Like animals, humans come equipped with a "6th sense" most commonly known as intuition. Is it even real and if so, how can we access it?
In today's blog post, I'm going to share 5 ways that help you easily tap into your intuition so that your entire life flows more smoothly on a daily basis.
How can I listen to my intuition?
Intuition, in quantum physics, is essentially vibration waves. Although you and I look like formed matter, we actually aren't. We're a body of waves walking around, interacting with other waves in our environments.
When waves collide and unite, you feel good and have more energy. When waves collide and cancel each other out, you sense bad vibes and know you need to exit the situation.
You've likely been steered away from following your intuition ever since you were a child. We learn as children that so much of what we do depends on an adult's approval or on how they feel about it personally. This means that as adults, when we're struggling over what to do in any given situation, we're trying to essentially figure out what the world would do instead of what we truly already know.
Also, how many times do adults make white lies about something just to keep a child from playing too far away from them or to keep them from causing the adult more trouble? Something like "Don't play over there in those bushes, there could be something scary in them." When this happens, a child innately feels the discord in the truth of the statement, but trusts the adult so much that they come to distrust their own inner guidance.
So here we are as adults, habituated in looking outside of ourselves for approval, guidance and reassurance. We question whether intuition is even real, but it is–it's just been talked down by societal rules.
How do you know it's intuition?
When you have a thought and it's accompanied with a desire to take some sort of immediate action, this is what your intuition feels like.
It can be small. The other night I was in a hotel room on a trip with my mom and grandmother. They had gone out to see a play and I had locked the hotel door and was taking a shower. I randomly got the thought that I should unlock the door in case they came back early. I jumped out of the shower, unlocked the door quickly and got back in. A minute later, my grandmother came back to the room.
It was just a simple thought but it made me want to take immediate action.
Other times it can be bigger and more "confusing", but it's only confusing because you are likely trying to rationalize it. Take for instance when you're hanging out with a new friend. Their words are nice but something about them isn't settling well with you. Your immediate desire is to pull back but you chalk it up to you being crazy or dramatic. This is also intuition.
I wouldn't call it a sinister feeling at all. In the new friend scenario, if you weren't caring about social rules, you might would say "I just realized I've got to run, it was nice seeing you" and you'd exit the situation, which makes you feel good. The action that you're called towards will always feel good, and that's how you can know it's your intuition.
Running away from a lion wouldn't necessarily feel good, per se, but the act of getting away would feel like a GREAT idea.
5 ways to tap into your intuition for answers
To start to flex your intuition muscle (and lessen your people-pleasing one that society gave you) you can do some of the exercises below to help you when you're struggling over what to do in any given situation.
1. Meditate
Meditation helps your mind relax and let go of all the noise that is going on in there. It doesn't feel good to have a mind that is constantly plagued with racing thoughts and worries. Meditate daily to turn off the noise and connect with your intuition. This is a list of my favorite guided meditations.
Meditation as a practice keeps you less connected to the thoughts and opinions of society, and more connected to that inner place of stillness within yourself.
When your mind is quieted and you don't have a million tabs open, you're able to easily connect with your intuition on a daily basis.
2. Learn the importance of boundaries
A huge intuition block is people-pleasing and having a lack of boundaries. We learn from a young age that pats on the head are good, and wagging fingers are bad. As adults, we're still subconsciously after those head pats, even at our own detriment.
Our intuition isn't able to get through because many times, your intuition will call for you to do something that won't please someone else. But your intuition isn't of this world and doesn't play by our "nice" rules, so in order to hear it and not question it, you need to be healthy in your own placement of personal boundaries and how you show up in the world.
The better you can make decisions from a place of honoring your feelings and needs, the easier it will be for you to consistently hear your intuition and receive answers to questions you're pondering.
Some books I would recommend reading are: Not Nice, Boundaries, Where to Draw the Line, and Honoring the Self.
3. Is it a HELL YES
Your intuition is connected to your emotions, and your emotions let you know pretty quickly if you're getting hotter or colder.
Simply ask yourself, is this a hell yes for me? If it's not, you really don't want to do it. If it makes you get super pumped on the inside, you want to do it!
Now, take out all the garbage you're considering over whether the world agrees with you or not. Don't weigh in how it might upset someone else or not gain their approval.
That inner feeling is what matters and when you listen to it, your life will become magical in ways you could've never imagined.
4. Book a date with yourself
The more you can get away from the chatter of the world, the easier of a time you'll have hearing your intuition. If you were really wanting to know how someone is doing, you'd probably spend some time alone talking with them.
If you're really wanting to know how you're feeling, or in other words what your intuition is saying, you need to spend some time alone with yourself.
It could be a morning or even walk, an evening where you put the phone away and take a long bath, or even just going for a long drive. Do what you can to get some time away to yourself. It's in these quiet moments when we're alone with ourselves that we find the answer to our questions.
5. Pulling oracle cards
This form of accessing your intuition may seem a little further out there, but it's been one of my favorite ways of receiving feedback and has encouraged me to do things despite any fearful doubts I was holding.
Divination, like everything else, is tied to our energetic field. When you really take time to quiet your mind and pull a card/s, you are essentially getting feedback on your current energy.
I like to quiet my mind, think of a situation I'm pondering about, and pull a card/s. 9 times out of 10, I will pull a card that directly reflects my current situation. The few times it hasn't was when I was not able to quiet my mind enough.
A friend of mine likes to pull oracle cards on her phone right before she goes to sleep. This works because right before falling asleep, your brain drops down into theta brainwaves, and in this state you are much more open and less resistant.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this article. If you have some favorite ways of accessing your intuition or have further thoughts you'd like to share on the subject, leave me a comment below!
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Lots of love,
Jessica
Jessica Dimas is the author of Manifesting Magic with the Moon. Connect with her on Facebook and Instagram for more inspiration and updates.
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Chelsea @ Life With My Littles
These are great steps! When we were trying to decide our top three places for my husband's residency it was so hard! We did most of these things and it really helped. In the end, we chose the places we thought we would be happiest and that our family would enjoy living the most! You really do have to follow your bliss! I hope you are able to make the decision with what you want to do! Either way, you'll rock it!
Jessica
I'm so happy you guys went with the decision that felt best and would make you the happiest! I'm a huge believer in following what feels good instead of forcing something you think you should be doing 🙂
Angell
I recently have gone through just what you did. You had this big idea (coaching for you), and you know that it's a good choice for you, but not necessarily right now. That's exactly the revelation I got. And I came to the same conclusion you did...write. That's all I'm doing...writing. And the desire to do just that keeps rising.
Thanks for writing this! It kinda confirmed what was rolling around in my brain lol
Jessica Dimas
Yes exactly...a good choice but not necessarily right now. Wow that's almost creepy that you found this post since you faced a similar decision to make and came to the same conclusion of writing. We must've been meant to cross paths as signs for each other that we made the right choice 🙂