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What's New?
Using Your Intuition
By Edel Jarboe
We have all heard of women's intuition.
Take, for example, the real-life story of the mother who "felt" something
was wrong and turned around just in time to stop another woman from walking
away with her child at a crowded playground. These and similar stories are
usually chalked up to an extraordinary experience and left at that. However,
how many times have we said to ourselves, usually after something has gone
wrong, "I should have followed my instincts. I knew something didn't feel
right...?" So, why don't we listen to and follow our intuition on a more
regular basis?
Is Intuition a Mystery?
What makes intuition mysterious is that you seem to get information and you
don't know how you get it. Nevertheless, it really isn't all that mysterious
if you stop to consider that there are four different levels of human experience
- physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. In fact, Carl Jung, the noted
psychologist, described intuition as one of the four basic psychological
functions, along with thinking, feeling, and sensation. It therefore makes
sense that there are four different types of intuition as well.
Some people "feel" with their bodies. It's been described as feeling the
"hairs rise on the back of the neck" or "going cold" when something doesn't
feel right, for example. As mentioned previously, women are well known for
being able to sense what's really going on in a situation and accurately
assessing people's thoughts and feelings in the absence of facts. In the
business world, entrepreneurs and CEO's are often credited for having "vision"
or the gift of being able to "see" into the business future, which propels
them to success. Spiritually, insights into the nature of reality or having
a sense of the meaning of it all are thought to be the key to religious
experiences and self-transcendence.
Two Ways of Thinking
The problem with talking about intuition stems from the fact that we have
to rely on the verbal, logical, and conscious part of our brains to describe
and categorize intuition, which is nonverbal, nonlinear, and unconscious.
Although intuition is a valid part of our intelligence, a part of our capacity
to grasp reality, it is often discounted by the logical, cause-and-effect
part of our brain because it doesn't make sense. Intuition thinks in terms
of metaphor, feelings, pictures, and the spatial whole and doesn't fit neatly
into the cause-and-effect model. Moreover, research shows that the brain
processes verbal and nonverbal knowledge in different ways and is not always
comfortable combining the two.
However, according to psychologist Guy Claxton of the University of Bristol,
it's not as if intuition happens in one place and logical thought happens
somewhere else. Rather, it's that intuition and logical thought are different
modes of functioning of the brain as a whole.
It's much like the analogy of a picture is worth a thousand words where the
thousand words are the linear mind or all the facts. According to Patricia
Sun, Director and founder of the Institute of Communication and Understanding,
"a picture can tell you more than all the words in the universe can tell
you. It tells you about relationship and position and shape and color and
form and feeling and emotion and history, and many, many things in one glance
of a picture." In other words, we function through partial information, and
intuition gives us an overview, a whole sense of things.
Are You Stifling Your Intuition?
Why do so many of us stay in dead-end relationships -- with other people
or in our careers? Desire. We want so badly for things to work out that we
either misinterpret or ignore the signals we are receiving about the situation.
Therefore, the biggest obstacle to developing intuition is self-deception.
Not only do you need to be able to differentiate between emotional reactions
and accurate perceptions, but you also need to be aware of your desires and
fears. Moreover, while intuition sometimes offers a better solution than
logic and reason, we tend to shy why from doing what our instincts are telling
us to do because we are afraid of the outcome. We're afraid of being wrong,
especially when we don't know why this could be the correct solution. We're
afraid to trust ourselves.
Instead of constantly doubting ourselves, we need to learn how to act from
a foundation of love and trust within ourselves. Because of the dominant
linear brain, the moment we have an intuitive feeling, we immediately put
it down. "That's crazy. You can't do that." What it must come down to is
trusting your gut feeling about things as often as you can. How can you do
this when there are so many conflicting voices inside you? You have to learn
to recognize these different voices, and find, and listen to your true inner
voice. For example, there's the voice of the judge who tells you what you
should do and the voice of the inner critic who tells you what you cannot
do. In other words, if our linear mind is too critical, too judgmental, we
stifle our intuition, our true inner voice.
Intuitive Techniques
Not surprisingly, you learn the most about intuition in silence. Take a few
deep breaths, relax your body, relax your mind, and ask yourself, "What's
my gut feeling right now?" "How do I really feel right now? What do I really
want?" and act on it. You have to be willing to act on your intuition, to
trust the feelings that you have because intuition means trusting your own
integrity - trusting your gut, trusting your heart. And, if you're wrong,
learn from it. Experts suggest using a journal to keep track of intuitions
to see how many of them are accurate, and where you tend to fall into patterns
of wishful thinking or excessive worry. It is also suggested that you pay
attention to your dreams as they can enhance your intuitive abilities as
well.
According to Shakti Gawain, author of Creative Visualization: Use the
Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life, "the
more you listen to your intuition and trust it and follow it, the stronger
it becomes, so that you can really begin to feel the difference between your
intuition and all the other voices that are going on inside of you." However,
it is important to remember that intuition is not a substitute for reason.
Rather, it is the part of your intellect that allows you to see the whole
picture. Intuition acts like a bridge between your logical reasoning and
the sum total of your experience-based knowledge.
Finding Your Inner Balance
Being intuitive is trusting yourself to find your inner balance. According
to Patricia Sun, "if you trust your intuition, it will sometimes take you
to the limits you need to go in order to be able to find your balance. If,
for example, you are more of a listener your intuition will start moving
you in the direction of being more expressive, more assertive, because you
need to have that ability as well. It will feel very extreme because it is
not what you are used to." However, your intuition will not tell you to do
things that are truly wrong for yourself or other people. In other words,
if you really trust your intuition and act on it, there is harmony. There
is an inner guidance that directs us every step of the way. We must learn
to listen to our intuition and trust this inner guidance if we are to find
our true inner balance.
Edel Jarboe is the founder of
Self Help for Her.com, an online
self-help magazine helping you create a better life. She also publishes a
free weekly newsletter, which features advice on goal setting, stress management,
coping with difficult people, and overcoming obstacles:
Subscribe here and receive
a FREE stress report.
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