Explore the spiritual side of our natures as D.G. Kaye shares her experiences and research into this element of our lives.
You can find part Eleven of the series: Karma – The Law of Cause and Effect
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Learning to Trust Your #Intuition
Welcome back to my spiritual awareness series. Today I’m talking about our intuition, and how to connect with it, learning how to pay attention to it.
Do you struggle with trusting your intuition? Do you feel pangs of anxiety when having to face a big decision in your life, fighting the inner conflict of the two sides of the coin when you know something is off, yet, you don’t know whether you should trust your inside warning system or if you should just simply wave off your concerns as your imagination?
What is intuition? There are a plethora of descriptions and explanations for intuition. But the basic mechanics of how it works is with our natural instinctual reaction – memories usually trigger something from a past lesson, which the mind often overlooks. In the same way we know when there’s danger around, intuition our 6th sense, is automatically activated within us.
All of us have been in these predicaments at various times in our lives. And I’m sure many of us tend to wave off our worries, sometimes allowing the chips to fall where they may because we’re just too afraid to make an executive decision. But often, letting the chips fall where they may because of self-doubt will lead to a negative outcome. So how can we help ourselves become more assertive when it comes to making a decision about things we don’t really want to think about but aren’t going away? We must take a step outside of our worries and delve into the elements of our dilemmas looking at them from a different perspective.
Sometimes removing ourselves from the equation helps us take a better look at facts objectively, and this will help immensely. Nobody ever made great decisions while under duress, and by distancing ourselves from our own inner turmoil will aid in giving us a little breathing room, which in turn helps us to use better logic rather than feeling pressured by staying stagnant in the worry vacuum or making grievous decisions based on fear. When we aren’t consumed with constant worry and we take a breather, we allow our minds to calm and can feel and receive our intuitive messages better while not remaining situated in the immediate inner conflict.
Another way to help us assess our inner feelings is by journaling. Yes, it works! By allowing all our thoughts and concerns to pour out on paper not only relieves the pressure out of our heads, but when reading it back to ourselves we can systemically point out to ourselves precisely what is eating us, and sometimes even find our answers through our own words for resolution.
Did you know that the gut and the brain have a direct relation to stress and worry? It’s not a myth that emotions we experience are linked to the stomach – hence, that butterfly feeling we get in our stomachs when we feel scared, worried, or excited. These are good indicators of the ‘gut instincts’ we receive when something is off or in contrast, when something feels great. When things are feeling off it’s a warning sign to investigate our feelings to help us decide whether they are temporary moments or warning signals. If you are interested in reading up on the true explanation about how and why our gut signals us when something is off, please read this informative article about the brain-gut connection – the enteric nervous system, also known as ENS, which explains the scientific link to the brain/gut connection.
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We’ve all had that ‘familiar’ feeling, often labeled as a déjà vu moment when our instincts pick up on a remembered moment from the past – which doesn’t necessarily mean the triggered sense of familiarity occurred in our present life, but perhaps from a past life? Déjà vu translates to ‘already seen’ from French. It’s a common term we all use when we come upon a moment that feels so familiar, having us feeling as though we’ve already been in or experienced that precise moment, quite possibly from another place and time, as it’s an inexplicable feeling without an exact recollection of where the experience was first felt.
Intuition is often referred to as ‘non-conscious emotional information’. Einstein had referred to it as a gift. It’s a sense of knowing without a rational and sometimes inexplicable fact. Many say that only psychics and mediums are guided by intuition, but intuition is a culmination of all things we’ve learned in our experiences that are stored in the archives of our minds, which quite possibly become the catalyst for our heightened alert system, ignited by a situation that feels remembered.
“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 the gift.” — Albert Einstein
When we have two voices in our heads battling each other, sending off warning alerts, we must distinguish between the alarm bell ringing within and our resistance to pay it no mind, blaming our ‘overactive’ panic or deciding if our gut is speaking to us. So, here’s what we can do to help us figure out what to do when our instincts are shouting out to us:
Keep track of the feelings and messages we receive from within in a journal. List our pros and cons of our dilemmas and possible resolutions. And pay attention to signs in our daily lives.
