What Is Intuition?  Why Is Intuition So Important In Our Lives?

12 Time-Tested Methods For Getting In Tune With Your Intuitive Abilities

The world today can be overwhelming! Each year, society seems to revolve more and more around technology, screens, and stress. It is far too easy to get caught up comparing ourselves to the perfectly curated lives we see on social media, or feel overwhelmed by the never ending 24 hour news cycle. It’s no wonder we can often find ourselves feeling caught in negative cycles of anxiety, fear, and stress.

Thankfully, we are all born with the ability to access a tool that can help us overcome all of today’s modern struggles. A tool that can help guide us through life and stay on the right path. It is our one true superpower, an ancient wisdom buried within each of us. What I’m talking about is your intuition!

The definition of intuition is, “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning”. In other words, it’s the bridging of the gap between our conscious and unconscious minds. For example, have you ever had an unexplainable feeling in your gut that instinctively told you when something you were doing was right or wrong? That was your intuition speaking. Now imagine what your life would be like if you were able to access that inner guidance system whenever you needed it. That sounds amazing, right? Who wouldn’t want more of that?

Listening and trusting that little voice is a marvelous thing on its own, but working to develop that little voice can make it even more powerful. We all have the sacred ability to grow and strengthen our intuition. The more we use it, the more it can expand and evolve. Imagine your intuition as a muscle that needs exercise and nourishment to flourish.

Let’s take a look at the 11 best ways to get in tune with and develop your amazing gift!

Meditate:

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 5 years, you know that you should be meditating. We hear about it everywhere! We all know that we should be meditating more. Let’s take a look at mediation through the lens of helping us tune into and grow our intuition.

For most people, intuition has a very soft voice. If our minds are busy with the stresses of daily life, it can be very hard to hear that little voice. Meditation is a great way to clear the mind, quiet the constant inner dialogue and make room for our intuition to come through.

Try this basic meditation to help you listen and tune into your inner spirit!

-Set a timer for 10 minutes.
-Find a relaxing and comfortable place to sit.
-Close your eyes and stay quiet.
-Listen to and feel your breath (really pay attention to it) without trying to change it.
-Just observe the breath. Notice any sensations that arise. Just BE present.
-When your mind wanders, just bring your focus back to your breath.

When your timer goes off, slowly open your eyes and take a moment to write down any important thoughts, messages, feelings, or insights you may have received during your meditation.

Dreams:

During our waking hours, our cognitive brain is in control. It uses logic and reasoning to override our subconscious mind. However, during sleep that conscious mind rests, allowing our inner subconscious to shine though. We can learn alot about overcoming issues or problems by listening to this inner consciousness.

Keep a dream journal. Keep 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 immediately upon waking, so make sure to grab your dream journal before you do anything else.

Like most things, this takes practice, you will get better over time at interpreting and recording these dreams. You will be able to see patterns and occasions where your inner consciousness is trying to help you solve problems or guide you in the right direction.

Before going to bed, visualize yourself remembering your dreams. Picture yourself waking up and recording these dreams in your journal. Try to keep this thought in your head as you fall asleep. This will help imprint the practice in your mind and make it easier the next morning.

More nature:

Spending time in nature, away from technology, is one of the best ways to quiet the mind. Nature is a great way for us to get in tune with our ancestral self and our celestial intuition. This is where we come from, our ancestors relied on their intuition for everything.

For finding food, avoiding predators, finding the right path, intuition was one of the most important aspects of life. Anytime we immerse ourselves in nature’s beauty, we have an opportunity to dip our toe in another world, a world where intuition rules.

Get creative:

Do something creative! Paint, draw, build, sketch, anything that elevates your creative mind. When we are young, our inner voice is loud and not hesitant to shine through. As we get older that inner voice is pushed down with responsibilities and the stresses of life. Tapping into this creative part of our brain can help re-ignite those pathways and amplify our intuitions.

Get in tune with all your senses:

Your intuition can flow through any of your five senses. It may come as a strange or loving sensation you feel physically within your body, or as a thought that seems to appear out of nowhere. It may be triggered by a certain scent, or even taste. Start noticing and paying attention to all of your senses.

