Hello, my lovely friend! I hope this episode finds you with a smile on your face! I’ve been off on adventures with my niece who just graduated from Ithaca College. We visited Washington, DC and toured her top grad school, and got a chance to visit with relatives which was super nice. Then we ventured to Virginia Beach for some much-needed beach time and finished it off with a spin around Philadelphia where we got to take in some amazing art and I met up with my peer coach who’ve I’ve only zoomed with so that felt like a bonus.
When you leave your home, hometown, and routine it brings up a couple of interesting opportunities. We can’t rely on habits that bust us out of falling into living on autopilot not really being present with ourselves and our surroundings.
We have to lean into our instincts, whether it comes to deciding on where to stay, what to do, and even which parking spot we want. We are more on alert. In that, it opens up a chance to practice our intuition.
When I was thinking about what topic I wanted to talk about this week, intuition popped into my mind. I had to think if I ever shared thoughts on this before and I was surprised to see that I haven’t. Surprised because it’s one of the top 3 topics that I get asked to speak about when I’m a guest on someone else’s show! The other 2 for my curious souls are mindset and business without burnout.
So it’s high time that we dive into one of my favorite subjects and more than that a daily practice and that’s intuition. You will learn how to increase your power and alignment by using intuition...which is very exciting!
I want to preface that intuition is not reserved for a select few. It is also not something from the psychic realm. Research is now being able to quantify the validity of intuition. In fact, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of South Wales in Australia, Joel Pearson, said that previous studies didn’t actually measure intuition because they didn’t know how to quantify it.
However, “In the new research, Pearson and his colleagues came up with a series of experiments to determine whether people were using their intuition to help guide their decision making or judgment. The researchers defined intuition as the influence of "nonconscious emotional information" from the body or the brain, such as an instinctual feeling or sensation.”
This is just one example, The HeartMath Institute has a slew of data on intuition and actually breaks it down into 3 types.
Implicit learning - This is a knowing based on something that we’ve learned (even if we’ve forgotten we’ve learned it). Our brain matches patterns and our subconscious mind collects data and organizes and stores it for us. Our body fires neurochemicals in the brain and gut and that stimulates a reaction.
The second type is called Energetic Sensitivity. You may have caught my episode with Heather Dominick. If not, you can wherever you listen to podcasts or even watch the video version on YouTube. She teaches based on a Course in Miracles and applies it to business. She tailors her work for the highly sensitive entrepreneur, which I completely understand and relate to.
This type of energetic sensitivity is being able to pick up on environmental clues and energy fields. You may have experienced this if you just have a feeling that someone is staring at you or there aren’t great vibes in a restaurant when you walk in.
The last category is known as Non-Local Intuition. This type is something that can’t be explained. It’s not from info from the past or picked up by our surroundings. HeartMath explains it is from our innate biological interconnectedness. If you’re a parent think of a time when you sensed that your child might be in danger. You didn’t have any facts to prove that but you just had that feeling. That’s an example of non-local intuition.
This last category often gets mistaken for psychic ability or labeled as Woo or something to fear. Yet, to me, it feels like the most natural law there is — that we are all one and it’s our likeness that connects us and heightens our awareness.
Being able to tap into our intuition has been shown to help us make faster, more accurate, and confident decisions. As a business owner, harnessing this can act as our secret superpower. It naturally allows us to tap into our gut wisdom and be more in alignment with our core values.
When I was on Lana Dingwall’s podcast, Changing the Story, we talked about how to use intuition as a business strategy. That’s her episode #136 if you want to tune in. I shared ways on how to be able to determine the difference between our thinking mind and true intuition when faced with challenging decisions.
One of the easiest ways to detect the difference is speed. When we are bypassing our thinking mind and tuning in to our intuition the response comes up quickly. There is heart wisdom that arises OR an immediate gut reaction. You’ve heard people refer to it as a hunch, instinct, inner knowing, or immediate understanding.
On the flip side, when we go round and round on a decision, we’re using our thinking mind, relying on resources, logic, and proof. If you’re whipping out your pen and paper and drawing 2 columns one labeled pros and one labeled cons, you are surely not tapping into intuition. :-)
Intuition is sensing vs. thinking. For me being mindful of my body and tuning in to the spaces below the mind space helps a lot.
Remember, this is a practice. And with any practice, we have to be patient, trust, and well practice so we can drop into unconscious competence.
Here’s the thing to remember - you have all the answers within. You contain the whole of the macrocosm within your soul - the microcosm. In that, you are tapped into the biggest, best, and most reliable resource of all time … sorry Google.
When you are faced with any decision big or small, allow your first reaction to bubble up. Then notice how you feel. Do you have a sense of knowing? Do you feel stable and grounded? Does it just feel right? Go with that! And remember, this can all unfold in a split second. So trust your first instinct and embrace the speed it comes with.
If when you hear that inner voice or immediately get a gut feeling and then you start to second guess it, or your thinking mind rushes to provide 100 reasons why that might not be true or your emotional system kicks up some fear, it’s again information for you. Information that will help you to determine if it’s your mind kicking in or your instant truth resource.
Practice with the little stuff, like where and what to eat. Then practice with more meaty things like should you enroll in the course or mastermind that you’ve had your eye on. And graduate to big life and business decisions like taking out a loan, collaborating with a new business partner, or even determining when to sell.
Once you make deep inward listening a daily practice, you won’t be able to turn back the clocks to when you wrestled with every decision and went through several mind swirls before committing to an answer. That’s good news!
Life becomes much more in flow. You will notice more energy because you’re not draining yourself with unnecessary mental loops.
Start practicing today and let me know how it goes. You can always join the Women Developing Brilliance® Facebook group where we continue the conversations started on the pod.
I can’t wait to hear about how utilizing your innate wisdom increases your power and alignment. You’ve totally got this! I mean … it’s your birthright after all.
Until next week my friend...breathe joy!
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