For example, if we’re focused on one particular issue that won’t go away and we begin to start seeing number sequences repeatedly, these can be reminder messages or confirmations that resolutions we are contemplating are on the right track. If something is niggling at the forefront of our minds and we see messages throughout our day through commercial ads, song lyrics or through any other means the universe communicates with us, it’s likely our thoughts are being confirmed. These are premonitions or synchronicities that jump out at us, asking self to pay attention. For example: It’s sunny outside, but we take an umbrella because we have a feeling it’s going to rain, despite what the weatherman says, because we have a hunch it may rain.
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Our world is complicated and noisy, and if we were to listen to our inner guidance, solely, without the influences of our own ego getting in the way, we’d be on our way to getting in touch with our intuition. Remember, when we are faced with making a decision, and our gut sends us a message and we in turn begin to question what we are feeling, bringing in doubt and fear and questioning our own inner guidance, we are bringing ego into the equation, which will sabotage the whole point of following our initial instincts.
Pay attention to vivid dreams that often portend messages. And have that journal handy to write down what stands out to us from those dreams.
If you feel unsafe in a certain situation, don’t second-guess your feelings, listen to them.
Speak with a close friends or family members who are familiar with your situation to receive feedback on their views. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are correct with their opinions, but mulling things over with someone else can bring in a different perspective by shedding some light on ideas we may not have thought of ourselves.
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These things may help develop your intuition better:
• Listen to your gut without the outside noise and ego and pay attention to your gut reaction because of the neurotransmitters linked between the gut and brain. For example: If someone is telling you a story, or trying to entice you into doing something and you get a twisted knotty feeling in the gut, pay heed and take a timeout to feel out the situation, as opposed to jumping in because it sounds tempting.
• Keep track of your energy levels – feelings and synchronicities. This goes back to an earlier post I wrote about energy sucking vampires if you are constantly feeling drained or uncomfortable around someone, that is intuition informing you with a physical message to exit the situation.
• Pay attention to those insightful flashes that come to you – an idea out of the blue, a person that pops into your head that can help you with a nagging problem or even a positive project. Write down the ideas, and get in touch with that person.
• Meditation can help to calm the noise in our mind and eliminate the thoughts from ego. We only need to take a few minutes by ourselves to mediate and un-cloud our brain. Meditating is like doing the dishes, clearing them out of the sink, only we’re clearing our heads so we can easier receive and become more in-tune with what self, not ego is telling us.
Learn to trust and tune into your intuition. And if we aren’t familiar with paying attention to the warning signals our body sends us from within, we can learn how to tune in better by reading books on the topic, watching Youtube videos, or joining groups which we can mingle in, like-minded people who have more experience to share with us.
Dr. Judith Orloff says in her book, “A highly developed intuition is a “secret weapon … It gives you all kinds of information you wouldn’t normally have. This isn’t the brain analyzing; this is nonlinear knowledge. It’s a second kind of intelligence. You want to use both.” Dr. Orloff adds that anyone can learn to fine-tune their intuition, adding that many of our intuitive messages are stored in the right side of our brains.
Below are some great links to videos and books to get you started:
How the stomach works like a warning system: Trust Your Gut
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Learn to Trust Your Intuition
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4 Gut Instincts to Never Ignore
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Books
Judith Orloff M.D. Amazon Audio Book
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Also by Dr. Orloff
Guide to Intuitive Healing Amazon
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Divine Intuition Purpose Properity Lynn A. Robinson Revised Amazon
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Do you trust your own intuition? Do you have something to share here where you know your intuition has guided you to making a good decision?
I hope you’ve enjoyed this spiritual series. I’ll be taking my winter blog and life break February and March, and I’ll be back with more spiritual series in April.
©D.G.Kaye 2022
My thanks to Debby for another fascinating post on the spiritual side of our natures. I know she would love to hear from you.
DGKayewriter.com 