Intuition is the capacity to understand something without the need of conscious reasoning. It is the immediate insight of a gut feeling, a hunch, the still small voice that cuts through all the defenses of the mind and is able to see things as they are.
Unfortunately, many people struggle with trusting their intuition. The soft voice of intuition is drowned by the much louder voices of information, entertainment, the advise of others and the endless chatter of the mind.
We all have the sacred ability to use and strengthen our intuition. The only thing we need to do is to get out of our own way.
How do we do it, in practical terms? Below are some of the ways to develop your intuition in daily life.
Meditation
It is difficult to hear the voice of intuition (and by extension, the voice of our own Soul) if our minds are busy and stressed. Meditation is the best known way to clear the mind, rise above the constant inner chatter and make room for our intuition to come through. If the thought of sitting still intimidates you, note that it is much easier to meditate after a mind-body practice such as yoga, sacred dance or devotional singing.
The principle of meditation is is to set aside time to be still in mind and body, and to observe thoughts and feelings without engaging in them. To begin practicing, set a timer for 10 minutes. Find a relaxing and comfortable place to sit with your back straight. Close your eyes and stay still.
Observe your breath without trying to change it. In the beginning it may be helpful to count the exhales. Count to 10, and start over, just counting the exhales from 1 to 10 continuously. Just observe the breath. Notice any sensations or thoughts that arise, but keep bringing your focus back to your breath.
When your timer goes off, slowly open your eyes and take a moment to take in your surroundings. For most people, it is a good idea to journal after meditation. Initially, 10 minutes is enough, but you would want to gradually increase your meditation time to 20-30 minutes. The ego resistance actually drops after approximately 20 minutes, so if you are able to increase meditation time to be even slightly longer than this, you will reap more benefits.
Breathwork
Similar to meditation, breathwork is a way to quiet your mind. Unlike meditation, we don’t just observe our breath, we control it. Every time we suspend our breath, or even bring attention to the short pause between inhale and exhale, our thoughts also pause.
There are many very effective breathwork techniques to choose from. I recommend trying the 4-7-8 method with alternate nostril breathing to calm anxiety, balance the polarities within your body and bring your consciousness into the present moment. It may help to set a timer for 5 minutes before you begin.
- First, exhale completely.
- Put your index and middle finger between your eyebrows, as if pressing on the “third eye”
- Close your right nostril with your thumb
- Breathe in through your left nostril for 4 seconds.
- Close off your left nostril with your ring finger and hold that breath for 7 seconds.
- Open your right nostril and exhale slowly through your right nostril for 8 seconds. Breathe in through your right nostril for 4 seconds.
- Close both nostrils and hold the breath for 7 seconds. Exhale slowly through your left nostril…
- …And repeat this process for 5 minutes, or simply until you feel calmer and more balanced. You finish with an inhale on the left, and exhale through both nostrils. Take a moment to tune in to how you feel, observing how the state of your mind and body is different to what it was just 5 minutes ago.
This is a simple, yet potentially life-changing breathing technique that combats stress and helps you attune to your intuitive mind.
Working with Dreams
During our waking hours, our conscious mind is in control. It thinks, reasons and questions, trying to dissect and logically organize the world. However, during sleep that conscious mind rests. The world of dreams is the world of our subconsciousness. This world is not literal, it is a world of both/and rather than either/or, where the shortest distance between A and B is not always a straight line. Most importantly, it is a world where our intuition is free.
In order to work more consciously with dreams, it is a good idea to keep a dream journal. Have a notebook and pen right next to your bed, and immediately upon rising try to record everything you remember about your dreams. Dreams begin to fade from memory wake up, so make sure to grab your dream journal before you do anything else. Before going to bed, set an intention to remember your dreams and write them down.
Like most things, this takes practice. With time, you will be able to see patterns and occasions where your subconscious is trying to help you solve problems or guide you in the right direction.
