all the chatter, ‘shoulds’ and expectations, and what happens when we actually choose to act on it.

I wrote my October Holistic Bliss Magazine column, Knowing Beneath Noise, exploring visibility, publishing, being flat, my AuDHD brain and the wobble that can appear when something deeply known suddenly becomes deeply visible.

There was a theme emerging. I could see it. Apparently, however, my knowing decided I required supplementary materials.

Because then it was time to pull October’s card from my Re-ignite Your Elegant Rebel® Oracle Cards. Shuffle. Shuffle. Shuffle. Turn over the card. The Just be you! card. Of course it was. I actually laughed. Not a wee giggle, either. More the slightly incredulous laugh that escapes when life connects the dots with all the subtlety of three-year-old Peta-Ann wielding a purple permanent marker.

Ohhh deeearrr gawwwddd. Of COURSE it’s that card. And that moment got me pondering. Perhaps knowing doesn’t always arrive as serenity, certainty or some beautifully profound intuitive moment. Perhaps sometimes it arrives through comical connection.

When the pattern becomes the message

We often talk about inner knowing as though it must be terribly serious. Quiet the mind. Listen deeply. Wait for the whisper. And yes, sometimes that is exactly how it happens. But I’m beginning to suspect knowing also has a sense of humour.

Sometimes the breadcrumb trail becomes so obvious that all we can do is laugh. We encounter a phrase. A conversation echoes it. Something we’re writing takes us back to the same idea. Then an Oracle Card pops up practically shouting the thing we’ve spent days pondering.

At some point, even my gloriously analytical brain has to stop examining possible explanations and go: Right. I hear you. I’m not suggesting every repeated number, overheard sentence or oddly specific song is a mystical instruction requiring immediate life changes.

Sometimes a kookaburra is just a kookaburra. IYKYK

But there is something interesting about noticing what we notice. Because perhaps the important part isn’t whether some external force carefully arranged all the coincidences for us. Perhaps the magic is simply in paying attention.

My brain was never going to join the dots in a straight line

One of my brothers once described having a conversation with me as being on a rollercoaster. At the time, I pulled the sister ‘you really do love me’ face and laughed.

Now I realise he may have been providing a surprisingly accurate description of my brain.

It goes from A to purple, remembers something somebody said three Tuesdays ago, spots a connection with an idea I was writing about six months earlier, takes a brief excursion via an entirely unrelated question, has a chat to an owl on the way and somehow arrives at B carrying three new ideas and wondering why everybody else took the less scenic route.

I know where the conversation is going. Apparently everyone else is just hanging on through the loop-the-loops.

And the funny thing is, to me the connections usually make perfect sense. I can see the thread. I just haven’t necessarily explained all the places it travelled before I tugged everyone else to the other end of it. What may look chaotic from the outside has its own curious internal logic on the inside.

And perhaps that is one of the great gifts of finally understanding my AuDHD and dyslexic brain. For years, I thought the scenic route was evidence that my brain was chaotic. Now I’m far more curious about the way my brain works. Because I know this about it: I connect things.

A phrase connects to an image. An image connects to a memory. A conversation connects to something I’ve been writing. A colour connects to an idea. Occasionally even an emotion. Yes, I know. Who am I? An Oracle Card connects to a question I’ve been pondering. And somewhere among all those apparently unrelated fragments, a pattern appears.

Not always. Sometimes the collection of thoughts wandering around inside my head really is just the cognitive equivalent of THAT second drawer filled with batteries, ancient takeaway menus, three mysterious keys and the scissors nobody could find.

But sometimes? Something clicks. Perhaps that is one reason my knowing doesn’t always arrive as a definitive answer. Sometimes it arrives as a connection.

Noise analyses. Knowing recognises.

