Before You Can Explain It
On learning to trust a different kind of knowing
There are moments when something lands before you understand it. Not loudly. Not in a way you can easily point to. Just a quiet sense of… yes.
You might not have words for it yet. You might not be able to explain why it resonates, or what exactly feels true. But something in you recognizes it.
And almost as quickly, something else moves in. A hesitation. A subtle questioning.
“Do I actually understand this?”
“Is this real, or am I just projecting?”
“Shouldn’t I be able to explain it if it’s true?”
So the moment passes. Or gets translated into something more familiar. Or quietly set aside. Not because it wasn’t real. But because it didn’t yet have a place to live.
What if that moment… is not a gap in understanding? What if it is a different kind of knowing? One that doesn’t begin with clarity, but with contact. One that doesn’t arrive fully formed, but begins as a felt sense ~ something our system is already in relationship with, before our mind has caught up.
This kind of knowing can feel unstable at first. Not because it is weak, but because it is not yet reinforced by shared language, clear categories, or external confirmation.
It asks something unfamiliar of us. Not to figure it out immediately. But to stay with it. To let it remain just beyond full articulation, without dismissing it. To notice what happens when we don’t rush to resolve it.
You might begin to see that it doesn’t disappear. That it lingers. That it returns. That it starts to organize your attention in subtle ways. Not as a conclusion…but as a presence.
And over time, something shifts. What once felt like a fleeting moment becomes something you can re-enter. Not as memory. But as a space. A space you are not just observing…but inhabiting.
This is not the kind of knowing most of us were taught to trust.
It doesn’t present itself as certainty. It doesn’t arrive with proof. And it doesn’t ask to be believed. Only to be stayed with.
So if you’ve ever had the sense that you are already inside something you can’t yet name…that something is quietly reorganizing how you see, how you relate, how you make meaning…you’re not missing something.
You may be at the beginning of learning how to trust a different way of knowing. One that forms through relationship. One that deepens through return. One that becomes clearer… not when you grasp it, but when you learn how to live inside it.
🌿
If you’d like a quiet way to stay in contact with what’s unfolding ~ I share occasional notes from the edge of the work. Small signals, patterns, and questions as they emerge. Notes from Laureen is a place to stand at the shoreline…and sense what’s moving across the waters.