The Couch I Didn’t Buy

Hey love,

I want to tell you a story from last week that perfectly captures what people mean when they say “trust your gut”… but in a way that actually shows up in real life.

I was in Lake Havasu City helping my mom get her house ready to turn into an Airbnb. I was selling things on Facebook Marketplace and, at the same time, looking for pieces to bring in for the new aesthetic.

A week before I got there, I found this couch.

And I mean this couch, literally👇🏻

Clearly high-end. Beautiful. Exactly what we were looking for. And the price was just low enough to make me pause… but not so low that it was obviously fake.

I remember thinking, this might be too good to be true.

But instead of listening to that, I went straight into justification.

“It’s a small desert town… maybe they just want it gone… maybe there’s not much of a market…”

I built a whole story to override what I knew.

So I made an offer.

Then nothing. A full week went by. I assumed it sold.

The day before I’m leaving, she messages me.

“Hey, are you still interested?”

I say yes, but explain I’m two hours away and leaving the next day.

She says, “My husband can deliver it.”

I say, “I leave tomorrow.”

She says, “He can bring it tonight.”

And now I’m like… okay, this is moving fast.

But I still want the couch.

I make an offer. She accepts, but asks for money for gas.

I agree to add $50.

Then she asks me to send it up front.

🚩🚩🚩

I say I’m not comfortable with that and offer to send half.

She agrees.

Then comes the payment details… and the name she sends isn’t hers. It’s not even a man’s name.

Now things are clearly off.

But here’s the part I really noticed…

I still wanted it.

So I could feel myself trying to make it work anyway. 🫣

(below is a sneak peek at the actual convo)

I go to send the money.

My bank stops it.

Not with a warning. Just… “try again later.”

I tell her.

She says, “Just keep trying.”

Then sends another account. Another name.

And at that point, I finally stopped.

Like really stopped.

And I asked:

What do I know here that I’m pretending not to know because I want this to work?

And everything got clear.

This wasn’t about the couch.

It was about me wanting something badly enough to override my awareness.

Then I noticed something else…

Is the panic I feel about losing the couch… or losing the money?

Because the couch didn’t even exist yet.

But my body was reacting.

And it wasn’t reacting to furniture.

So I told her I wasn’t comfortable and that I’d check back next time I was in town.

Instantly, her tone changed.

Short. Dismissive. A little nasty.

Then she left the chat.

Gone.

And that’s when I knew.

None of it was real. 😮‍💨

And I sat there thinking…

How many times do we do this?

How many times do we want something so badly that we push past every signal telling us to pause?

How many times do we ignore the stops because they don’t match the outcome we want?

Because what if the stop is the gift?

What if the delay, the glitch, the weird energy… is actually something having your back?

But because we’ve decided what we want, we don’t receive it that way.

We try to override it.

And even deeper…

How many things are we trying to force into existence that were never actually for us?

Your inner compass isn’t loud.

It’s subtle.

It shows up in those small hesitations, those tiny pauses, the things that don’t quite line up.

And your only job…

Is to be willing to stop long enough to listen.

🌟 Your Add Wonder Tools

Play with these questions this week:

• Where am I overriding what I know because I want a specific outcome?
• What am I trying to make work that actually feels off?
• What if the delay or resistance is actually working for me?
• What do I know here that I haven’t acknowledged?
• If I trusted myself fully… what would I choose?

Until next time, may your inner compass be louder than your need to make something work 😉

With wonder,