I was away for the weekend looking for some peace and quiet to work on my second novel about a group of women struggling with medium angst. Stuck at a certain point in my design, I went for a walk in the forest with headphones on, hoping someone would inspire me. I was listening to an episode of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday podcast where she interviews her best friend, Gayle King.
I paused as they began discussing the very thing I was writing about: a woman’s intuition that something is not quite right in her life. King said she came home one day and found her husband with another woman. When she said she had no idea, Winfrey asked her, Did she really have no idea? They then discussed how there is always a “whisper” moment in retrospect. The question is: why didn’t we listen?
That’s what I wrote about, and the subject of my novel became clear. Those whispers—especially the ones you don’t want—is an experience that resonates with many women I know, whether it’s about our marriage, children, career, or health.
Mum-of-two Wendy Thomas was just weeks away from her 40th birthday when she went to the doctor over concerns about her right breast. The radiologist told her everything was fine, but the scan accidentally found something in her left breast that turned out to be cancerous.
“To this day,” says Thomas, “I still don’t know what made me listen to my intuition; to understand that something was wrong in my body. But I’ve learned never to ignore that feeling again because it saved my life.”
Clinical psychologist and consultant Dr. Kristine Laderoute, who practices in Toronto, Canada, thinks this is good advice. Stock image used
However, is there any scientific evidence to support this idea of intuitive knowing? My sister, one of the most rational people I know, is a cognitive neuroscientist studying the relationship between the brain and behavior. I asked her if the whispering had any neurological basis.
“Well,” she said. “This ‘intuitive knowing’ has a source.” There are pathways in the brain that pick up information that we are not even aware of. This can distort the predictions we make about the world around us and give the impression of being intuitive.”
After the birth of my first child, I had my own lesson in listening to whispers. To me, in the first days of his life he seemed uncomfortable, even in pain. Something was wrong. But more experienced people told me: That’s what babies are like. He has flatulence. Don’t be so nervous. I had convinced myself: What do I know? The next time he went to the doctor I couldn’t believe how low his weight was. “Are you sure the scales aren’t broken?” I asked several times. The nurse assured me that was not the case. My son was admitted to Children’s Hospital where he was diagnosed with sepsis and shortly thereafter with a chronic illness. I had known – of course I had known. But I had questioned myself and my intuition. I will always wonder if we could have avoided the extent of his illness if I had insisted something was wrong.
Now in my forties, I can’t help but be fascinated by women’s lives at this stage where we’ve committed to the big decisions we’ve made about the kind of life we want. We should feel safe and content. But do we? Some women don’t find the satisfaction they expected and instead feel a deep sense of midlife regret.
This is often when the rumors first surface and are the most worrying. A friend of mine is a therapist with a successful practice and often helps women who are trying to figure out why they are feeling unhappy or unfulfilled. This therapist friend could empathize deeply with her clients – she felt the same way most of the time. She suspected her marriage had something to do with it, but there was always a reason not to listen to that feeling: She and her husband had been together for 15 years; they had two children together; They had just finished renovating their home.
“The whispers told me, ‘You’re not happy — that’s not good,'” she says. “But being a therapist and being raised to believe that you hold on to a marriage when times are tough, I took that whisper to mean we need to go to couples therapy and do some hard work.”
They did, and life rolled on—until one day it came to a halt with painful screeches. Her husband left her and like Winfrey’s friend King, my friend felt taken by surprise.
“I later learned that he lived a double life for years while I was busy with our children. The whispers told me to get out, but I didn’t want to hear it. I probably wouldn’t have gotten out if he hadn’t left. Now I’m working on learning to trust my gut, and I’m teaching my clients to do the same.”
It is a more primal yet wiser part of us that instinctively knows what is true
Clinical psychologist and consultant Dr. Kristine Laderoute, who practices in Toronto, Canada, thinks this is good advice: “Think of whispering as the more primitive but wiser part of us that instinctively knows what is truest to us; The part that is free from societal expectations and uncompromisingly connected to what we need.’
The whispering can be scary and disturbing. persistent.
Not every woman can respond to them, even hearing them loud and clear. In a recent UK study by YouGov, one in three women with a partner said they would face financial problems (or not cope at all) if they split up tomorrow. Listening to whispers is not a privilege that everyone can afford.
In my new novel, The Whispers, the main character knows that her marriage isn’t right for her anymore, and maybe never was. But she has neither a salary nor a bank account. One afternoon, her heart racing, she secretly looks at a one-bedroom apartment for rent that is just about affordable. She stands in the empty room and tries to imagine living there and only having her daughter part of the time; the furniture that might fit.
But it all feels too far removed from the life she’s been diligently creating for a decade. She goes home, hides the brochure and tells her husband that she went shopping. your heart sinks; She silenced the whispers again.
“When we ignore or resist the whispers, we usually feel regret or head towards crises,” says Laderoute. “But if we learn to listen to them, we can live from a vantage point of clarity and find more peace with our choices and within ourselves.”
And isn’t that what we’re all striving for? As we often tell our children, you probably already know the answer to the question you are asking. We just have to trust each other enough to quiet the noise and finally listen.
Ashley Audrain’s The Whispers published by Michael Joseph £14.99*
*TO ORDER A COPY FOR £12.74 BY 3 SEPTEMBER GO TO MAILSHOP.CO.UK/BOOKS OR CALL 020 3176 2937. FREE UK DELIVERY ON ORDERS OVER £25.
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