I knew what I was being asked to do. I just kept saying, not yet.
That’s the part I don’t think we admit often enough. We talk about signs from the universe as though the hard part is seeing them. For me, the hard part has never been seeing them. It’s trusting them enough to act before life makes me. This is the story of the last time I ignored my own guidance, clear guidance, and everything the universe did to get my attention back.
The writing was already on the wall
The signs had been building for a while. The home I love, our little beach house in Vietnam that I felt chose us back in 2021, was quietly asking us to leave. It was asking us to expand.
The termites made sure I couldn’t miss it. Over the last year they took hold: the wardrobes destroyed, a hole eaten clean through my husband’s favourite shirt, the mezzanine floor going soft and then splitting open in places. The door frames in our bedroom began to rot, and termite tracks crept up the wall.
I could see it. I even said it out loud: “It feels like the house wants us to move out.”
So I looked. But housing prices in our village have gone a little crazy, and nothing felt right. I couldn’t make myself spend double on a home that would have floodwater at the doorstep within months.
My soul had already been speaking to me about somewhere else. Japan. For a long time now, I’ve been able to see it and feel it. We’re meant to buy a house in the mountains of Japan. I haven’t even set foot in the village we’re going to buy in. But I know it’s the right village.
And still, we held on to our beach house. The owner reluctantly replaced a couple of doors and a wardrobe. We painted over the flaky bits, deep-cleaned the aircon and the fans, and we held on a little longer.
The moment I chose the logical path over my soul path
Two opportunities appeared, almost at once.
First, a random Aussie guy who owned a home ten minutes from the very village we want to buy in offered his home at an affordable price. The story was uncanny. He also had ties to Vietnam. It felt right. The universe was nodding at me.
Then a second door: a school. The Network School in Malaysia. A place to focus on growing the business, network, find opportunities, maybe make a little extra so I wouldn’t have to sell so much to make Japan happen.
So there it was:
- Option A — go to Japan. Be open to the universe. Write. Do nothing but trust.
- Option B — go and stand shoulder to shoulder with the hustle-builders and push my dreams into reality.
We chose Option B.
Logically, on paper, it made more sense. My soul knew otherwise.
The universe started speaking louder
On 13 July 2026, we flew to Singapore. Everything packed. Our house packed up, our things stored at the neighbours’, ready to sublet the place for the six to ten weeks we’d be away. Japan could wait until September, I told myself.
On the 14th, my husband’s family joined us in Forest City, Malaysia. Things seemed fine. We’d take the kids to Legoland.
And then, on Friday the 17th, my world started to turn.
The layoffs. A friend messaged to tell me a wave of jobs had just been cut. My company had laid off about a third of our staff. I was stunned. I still had a job, but I’d lost my entire team, and most of my previous one too.
The illness. That Sunday, the 19th, I didn’t feel right. By Monday I’d rapidly tanked. I went to watch the kids swim and suddenly couldn’t move. Bedridden. Days later I learned why: dengue fever.
The closure. And somewhere in the middle of getting sick and finding out why, the very thing we’d flown all this way for, The Network School, was shut down by the Malaysian government.
I was very, very sick. And now I had to make decisions. We had our apartment until Friday. On Thursday I was sent to Emergency. The hospital discharged me, we moved apartments on Friday, I went back for bloods. By Saturday I wasn’t improving, so I was admitted. I stayed in hospital until Monday.
There was a quiet nudge, then a firm push. Then we hit the wall. The signs escalate when you don’t listen.
The turn: this was redirection, not punishment
The way I look at life is with a smile. And honestly, I found it a little bit funny. It’s all working out for me. We were being redirected, that’s all.
So with my energy at an all-time low, I made the easiest call: go home. Unpack, unload, regroup. Yes, I’m still working on my attachment to the Vietnam house. Let’s see what happens next.
But next. We are going to Japan. And we are going to find and buy a house. Or more likely, our house will find us.
Here’s what I understand. The universe wasn’t against me. It was blocking a path that was never mine. I may think I want a successful tech career or business, but maybe that isn’t the path of least resistance for me. My path is unique. I’ve known that for a long time, and leaning into the “unknown” that isn’t really unknown to me is the right one.
What would I do differently? Honestly, probably nothing, because this was confirmation. I should have just booked the trip to Japan. I didn’t. That was my mistake. Now I know: just listen.
You can be an expert and still miss the signs. You can be an expert, see the signs, ignore them and get treated like everyone else. And if you’re completely oblivious, the universe will keep tapping anyway. Sometimes the hard things have to happen more than once before it’s shouting: HEY, I’M SPEAKING TO YOU AS LOUDLY AS I CAN NOW. It’s up to us to choose when we’ll listen. The longer we ignore it, the louder it tends to get.
Signs you might be ignoring your intuition
If you’re wondering whether you’re doing the same thing I did, these are the tells I’ve learned to watch for over the past twenty years:
- The same or similar challenges keep coming back around.
- Things keep getting harder and harder.
- You’re in push energy — forcing something because you think you need it to become who you know you’re here to be.
- You’re doing one thing in order to earn another, so that one day you can finally do the thing you actually, deeply desire.
- You already know — you just don’t trust it yet, so you keep circling other options. (Trust me, this one’s been my theme for two decades.)
How to stay on your path
One practice, and it’s simple: write it all out.
Sometimes it still won’t make sense on the page. That’s okay. Then ask yourself how each choice feels. Choose the one that brings the most calm and peace. Don’t chase the option that feels like push or hustle, even when it looks more lucrative. That was my warning sign, and I walked past it. Chasing the lucrative option is really just old scarcity thinking in a nicer outfit.
The feeling of true manifestation is trust, certainty, acceptance. It can be genuinely hard to sit in. How does going to expensive Japan, with four children, to write in the mountains get me closer to buying a house there than a tech school full of opportunity in Malaysia? Logically, it doesn’t. But my soul says otherwise, and this time, I’m listening.
Over to you
Would you have been brave enough to choose Japan over a room full of people building businesses? Have you had this happen before — the signs, the resistance, the redirection?
If any of this feels familiar, you might want to read What Manifestation Actually Means next — this is really its flip side. And if you’d like these stories as I write them, join me here.