Has it happened to you that you had a feeling that later came true?
Have you done something that you felt was something wrong and then that instinct turned out to be true?
Have you listened as an internal voice that warns you when you are going wrong or right?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may be an intuitive person. Today we are going to talk precisely about the meaning of intuition, why it is important to trust it and how you can learn to listen to it.
Intuition is the ability to understand, know or perceive something immediately without reasoning or concrete evidence. Therefore, it is an instinctive feeling rather than logical reasoning.
We also refer to intuition using other words like instinct, sixth sense, or hunch.
Several studies say that intuition is found in the pineal gland – at the height of the eyebrows in the center of the skull – although it is apparently somewhat atrophied by hardly being used. However, intuition becomes more palpable on a physical level through bodily sensations such as:
In all the previous examples, the intuition that wants to protect you and guide you on the right path is at work . In fact, some authors associate intuition with survival and self-preservation.
Unfortunately, current social dynamics have pushed us to silence and ignore our instincts and what we do is rationalize them by demeriting them and going against that inner wisdom.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten this gift. ” -Albert Einstein.
An example of how we have silenced this inner voice is the recent case that has gone viral of the “guru” who proclaimed himself as “the creator of self-healing”, who was accused of sexual abuse by a large number of women who came vulnerable to his retreats in order to heal their emotional wounds and, ironically, they ended up more damaged and conflicted by the shady actions of this subject.
This man insisted on exercising a dynamic in which he kept his victims silent while his supposed “credibility” grew in social networks, reaching 2.6 million followers only on Instagram.
What does this recent case have to do with listening to our intuition?
Well, when a brave youtuber publicly denounced some of these events for the first time, it inspired many more women to raise their voices and almost all of them in their testimonies of denunciation expressed how they felt that there was something strange, something cloudy, that was not congruent in this man, but due to the emotional manipulation of which they were victims, despite the fact that that instinct told them that there was something that did not fit or feel right, many ignored it and sadly fell into the abuse of this sexual sect.
It could be seen how the rational part of some of the women who were victims came to overcome their intuition by fabricating stories to “justify” those strange and incongruous behaviors that their instincts perceived in this “guru”, saying things to themselves like: ” the same and he is right and that I must do to heal myself ”,“ the same and I’m being somewhat exaggerated and that’s the process ”, among other thoughts …
We must always bear in mind that there are issues that seem the best way to proceed for reason and that on paper look good, but this is not always the case and our sixth sense lets us know.
For example, this guy had millions of followers and his withdrawals were very popular. If we see him this way, reason would tell us that there would be nothing wrong with attending his retreats and taking him with him, right? Well, if there was something wrong, it would have already been known, right?
But later, the natural instinct that some of these women silenced, turned out to be true and the bomb exploded… As a lesson, many learned the importance of listening and heeding their intuition because intuition knows things that reason simply cannot understand. That is why it is so important to return to ourselves and to that innate instinct from which we have been distancing ourselves.
Remember: when something in you says “no”, it is not congruent or does not fit with your values, be careful! That’s not it… Intuition is almost always infallible and on many occasions it helps us make better decisions.
In addition to protecting ourselves from uncomfortable, painful or risky situations – as well as indicating when we are on the right track – paying attention to our inner wisdom is super useful for business and personal life , as it favors relationships with others by allowing us to recognize their feelings , sensations and gestures.
n this sense, intuition is related to the affective side of people since it is said that a person is intuitive when he is empathic with others. If we analyze it, this has a certain logic because deep down empathy seeks to understand what the other feels and this predisposition sharpens the intuition to be able to read and predict their behavior.
Bruce Kasanoff, LinkedIn influencer and creator of a personal and corporate development program, exposes in a Forbes article that if someone has a great intuition in things they could be considered more intelligent, as long as this person is intellectually curious, rigorous in his seeking knowledge and willing to challenge her own assumptions.
