Intuition - your very own sat-nav guidance system!

Getting in touch with your intuition and higher guidance

Do you sometimes get the feeling of knowing something without knowing how you know? An urge that doesn’t particularly make sense or a gut feeling that if acted upon brings us positive results?

What if we all had our own answers and all the resources within us right now? What if you could train yourself to tune in to the infinite intelligence and have answers revealed step by step for a lifetime of guidance?

We only use a small portion of our brain, and base our way of interpreting reality on our five senses. Yet we all have access to a tremendous resource that we are not trained to access, that is our own intuition, innate in all of us. Otherwise known as ‘gut instinct’, ‘a hunch’, a sixth sense, ‘small voice within’, ‘inner guidance’ and ‘the inner voice’ to name a few.

Distinction between wisdom and intuition: intuition is the data. Wisdom is what you do with it.

Where does intuition come from?

The subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind holds all the information you have ever learnt or experienced. We can access old information and use it for our current purposes and used in a new way.

The ‘collective consciousness’. This is a pool of information of thoughts, knowledge etc that we can tap into. We are connected in our thoughts with other people, e.g. becoming aware of someone looking at you and you turn around without knowing why you know

The superconscious or the higher self. It is called ‘higher’ not necessarily because it is above us in any way, it is the part of ourselves that vibrates at a higher frequency than our physical self. Through it we can access information, power and resources. It has a timeless quality and transcends your normal perceptions and limitations of the ego self. It contains within it great fields of information and solutions.

 “If you take a boat out to sea and fill a glass half full of the liquid you are floating in, that glass would be identical in composition to the ocean from where it came. Although it is in a container, the glassful and the ocean ore one and the same. Part of your mind is a microcosm of an infinite ocean of wisdom and as such has direct access to it.” - (Born to Succeed, Colin Turner).

What blocks intuition?

Our conditioning has cultivated our reasoning side and under-developed our intuitive side. Often we ignore, override or dismiss intuition as it often comes in whispers. It is subtle: if we are not used to tuning into it, it is easily missed and easily obscured. If inklings of intuition do come up, we often reason things out and the rational mind takes over. There is so much noise in our minds and the world, so many conflicting messages, that the voice of intuition is easily drowned.

Recognising intuition

The voice of intuition is either gentle or neutral, never forceful. Be aware of thoughts, feelings, dreams or even things like five people telling you the same thing! Or it may come through more symbolically, look for these, they are different for each person and highly personal. Of course not everything will be hugely significant, it is not an exact science, just be more aware.

How do we access it?

Expanding intuition takes practice. The more you make room and listen to it, the more you will trust your own ability to receive guidance in your life from a deeper, wiser and more intangible part of yourself. Make space and time each day to tune into yourself.

Food for thought:

• Think of a time when you had a hunch or intuition to do something that didn’t fit in with logical, linear thinking and took immediate action. What did you notice?
  
  
• Think of a meaningful coincidence that has occurred in your life, where things flowed and happened without planning. What were the conditions that allowed this for you?
  
  
• Make a consistent effort to develop your intuitive side by using it more and more.
  
  
• Cultivating the art of stillness, sitting and giving yourself the time to listen to your inner whispering. How could you incorporate that in your day?
  
  
• Train the left and right brain working together. The reasoning side to clarify, identify and research exactly what you want, then bounce it off our intuitive feelings (and not the other way round) Write down your question, wait until thoughts and feelings settle, breathe and allow an answer to come. Avoid censoring, just keep writing whatever comes. The more you do this, the more you will trust the process and the more effective results will be.
  
  
• Start training yourself to notice intuitive thoughts. In the next week, once you have a thought or inclination to call someone, do it. Monitor what happens.

 "Insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out." - (Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking).

 So, take care of that flickering flame, and keep practising and cultivating intuitive thinking at work and in life. The more you practise it, the more it will appear as a lifelong guidance tool.