And this is where it gets neuroquirky interesting. The same brain that makes wonderful connections can also create an impressive number of possible interpretations of them. This connects to that. But maybe it also connects to that. Oh wait! And what about that other thing? Hang on, didn’t I read something seven years ago about…

Annnnd we’re off. Which is why noticing a connection isn’t necessarily the same as knowing what it means. Noise wants evidence, explanations, reassurance, another opinion and quite possibly a colour-coded flowchart.

Noise asks:

• What does this mean?

• Am I interpreting it correctly?

• What will other people think?

• What am I supposed to do?

• What should I do?

And there is another kind of noise. The ‘shoulds’, rules and expectations. The accumulated external voices we’ve heard so often that eventually they can begin masquerading as our own.

My busy brain isn’t the enemy here. My connections aren’t something I need to switch off. Noise is what happens when I lose trust in myself among all the possibilities and external ‘shoulds’.

Knowing is different. Knowing recognises what is mine.

And that’s why Noise-to-Knowing™ isn’t about quieting, fixing or overriding my brain. It’s about learning discernment within the brain I actually have.

That distinction matters enormously to me. I don’t need to get past my AuDHD and dyslexic brain to access my knowing. I need to understand my brain well enough to recognise how my knowing speaks through it.

Notice. Trust. Act.

Which brings me to the practical part of Noise-to-Knowing™. My soul-led decision-making model is beautifully simple: Notice. Trust. Act. Not necessarily easy. But simple.

1. Notice

First, I notice. What keeps attracting my attention? What am I connecting? What am I resisting? What keeps appearing in different forms?

Most importantly: Before everybody else gets a vote, what does my inner voice say?

This isn’t about hunting for signs. It’s about paying attention to myself. Sometimes noticing is quiet, or an unexpected inner nudge. Sometimes it arrives after my brain has ridden the entire rollercoaster and somehow connected something from Tuesday with a thought from six months ago. And sometimes an Oracle Card turns over and my immediate response is to giggle and say of course it is! That counts too.

2. Trust

Then comes discernment. Which voice is mine? Which voice is noise? Which parts are fear doing their best to keep me safe? Which parts belong to somebody else’s expectations? Which are the ancient ‘shoulds’ I’ve acquired without ever consciously choosing them?

And underneath all of those: What do I know?

Trust doesn’t require me to prove my knowing beyond reasonable doubt. Nor does it require my nervous system to be entirely onboard with the plan. I can trust and wobble simultaneously. I’ve done it rather a lot. Trust is remembering what I know and especially what I knew before the noise arrived.

3. Act

And then comes the bit that brings knowing into the world. Act. Because noticing our knowing is one thing. Trusting it takes us deeper. But acting on it is how knowing becomes a lived choice.

Action doesn’t have to be dramatic. It might be saying no. Saying yes. Writing something or creating something or leaving something behind. Choosing differently. Asking the question. Setting the boundary. Hitting Publish. Or choosing to remain flat after a bilateral mastectomy because every part of your knowing says: This is right for me.

Notice. Trust. Act. That is how my knowing stops being merely an interesting insight and becomes a way of living.

The ‘of course it is’ moment

I think we underestimate the wisdom contained in an 'of course it is' moment. There’s recognition in it. Not surprise exactly. More like catching up with something part of us already knew.

When the Just be you! card appeared for October, it wasn’t an entirely new concept. Being unapologetically ourselves sits at the heart of Elegant Rebel®. Youness is woven through my writing, mentoring, Oracle Cards and, frankly, the way I attempt to live.

What made the card funny was its timing. I had just written about the noise of visibility.

About being seen in my truth. About the difference between knowing who I am and allowing other people to see who I am. And there was the card: Just. Be. You.

Notice? Oh, I noticed. And I laughed.

Then October connected another dot

There was another piece already sitting in this curious October constellation. And when it appeared beside the article and the Oracle Card, I could suddenly see the pattern more clearly.

International FLAT Day. My choice to remain flat after my bilateral mastectomy was one of the clearest experiences of Noise-to-Knowing™ in my life.

