Intuition can be scary. It often feels like it speaks a truth-telling us things we are not quite ready to hear.
Intuition is also the most empowering trustworthy part of our psyche once we have properly honed in to receive the intelligence it offers.
Once we are no longer afraid to heed its messages, our intuition is actually the most protective of all our senses. It is connected deeply to our unconscious, including, but not exclusively, our autonomic nervous system- a very protective part of our physiology (think fight or flight/rest and digest). What is often hardest about intuition is that its form of protection is not aligned with the falsely formed egoic protection from which most people operate. Our intuition often points us in the direction we need to move, which is likely not the most comfortable direction we feel we should move.
That’s the point, intuition is always directing us to discover a deeper and broader perspective of our life’s experience. It is a call from our greater mind to wake up to a deeper truth somewhere in our life. Whether it is the kind of stomach-lurching intuitive truth such as, “Yes, my partner is sleeping with someone else.”, or if it is the kind of intuitive truth like, “Yes, I need to quit college and move to Italy.”, it is a call to expand ourselves beyond what we know. In both examples, our intuition is telling us the path we are taking is no longer right for us and another action must be taken. Definitely not the easiest to follow for us security-seeking humans. It’s, ahh, what’s that term, umm, right… COUNTER-INTUITIVE. Not. It’s actually COUNTER-EGOIC.
But our intuition will catch up with us one way or another no matter how we try to ignore it. For some of us, if we don’t heed our intuition, the truth will hide in our cells and bring on disease- a more physical form of “the path you are taking is no longer right for you” message. For others, unfollowed intuition will show its face in a life lived far too small. For some, unheeded intuition will pop out in dark shadowy unconscious behaviors getting us to the same spot our intuition would have, but far more painfully. Not listening to our intuitive sense may keep some from understanding their purpose. And others will find themselves at the end of their life with a long list of regrets having not listened to their gut.
So, become your intuition’s friend. Start slowly so as not to trigger your nervous system. Ask your intuition simple non-threatening questions. Here’s one easy way to start communicating with it:
1. Think of a Yes/No question you’d like the answer to.
2. Pick a question in which the answer won’t scare you.
3. Close your eyes and imagine two balls the same size. Make the balls the same color.
4. In your mind’s eye, place a “Yes” on one ball and a “No” on the other ball.
5. Imagine juggling the two balls up over your head. Start the juggling small and then grow the juggling circle bigger.
6. When you are ready, throw the juggling balls so far up in the air that they move out of your mind’s eyesight, “off the page”.
7. Then wait for one of them to fall down, back into sight.
8. Catch it.
9. Look at the ball and see if it has Yes or No painted on it. There’s your answer.