Creativity and Intuition
One of the reasons many of us feel disconnected from our intuition is because we do not connect to our creative side. When did you last create something? Paint, draw, sketch, dance, sing, write a poem — or simply modify your favorite recipe and cook something you never tried before?
As children, we are engaged with our creativity very directly, painting, drawing, building sand castles or playing with imaginary characters. But as we get older, that creative voice often has to give way to fighting for survival in an organized, neatly ordered and filed environment of a corporate office. Life becomes predictable and creativity a rare escape, not a norm.
Tapping into the creative part of our brain can help reconnect with the joy of our inner child who could just be, and create for the sake of creating. Let the process take over without thinking it through. Paint your mood, dance your feelings, draw your desires… Creativity is a gateway to intuition, and true inspiration is always an opening to reality beyond ourselves.
Switch Up Your Daily Routine
The conscious brain loves routine and order, but the more regimental your life is, the further your inner voice is pushed down. Switching things up can throw your cognitive brain for a loop, and let your intuition shine through. Escape the daily routine, slow down and do something different.
Switching things up can be something as simple as taking a different route to work (and noticing how automated your routine has become when you try to do that!) or moving furniture in your room. Take the time to walk in a neighborhood you never explored before, travel to a new place on your own, meet people you would have never met.
Every new activity, every change to an automated routine creates new neural pathways and improved both your cognitive thinking and your intuition. It also shakes up other people’s perceptions of you, which can also become very stagnant and routine. Do something you’ve never done before to allow new energy to flow into your relationships!
Connecting to How You Feel
Intuition is feeling, not thinking. Thinking takes us out of the NOW, of the present moment, and into either past or future. However, the only true reality is in the present, in the NOW. And the first step to connect to this NOW is to identify how you feel. For many, it is not as easy as it sounds. We are used to knowing what we think about a particular person, or event, or situation. But how does it make us feel?
Feelings are not a story that the mind creates. “I feel he wants to leave me and run off with another woman,” or “I feel they want to go on with that new project without me” is not how you feel. How you feel is ignored, abandoned, angry and lost. And for many people, it is surprisingly difficult to just feel.
Try to slow down and feel. You will often identify feelings in your body first. Learn to listen to them more. Pay attention to the signals that your body gives you. Heart beating faster, a knot in your solar plexus, a tingling sensation in your legs. If you can’t identify a feeling, put your hand on that part of your body and ask what it wants to tell you. What emotion is stored there?
Learning to pick up the clues from your body will also help you tune in to other people, to identify that “gut feeling” about someone. The sensation in your physical body alerting you that something is off. Learning to pay more attention to these physical cues, is a way of avoiding danger in the outside world, and of healing your own emotional traumas. Your body is your intuition speaking.
Practice Gratitude
Until we learn to be grateful for what we have, we simply do not have the energetic capacity to attract whatever it is we want that is more and better. Gratitude is not complacency or stagnation. Gratitude is finding time, every day, to recognize and give thanks for the blessings that we have in our lives.
For the food, the water, the roof over our heads. For the incredible people that we met, our guides and teachers. For our friends — and for our enemies who teach us so much about ourselves. For the amazing things that happened today. For the challenges that we overcame. The daily practice of gratitude raises our vibration, allowing more good things to flow into our life.
Gratitude reconnects us back to Source with greater trust, so that we can allow ourselves to receive. The most common block to receiving that I have seen in my practice is the belief that the Universe/God is somehow “out to get me,” that everything works against us. The practice of gratitude helps us refocus our minds on the blessings we have already received, not what is lacking, gradually restoring the belief in the loving Universe.
Gratitude also opens the doors to receiving intuitively. It is very difficult to receive intuitive insights when your subconscious beliefs tell you that somehow God is angry with you. What can you learn from the Universe that is out to get you? Gratitude helps reprogram those limiting beliefs and opens your energy to receive more spiritual and material abundance.