“Let me put this a little simpler. If all you do is sit in a chair and trust your intuition, you are not exercising much intelligence. But if you dive deep into a topic and study numerous possibilities, you are exercising intelligence when your gut tells you what is and what is not important, ” says Kasanoff.
A very interesting exercise to start trusting your intuition more is to think and write down situations in the past in which something has gone wrong and then analyze if you said something like: “this did not beat me from the beginning”, ” as if I sensed that something was going to happen ”,“ I knew something was wrong, cloudy or strange ”.
Surely, you will notice how there were certain red flags that you ignored or did not see at the time. Realizing that you had this innate instinct in the past will help you pay more attention to your intuition in the present.
An excellent way to encourage our intuitive capacity is through exercises and practices that make us delve into the deepest part of our being, such as meditation, mindfulness and relaxation.
These disciplines make us get in touch with our essence and learn to listen and feel all those emotions, sensations and feelings that are haunting our body.
There is a type of exercise recommended by the American author and businesswoman, Marie Forleo , to connect with our intuition and know, through it, if something is right or wrong.
To do this exercise it is necessary, first, to close our eyes, relax in a quiet place and begin by taking a series of deep breaths to disconnect from all the outside noise and connect with our inner wisdom.
It is important that we silence our rational part and instead of paying more attention to the mind, we focus fully on the sensations that our body will experience .
Once this state of calm, tranquility and relaxation is reached, we must think about how it would feel to proceed with a certain option, project or person about which we have doubts and do not know what to do. In other words, let’s imagine doing just what we don’t know whether to do or not.
Then immediately observe the first bodily sensation that reaches your body: did you feel like you were expanding or like you were contracting?
Next I will explain how each of these sensations feels.
The sense of expansion feels like openness, lightness, and relief. As if your chest and shoulders expanded at the thought of something. You feel like you grow and amplify yourself.
It is a feeling that inspires well-being, affection, love, fulfillment, happiness and fun. It just feels great on your body.
Even if you feel a little fear or uncertainty – as when it comes to a new challenge or opportunity – if it is something that will be good for you and will make you grow, despite that fear, the feeling that will predominate is that of expansion and excitement. You notice how excited you are by that idea.
In conclusion, if you think about something and something in you expands, comes to life and your energy increases, it is a yes, go for it! It is your intuition wanting to tell you “do it!”
In the contraction sensation, on the contrary, we feel as if our stomach is contracting and immediately our shoulders, chest and back shrink.
You feel contracted, heavy, trapped, suffocated, or upset.
Discouragement, discomfort, and fear are experienced; as if something is not right, like when you feel threatened and want to run away. As if something told you: “stay away, don’t do it.”
Even in some people the head moves from side to side as if saying “no” non-verbally.
Remember that, although something can be seen very well for reason and legitimate on paper, it is important to check if there is something within you that contracts when you think about it.
Think about it. Analyze it. This exercise works very well because as everything is an energetic vibration, the ideas are alive and can be felt in the body like any other type of vibration.
Whether you felt expanded or contracted, that was your intuition wanting to tell you something and telling you what was best for you.
It is important not to stop practicing this exercise and practice as well as accompany the meditation, introspection and mindfulness that greatly facilitate this process and also greatly benefit many other areas of your life.
Another optional activity that you can do is ask God for guidance – if you are a believer -, your spirit or the Universe. Even our own unconscious often has the answers that are not in our conscious mind and suddenly they come subtly in the form of dreams, whispers or immediate ideas.
In fact, what many people do is, before going to sleep, ask themselves the question they want to solve and after a night’s rest, the next morning, their subconscious will have worked on an answer that will come to mind when they wake up. .
In conclusion, intuition is one of the greatest gifts we have, but sadly, it is also one of the most underrated today.
Let’s learn to listen and trust our internal compass and we will discover that it is a wonderful tool to know where we are going and where we are not going. The more you practice your intuition, the easier this process will become and the more comfortable you will feel using this skill.
