From Stuck to Aligned: How One Book—and a INNER Nudge—Changed Everything

What happens when you finally listen to your inner voice

When I was fifteen, life felt like trying to move through wet cement.

School was stressful, in fact that's all I'd ever known it to be. Trying to fit in was exhausting.

It was like other kids had been handed a formula for learning... and I missed out and here I am scrambling anxiously trying to work it all out. It was like treading water waving frantically for attention, but no one could see me. Drowning felt inevitable.

I didn't feel I had anyone to turn to.

So one afternoon, desperate to escape, I grabbed my backpack and climbed a tree in the park across the street. I was hoping for some space. Some clarity. Maybe even a sign.

But life had other plans.

Within minutes, ants swarmed my bag, drawn to my smashed sandwich. My so-called hideaway quickly became unbearable. Swatting ants and holding back tears, I climbed down, crossed the road to my grandmother’s house.

I slipped into the spare room, shut the door, and sat on the floor. No plan.

Just me, alone with dread and desperation.

And then, something shifted.

The tears stopped. My breath slowed. My mind, for the first time in what felt like forever, went quiet.

Then, a unexpected thought bubbled up:

Go to the new age bookstore in Fremantle.

I didn’t question it. I got on the bus.

The bookstore smelled like incense and mystery. I wandered awkwardly through the aisles until the owner approached.

"Do you need any help?" he asked.

That simple question cracked something open.

Without thinking, I blurted, “I just want to stop struggling. Everything in my life feels hard.”

He didn’t flinch. He just disappeared into the back.

When he returned, he handed me a small book:

Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain.

"You have valuable resources within you," he said.

"Read this. Apply it every day. Your life will get better, I promise you."

That was the moment everything changed.

I devoured the book. Not just reading it, living it.

Forty-one years later, I still have that same copy on my shelf.

Every time I see it, I’m reminded of what shifted that day:

The moment I chose to follow an inner nudge and not question it at all.

So what really caused the shift?

Was it desperation? Sitting in stillness with my emotions in the spare room? The bookstore owner's kindness?

Or the choice to act on the guidance I received, first from within, then from a stranger?

I believe it was all of it.

But mostly, it was that I listened, and I took action.

When you feel stuck, it can feel like you have no options, no way forward.

But that isn't true. It means it’s time to listen for the guidance that is already sitting behind that noise in your head.

And when you hearer it. Act. Don't over think it.

That's how you let the light back in.

And after that comes the breakthrough.

Sometimes, it happens with a stranger.

Sometimes, with a book.

But often from a moment of courage to follow what might come next.