When was the last time that you really concentrated on your breathing, your sense of smell, your taste? We have all heard the phrase, “stop and smell the roses”, but it really can help in developing your intuition. The more you practice getting in tune with these senses, the more your “6th sense” can flourish as well.

Follow your hunches:

A surefire way to develop your intuition is to test out your hunches. When you are going about your daily life, keep a journal and write down every time you have a hunch. When that little voice chimes in, be sure to write it down, so you can record and see how these hunches play out.

It can be as simple as seeing the weather reporting rain for tomorrow, but you have a feeling it will be sunny. Maybe a friend’s partner gives you bad vibes, write down your feelings and see if it plays out. Follow your hunches and see what you can learn about your intuition.

Switch up your daily routine:

The conscious brain loves routine and order, but the more regimented your life is, the further your inner voice is pushed down. When the mind is busy it can be especially hard to hear that little voice. 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. Your intuition will thank you.

Replay past events:

Sit down and try to think back to a situation where things didn’t go as planned, or didn’t go as you wanted. Visualize yourself back in that situation, notice any feelings or moments where you felt as if something was wrong.

Was there an opportunity to go a different way? Did your inner voice speak up for a moment, only to be overtaken by your cognitive mind? Try to evaluate some of these occurrences and look for patterns, look for ways that you could do things differently the next time. Look for ways your intuition was trying to guide you and the things it was trying to tell you.

Breathwork:

Hands down, breathwork is one of the best ways to quiet the mind and get in tune with your inner voice. Try this 4-7-8 method to give your intuition the opportunity to shine through and bring your consciousness to the present.

-Start by emptying your lungs of air.
-Breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds.
-Hold that breath for 7 seconds.
-Exhale slowly through your mouth for 8 seconds.
-Repeat this process 4 times.

This 4-7-8 technique will not only help with intuition, it is a great way to mitigate stress and lower anxiety. Basically, the whole world would be a much better place if everyone would practice this simple technique once a day!

Think less, feel more:

Our cognitive brain thinks, our intuition feels. Our minds are always reasoning, questioning and thinking their way through the day. After so many years of this, we don’t even realize it’s happening. If people could hear all the questions, our cognitive brain is bouncing around all day, they would think we are crazy!

Try to slow down and “feel” more. Feelings that are grounded in your body, are also grounded in truth. These feelings will never lie. Learn to listen to them more. Pay attention to those little signals that our body gives us. Heart beating faster, that knot in the pit of your stomach, feeling hot, feeling cold or a tingling sensation.

You know the situation; you meet someone and immediately know something is off about them, you can just feel it. Maybe they are lying to you or treating someone poorly, your physical body can feel that and alert you. If you pay more attention to these physical cues, you could avoid many uncomfortable, painful or awkward situations. This is your intuition speaking and it’s trying to guide you in the right direction.

Practice “sensing” people before meeting them:

This is a great way to test and grow your intuition. Put yourself into a situation where you can sit and observe someone before meeting them.

Imagine yourself in line at the coffee shop, try to imagine what the person behind the counter will be like, before you speak to them or meet them. Take in everything you can about them just by looking at them and trusting your feelings. Try to create a mental picture of what they will be like, sound like, are they friendly, are they sociable or not? You can use this in almost any situation to test your intuition. This is a powerful and actionable way to help you get in tune with your senses, your body and your inner voice.

Have Gratitude:

In this day and age, it’s easy to look at the negative aspects of life and forget about all that we are blessed to have. We all do it! It can be so easy to overlook our health, the love of our families, food and water, our home or our community. Take time, every day, to recognize and give thanks for a few of these amazing things that we are lucky enough to have in our lives. This simple practice can open us up to a higher frequency and allow more of life’s wonders to find their way to us.

-Gratitude improves relationships.
-Gratitude improves sleep.
-Gratitude improves physical health.
-Gratitude improves self-esteem.
-Gratitude enhances empathy and reduces aggression.
-Gratitude improves psychological health.