When I finally noticed what my inner voice was telling me, I trusted what was right for me and I acted on it. Not everyone had to understand. Not everyone has to make the same decision. It was mine. Staying flat was knowing. Being visibly flat was where the noise could creep back in.

Knowing doesn’t necessarily stop the wobble

This may be one of the most important things I’ve learned about knowing.

Knowing is not the glorious state we reach once we’ve eliminated doubt, nervousness, overthinking, uncertainty and the occasional desire to hide under the doona until everybody stops looking at us.

That would be convenient. It would also remove half my writing material.

I can know something and still wobble. I can trust myself and still hear the noise. I can notice the connection and immediately have my brain offer seventeen alternative interpretations and an unexpected detour via purple.

Knowing doesn’t necessarily silence the noise.

It changes my relationship with it. Instead of automatically believing every thought that turns up brandishing a clipboard and looking official, I can pause and say: ‘Hello, noise. I see you’ve prepared a presentation. Duly noted. I’m choosing this anyway.’

That, for me, is where self-trust lives. Not in unwavering certainty. In recognising what’s mine and being willing to act from it.

Humour might be part of the pathway back

Perhaps this is why those of course it is moments make me laugh. For a brain capable of entertaining rather a lot of possibilities at once, humour can interrupt my need to examine every single one.

The laugh becomes almost an exhale – Ooohhhh. There it is. –  replaces the need for proof or certainty and the Mystic Memo requiring immediate compliance.

When I’m deep inside overthinking, everything becomes Very Important. Every possible outcome deserves analysis. Every decision grows tentacles. Every thought invites another thought, which invites six cousins and somebody it met once at a conference in 1997.

Then comes the comical connection. And I laugh. Suddenly there’s space.

I’ve stepped far enough back to see the whole rollercoaster rather than treating every loop, bend and terrifyingly unexpected drop as a separate event.

Maybe humour doesn’t trivialise knowing. Maybe sometimes humour helps us recognise it.

Notice your own comical connections

So here’s my pondering for you. What keeps turning up in your world?

Not because I want you hunting for signs or attaching profound significance to the next avocado shaped vaguely like your spirit animal. Please enjoy your breakfast.

Instead, become curious about what you keep noticing. What conversation keeps circling back? What idea refuses to leave you alone? What truth keeps appearing in different clothes? And most importantly for me, What makes you suddenly laugh and think: Oh. Of course.

Then try my three deceptively simple words.

Notice.

• What is capturing your attention?

• What does your inner voice say before everybody else gets a vote?

Trust.

• Which voice belongs to you?

• What remains when you gently put down the ‘shoulds’, expectations and external noise?

Act.

• What is one choice, irrespective of size, that honours what you know?

Your brain doesn’t need to become quieter, more conventional or more like somebody else’s before you can trust yourself. Noise-to-Knowing™ is learning discernment within the brain you actually have.

Knowing doesn’t always arrive in a straight line, sometimes it arrives disguised as a connection. And for me: My brain makes connections. Noise introduces complications and ‘shoulds’. Knowing recognises what is mine. And Notice–Trust–Act helps me live from it.

So perhaps knowing isn’t about getting off our individual rollercoasters. Perhaps it’s about learning the twists and turns well enough to recognise what is ours, trust ourselves through the loop-the-loops and act on what we know when we arrive at B. Even if we travelled via purple and the sardonic owl to get there.

Of course, if you’re anything like me, your knowing may also organise an entire sequence of apparently disconnected events, recruit an Oracle Card as supporting evidence and stand back patiently waiting for you to catch on.

When you do? Laugh. Notice. Trust. Act.

Then perhaps take another sip of coffee. Because sometimes the connection isn’t telling us something new. It’s reminding us of what we’ve known all along. Of course it is. 💜

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If this pondering has stirred something within you, I'd love to invite you to explore my Noise-to-Knowing™ Mentoring. It's a space for noticing what is truly yours, trusting your inner knowing and finding the courage to act on it.

→ Learn more about working with P-A and Noise-to-Knowing™ Mentoring