Today I want to touch on one of my favorite topics: INTUITION!
During these times when personal and world events trigger a variety of emotions, it is important to remember that you have tools that empower and support you … the greatest of those being your own personal guidance system – your intuition.
I adore that Steve Jobs quote because it says something so true about intuition.
Following your heart and listening to your intuition is BRAVE. It’s brave. It’s beautiful. It’s an act of courage.
We are spiritual beings first and human second. Although it goes against what most of us were taught, intuition is our first sense.
The one that helps us read between the lines, pick up on invisible information, feel things out and make good decisions, and understand the “vibe” we get from a person or situation.
When it comes to developing your intuition, the first thing you have to understand is that your intuition is NOT your intellect. Intuition doesn’t follow linear rules because it isn’t logical or intellectual. But it IS just as important as your intellect.
In order to navigate our world, we need both – our power of analytics + logical thinking, as well as the soft, nuanced world of intuitive intelligence.
Trusting your inner-voice means recognizing that certain things that don’t make any sense, but we still know they’re true. This can help us navigate a world where things are changing so rapidly.
We have intuition, nature has instincts.“Our intuition is like a muscle, we must practice listening to it and trusting its wisdom. When you take the time to ask and keep listening for the answer, being at peace becomes easy.” — Lisa Prosen
Many people ask today,“How can my life be more magical?” and “How can I go from ordinary to extraordinary?”
Great thinkers have taught us that we either go through life learning and struggling, or we listen to our own intuition. Each of us has the innate ability to listen to our inner voice and receive guidance for direction, clarity or choices.
When we develop trust that our intuition works for us, we expand our active use of it.
There is a huge difference between instinct and intuition, and it’s important to differentiate between them, especially right now with so much uncertainly on our planet.
Instinct comes partly from the amygdala, which is a small gland at the base of the left-brain. Part of the job of the amygdala is as a survival mechanism responsible for initiating the stress response of fight, flight or freeze. The amygdala is the seat of the wounded self – it stores emotional memories that can get triggered in stressful situations. When instinct kicks in, we are not operating from thought, but from survival needs. For example, a newborn infant, as well as all mammals, will instinctively suckle as part of its survival. Instinct is essential for the survival of any species.
“Intuition is a sacred gift, the rational mind its faithful servant. Sadly we have thrown away the gift and have become enslaved to the servant.” ~Albert Einstein
In Inner Bonding, we often talk about who is in charge—your wounded self or your guidance? Most people are enslaved by the thoughts and beliefs of their wounded self—their programmed mind. But the mind is meant to be the servant of our inner and higher guidance, not the master. Why do we too often throw away the gift of intuition – of our inner knowing?
Imagine living in a society where people trusted their intuition—trusted their feelings and their higher guidance. Could people in this society be easily controlled by government, religions, or the media? Obviously not, because when you trust your own inner knowing, you are not vulnerable to others’ manipulations and lies.
Over the last several years, I’ve written and talked on the radio about the power of love and how important it is to use your intuition when it comes to love, dating, and relationships. I’ve talked about everything from reinventing your love life and changing your dating mindset to using your intuition when it comes to the scent of attraction (why online dating can go sour if his smell turns you off) and the sound of your date’s voice (sound frequency is so telling!) Ultimately, trusting your intuition will help you much more than any how-to-date manual. But, what about the reverse—what does love have to do with enhancing your intuition and connection to the All That Is?
We often tend to think of love as an emotion or an expression, but it is so much more. Love is unconditional, accepting, inclusive, uniting, understanding, kind, and joining. It’s a freedom from fear and separateness. It’s about showing compassion and kindness to yourself and the world around you. It’s also a commitment to reduce suffering and respect every creature and object. Love flows through every living being, connecting us to one another, the living planet, and the Divine. It’s what made you, your friends, and even the people who drive you crazy. It’s a part of our trees, oceans, mountains, and sky. Love is at the very essence of who we are.
