How Listening to Your Inner Voice Can Make You Slap Someone You Love

Sometimes the best advice comes in unexpected ways. Like the fortune cookie I recently opened that proclaimed:

There are lessons to be learned by listening to others.

I made a mental note to myself to listen more closely to others because obviously, the universe (or God) was trying to communicate with me, and today it was through my fortune cookie. Since I have learned never to ignore divine messages, regardless of their delivery method, I began paying closer attention to what other people were saying, as I was instructed. But, what I discovered was that I really just need to listen to myself, and other people need to listen to me.

It isn’t so much that other people drone on about mostly useless drivel 90 percent of the time, but rather that I came to realize we all have this profound inner voice that always knows what to do. I mean always. And, it is never wrong. Like the time when I was 16 years old sailing my father’s 17-foot sailboat – all by myself for the very first time, with my friend Theresa, who panicked that we were going to flip over.

We were in the middle of the lake when the winds picked up and Theresa stood up in the boat and began screaming that we were going to drown. I really just needed her to loosen the jib and sit down so I could swing the mainsail and we could come about and head toward shore. I tried to convey this to her calmly, yet firmly, but she continued to stand in the boat and scream. In a split second, as the captain of the ship sensing an ensuing crisis, I listened to my inner voice and knew exactly what to do.

I left my position at the tiller, walked calmly across the boat to Theresa, and slapped her across the face. “You need to calm down,” I told her. “I need you to listen to me so we can sail this boat back to shore.” (It is occurring to me now that if Theresa had read the message in my fortune cookie that day, she totally could have avoided being slapped.)

The slap accomplished exactly what I needed it to: Theresa was stunned and immediately stopped screaming. “OK,” she said, staring at me in total disbelief. “Did you just slap me?”

“Yes. Yes, I did,” said my confident self. “It was my only option. I need you to listen to me so we can get safely back to the Yacht Club.”

“OK,” said my best friend. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

Clearly, in this situation, it was listening to myself instead of others that taught me a valuable lesson: when faced with an impending crisis, be authoritative and confident in your actions for the benefit and safety of everyone around you.

Instead of drowning, we made it back to the dock a short time later and Theresa apologized for flipping out. “I’m sorry,” she said, hugging me. “I was scared and I didn’t know how we were going to make it back in one piece.”

“It happens to the best of us,” I told her. “Next time, just listen to me. I promise you, I know what to do.”

Author’s note: When I asked Theresa if I could use her real name in this story, she said, “Absolutely! I know this event happened because you love to tell the slap story! But I really don’t remember it. Maybe I was in shock or something.”