How strong are your intuitive muscles?
Intuition, our ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning, naturally navigates us through our daily lives. According toPsychology Today, our intuition exists primarily to protect us, to keep us safe and alive. In this effort… our brains can keep us from getting what we truly want if we do not… listen beyond our rationalizations. When we face uncomfortable decisions, the brain will spontaneously give you fabulously credible rationalizations for avoiding possible failure, embarrassment, or even minor discomfort. We are master rationalizers!
Intuitive Muscles
According to Alan Alda, “At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you will discover will be wonderful. What you discover is yourself!”
Channeling this level of awareness without logical thought is not always easy, but flexing our intuitive muscles can improve our ability to activate them. Fathers of psychological thinking such as Kant and Jung emphasize the importance of intuition, recommending development as an essential and indispensable tool for all humans.
According to Jung, intuition is one of four major functions of the human mind along with sensation, thinking, and feeling. By balancing all of these functions within ourselves, we have the ability to maximize our potential. Jung wrote: I regard intuition as a basic psychological function that mediates perception in an unconscious way. Intuition enables us to divine the possibilities of a situation!
To enhance intuitive muscles:
- Quiet your mind and LISTEN: Take time each day to experience silence. Practice calming your mind by using whatever breathing or meditative technique you prefer. Let go of the inclination to think or analyze… Be open and listen. Let your thoughts roam and be open to the ideas and solutions that come to you.
- TRUST your hunches and gut feelings: [When] something does not feel right chances are it is not. What may be right for one person could be totally wrong for you. Your intuition is your inner guide, so learn to trust it. At first, trusting it may be a bit scary, but allow it the opportunity to develop.
- Pay ATTENTION: To increase your intuitive abilities… pay attention to what is going on around you. The more data and information you absorb from your environment, the more your subconscious mind has to work with when you have to make an important decision.
- EMPLOY your subconscious while you SLEEP: Before you go to bed at night, reflect upon questions and issues for which you could not find solutions during the day. Think about… different possibilities. This will trigger your imagination and put your subconscious to work at furnishing you with creative solutions while you sleep.
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” