How meditation strengthens gut feelings and enhances your ability to trust your own intuition

Kay Cheung, 43, has always loved music. But when her application to study the subject was turned down – twice – by a university in Hong Kong, she felt defeated.

“I ended up enrolling in a Bachelor of Social Science programme, which wasn’t what I wanted, but I completed it anyway,” she says.

She wasn’t a happy student. The course was difficult and she missed being able to play the piano because she was always too busy catching up on homework. On a whim – because she desperately needed a break after she graduated – she flew to New Zealand, where she met a Swede who had changed his major to study what he really loved. He suggested that she follow her passion.

“He told me that if I really wanted to study music, then I should do it,” Cheung says. “I found him inspiring, so when I returned to Hong Kong I began looking for schools to do my Bachelor of Music. It took a while for me to locate a school that was affordable and taught the course in English – the only problem was that it was in Holland.”

Cheung had never visited the Netherlands before, and didn’t have any friends there. Yet, something inside her told her to make the move. “It was a feeling; something was guiding me towards it and I knew I had to follow it. I knew I could trust the feeling, and I knew that I would be OK.”

Things turned out to be more than OK. After several auditions, Cheung received an offer to study music for four years. She loved living in Holland, worked with some amazing teachers, made many new friends, and met and fell in love with someone.