Intuition is a natural part of all of us. As multi-sensory beings, we all have it although our cultural conditioning represses it. It’s commonly ( although inaccurately) known as the sixth sense and extends beyond your five physical senses to a larger awareness that spans both space and time. But here is the deal. It’s really the first sense not the 6th. Because we are first consciousness, then we take on a body. As immortal spiritual beings having a temporary human experience it is our first essential and primary ability – to sense the invisible world from where we came.
For the past few hundred years western culture has long honored logic and intellect as the most valuable way to experience the world. We’ve been taught to be suspicious of anything that defies this narrow paradigm. We tend to love facts and figures and distrust what we can’t prove through linear thinking. Yet, intuition is one of your most powerful senses it’s just that no one teaches us what it is or how to support it in school. Wouldn’t that be amazing? Of course, I know I’m kind of biased as an intuitive! But, even many of the world’s most successful people—including Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and physicist Albert Einstein, —have said that they wouldn’t be where they are today without following their intuitive hunches. Every new discovery is made with the power of the intuitive hunch.
Intuition is defined as the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning; a thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.
I now run my life on intuition, but it wasn’t always like this.
I always thought I had flawed intuition, but I now realize I ignored it when it whispered to me. I was uncomfortable with making decisions based on anything, but justifiable data—a Virgo to the core. I soon learned though, intuition is far from logical. It calculates the answer and delivers it unapologetically, with no explanation. Still, I allowed myself to need logic and legitimate reasons to free myself from relationships that weren’t good for me, career paths that didn’t fit me, and more.
Are you sometimes really hard on yourself? Do you have a tendency to dwell on your weaknesses or mistakes instead of what you’re proud or happy about? Are you sometimes easily defeated by setbacks or criticism? Have you ever felt like you can’t openly ask for what you need? If you answered yes to any of these questions, it’s time for a self-esteem tune up!
Practicing self love is integral to enhancing your intuition. When you feel good about yourself, your intuitive filters are clear and you’re fully connected to the Divine. You’re able to cast your net into the world around you and thus move forward on your highest path. Conversely, when you don’t approve of yourself, your Goblin ego takes over and whispers more harsh and judging thoughts. Lack of self-esteem keeps you separated from the world around you and disconnected to your intuition. The more you disapprove of yourself, the more you end up stuck in a prison of your own making. And, you don’t want that!
Many experts have written about the problems healthcare faces. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement has codified their approach to a solution in the Triple Aim, which seeks to curb cost and improve the patient care experience and health of populations. Healthcare futurists talk about solutions in the form of personalized medicine, nanotechnology, remote/virtual care, concierge care, and more.
But there is one problem that no healthcare pundit is talking about today, yet it lives at the very heart of healthcare. Solving this problem is the key to ushering in a cutting-edge scientific era of Enlightened Medicine that will bring joy and healing to the practice of medicine.
The core problem in healthcare is that the medical science we follow is remarkably outdated and incomplete. For decades, we've been taught that the human body is a machine, made up of little pieces called atoms. We believed this starting from grade school through college and medical or nursing school. Our teachers said, “When you put a bunch of atoms together, you get a molecule, then macromolecules, then eventually cells, organs, and finally a human being.” We were told this repeatedly in textbooks, lectures, and laboratories until it hardened as part of our scientific belief system.
The holes in this belief system were not discussed. Life, emotion, thought, desire, joy, purpose, and meaning were mostly ignored, but to the rare persistent questioner these were explained away as mere combinations of microscopic ball-like atoms bumping into each other. Was there science to back up that claim? Sure there was. But like all scientific conclusions, these interpretations were based on a fundamental philosophical assumption that we weren’t told about; namely, that the world is ultimately a physical thing and we are physical things.
You are creating a structure to be able to support the fullness of our humanity. And different people have different unique opportunities to play in that. The art is to listen for the part you play. When one person writes a book of poetry, is that book of poetry any less of a contribution to the wellbeing of humanity than somebody who’s out on the line fighting the fire?