The benefits of practicing gratitude have been scientifically researched and proven to be powerful, real tools. Think about just how much a few of those positive benefits could drastically change our daily lives. Gratitude can truly open a plethora of doors to a better life, which in turn, will help our intuitions flourish!

5 Ways To Develop Your Intuition

Intuition is a tool that all of us have. Some people suggest that it’s a mystical power. Others would suggest that it’s merely our subconscious trying to tell us something. Regardless of the source, we all have that little voice that tries to tell us things from time to time.

As we get older, we often learn to ignore that little voice. We turn to logic, and focus on being practical. But we’ve experienced a lot over the years, and there is some part of our brain that has accumulated a tremendous amount of wisdom. Listening to that little voice can be a good thing.

Try these techniques to develop your intuition:

• Meditate for a few minutes each day. One characteristic of intuition is that it has a soft voice most of the time. It can be challenging to notice it if our minds are busy with other things. Meditation is a great way to clear the mind and make room for our intuition to come shining through.
  
  
• A simple technique to clear your mind is to simply count your breaths and attempt to stay focused on your breathing. Avoid letting your mind wander.
  
  
•  Record your dreams. Our dreams can be full of useful information. Many psychologists believe that we work out our challenges in our sleep. It’s difficult for most of us to remember our dreams. Studies show that we average 5 dreams per night, and most of us are lucky to even remember one.
  
  
• After you get in bed, tell yourself that you want to remember your dreams in the morning. Keep thinking this to yourself until you fall asleep.
  
  
• Keep a notebook and pen near your bed. A voice recorder app on your phone can work well, too. As soon as you wake up, start writing. Dreams tend to fade from memory quickly.
  
  
•  Review your dreams and see if there might be any information you can use in your life.
  
  
•  Follow your intuition. The surest way to shut down your intuition is to never follow it. Start using it in situations that have minor importance. It could be as simple as taking a walk and asking yourself which way you should turn at each intersection or fork in the road.
  
  
• Show your intuition that you’re listening and responding. You’ll be more likely to hear from it in the future.
  
  
•  Busy your mind. Many people find that their best ideas come while their mind is busy, but not too busy. Some examples commonly cited include, walking, driving down the highway, taking a shower, and listening to the rain. Think about the times you’ve had great ideas. Try to put yourself in similar situations more frequently.
  
  
• Keep a journal. Take a few minutes each day to write in a journal. Sometimes, putting things down on paper opens a floodgate of ideas and inspiration. Study what you’ve written. You’re likely to find insights you haven’t considered.
  
  
• Keep your journals in a safe place, so you’ll feel more comfortable with being honest and thorough.

Being in touch with your intuition can help you identify and solve the challenges in your life that are causing stress. It also releases your imagination and creativity. Your intuition is a great resource, but it’s important to nurture it. Start with smaller things. When your intuition has proven it’s reliable, use it to make bigger decisions.

Intuition is a tether to the subconscious. It’s your ultimate source of wisdom and creative energy. Make life easier and richer by utilizing all of your resources.

How to Trust Your Intuition

Developing intuition starts by realizing you have it already. If you’ve ever had a hunch about something, that was intuition. Intuition is just your mind using more than what you are consciously aware of. But can you trust your intuition? How do you improve it?

Developing Intuition In Three Steps

1. Recognize it and encourage it.

2. Study it to make it more trustworthy.

3. Give it good information to work with.

Try to find areas in your own life where you naturally intuitively operate. What is something that you are just naturally good at without studying? What is an area where you trust your gut and it is almost always right? That is your intuition speaking, continue to listen and nurture it.

Of course, intuition can also be a warning device. When you get the sense “something isn’t right here” that is your intuition talking and you’d be smart to pay attention.

Have you ever considered purchasing a car and then you start seeing them all over? Looking for and recognizing a thing trains your mind to find more of it. The same process will happen if you watch for your intuition – you’ll start to see more of it.

Unfortunately, a strong hunch can be for irrelevant reasons too. If you were hit by a yellow taxi as a child, you might have “intuitive” hunches not to get into yellow taxis for the rest of your life. So even learning to recognize your intuition and encourage it may leave you wondering when to trust it.

Study Your Intuition

Start questioning your hunches. Study your strong feelings about that taxi, and you might say, “Oh, it’s just my fear of yellow taxis.” Get in the habit of paying attention to and studying your intuitive feelings.

Where does your intuition work best? If you’re always right about your intuitive stock picks, give a little credence to them. On the other hand, if your hunches about people are usually wrong, don’t follow them. Just pay attention more, and you’ll be developing intuition about your intuition.

Give Your Intuition Good Information

Your skill, knowledge, and experience determine the potential effectiveness of your intuition. Learn enough about a subject, before expecting good hunches about it, or before trusting the hunches. Work in the area you want more intuition in. When enough information is in your mind, it will go to work for you with or without your conscious participation, so feed it well.

Recognize your intuition and you’ll have hunches and ideas more often. Study it and you’ll learn when to trust it. Give it good information and you’ll be repaid with good hunches and ideas. This is the simple formula for developing intuition.

7 Keys To Unlocking Your Intuition

Have you had that experience when all of a sudden you just had this huge hunch that something is about to happen, and to your surprise, that intuition was eventually translated to reality?

When you feel strongly about something without a logical basis to it, that’s called intuition. It comes in three impressions: clairvoyance or “the third eye”, sensing clearly, and feeling through listening.

Clairvoyance is when your eye goes beyond what it can see. This is when you know what is happening somewhere.

Sensing clearly is basically what we refer to as “hunch” or “gut feel.” This is the time when you are overwhelmed with a feeling and you can’t explain it, and all you can say is “I just know.”

On the other hand, feeling through listening or clairaudience is being able to “listen” between the lines. Intuition also happens at times when a certain sound, whatever it is, be it a car’s honk or a bird’s tweeting, ushers in an intense feeling.

They say only a number of people are gifted with intuition. Astrologers even insist that people born under the Scorpio or Pisces signs are naturally intuitive; it almost borders on E.S.P. But studies have been sprouting left and right that proclaim that anyone can develop intuition.

Why the need to develop intuition, you ask? Why not let your emotional and psychological state be as it is? First and foremost, intuition promotes good communication. It makes you more sensitive to the people around you; it often keeps you from hurting those you love because you are intuitive enough to understand them.

Intuition also makes you far more creative than ever. Intuition means releasing more creative juices for any means of expression. Lastly, intuition has a healing power. This healing power is not in the physical sense, but in delving deep into your soul to eradicate some negative energy buried in it.

With that being said, are you ready to develop your intuition? Here are some ways to unlock this gift:

•  Hypnosis

Oh yes, get yourself hypnotized. Hypnosis is not limited to watching a pendulum move back and forth. Perform self-hypnosis or you can avail of hypnotic programs that can strengthen your intuition.

Do not be afraid to reach out to me,  Mark E Wilkins, to assist you in any issues you might have.  Most Hypnotherapy sessions  last  2 hours and  EFT Sessions are usually  handled with one session.   

To make an appointment,  first listen to the  Pre-talk  and fill out he  Complementary Healthcare Provider Disclosure.  The use the Contact Form to request an appointment  with the Bohol Hypnosis Expert. 

•  Meditation

Meditating means finding peace in yourself. If your mind and heart are cluttered with too much baggage and hurt, you wouldn’t be able to quiet down that part of you that could eventually initiate intuition. There are so many ways to meditate: take a yoga class, or just simply practice some breathing exercises.

•  Think positive!

A worry-free, fear-free state could do so much to improve your intuitive ability. By staying positive, you attract good energy that could be able to easily recognize imminent feelings and events.  My best selling book  Be Positive Or Be Quiet  might be the tool you need to read to always verbalize positivity. This booklet is available in audio,  and in French, Spanish, and Tagalog.

• Just let go.

What does this mean? If you are on the brink of making a huge decision, let go of all the inhibitions and head to a quiet place where you could find out where letting go has brought you. Sometimes you just have to listen to the voice within you, and that voice won’t come out unless you let go.

•  Never expect it.

After letting go of the inhibitions and all those things that stop you from thinking and feeling clearly, never expect an answer right away. Never expect that the “hunch” would fall on your lap immediately. Give it a little time, then you’ll be surprised that — wham! — now you have your answer.

• Believe in your first impressions.

When you see someone for the first time and think that he is a bit too arrogant for your taste, chances are that impression actually holds true. Most of the time, first impressions are brought by intuition.

• Stay happy!

See? All you need to be intuitive is to stay happy! Happiness attracts immense power and such power includes intuition. In tapping your intuition, your motivation must be happiness and contentment. Given that premise, intuition will fall to you easily.

Intuition is helpful, because sometimes it leads you to something that cannot be achieved otherwise. A lot of lives have been saved by intuition alone. Decisions are easier done if armed by this gift. Develop intuition now and reap benefits you could have never imagined.

Your Intuition Is Your Guide

Are you aware of your inner voice? Do you pay attention to it? (By the way, I’m not talking about the one who puts you down!) I’m talking about the one that softly whispers ideas and suggestions to you, the kind that the other voice might try to shut down, crying “Are you mad”!? This requires stepping out of our comfort zone, and that is to be avoided at all costs (even if the cost is living a life of mediocrity instead of the one of your dreams).

Sadly, the latter voice is the one most of us are aware of and pay attention to. The more gentle one, the one that is our intuition, is often ignored (if we can even hear it at all). The great pity here is that it’s our intuition that really has our best interests at heart. Our shadow voice (the louder, more aggressive one) does have our welfare at heart too, but in a protective way.

What’s wrong with protecting us? I know you’re thinking that! Well, it limits us and ultimately erodes our well being at a soul level. And believe it or not, that’s not good for our physical or emotional well being! If you’re unfulfilled at a soul level, slowly and imperceptibly you will develop a nagging feeling of general discontent which can have a rippling effect on your mood, self esteem and ultimately your physical and mental health. But that’s for another article…

The gentle voice of your intuition will, if listened to, stretch you beyond your comfort zone, but never more than you are capable of. It will challenge you, but also support you. It always has your best interests at heart, at every level: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It will not only gently nudge you in scary directions which will yield huge and unimaginable rewards, but it will also gently nudge you when it’s time to stop or turn around.

When you tune into your intuition and allow yourself to be guided by it you will be surprised at how much easier formerly assumed challenges will become. And how much good fortune lands in your lap (we call it synchronicity). And how good it feels to be at ease with yourself and all your life experiences, even the ones you wouldn’t choose!

If you’re not used to listening to your intuition, learning to tune into it will require time and patience. At first, you may be unsure which voice is which (especially as your shadow voice often sounds very reasonable), and using your intuition is very much like using your physical muscles. You need to use it regularly in order for it to be in the shape you want.

So how do you get to know your intuition better? First of all, start to watch out for hunches, feelings, ideas that crop up. Pay attention to the voice that accompanies it. Is it gentle, positive, supportive?

If it’s aggressive, domineering, or using scare-mongering tactics it’s more likely to be your shadow voice. If you’re getting a feeling of warning, is it a loud and threatening one? (shadow). Or an insistent knowing one? (intuition).

The scary thing about trusting your intuition when it’s new to you, is that it’s not based on logic and often what it suggests to you cannot be justified logically. But with practice and trust, you’ll learn that knowing that something is the right thing to do, is in your best interests. It’ll be easier to shrug off your own shadow voice and that of others (who will fear for your best interests on your behalf).

The key to developing this essential trust in one’s intuition is to start small. Don’t make life-changing decisions based on your intuition if you’re not familiar with it (you might still be confusing your two inner voices). Do ask your intuition to guide you with smaller decisions, and wait for the gentle knowing feeling to arrive. Don’t expect an instant answer, but watch out, for it will come and you’ll know it when it does.

Over time, as you tune in more and more, you’ll find you suffer less and less with worry or anxiety. You’ll trust all will work out well, and often you’ll find it works out better than you could ever have imagined!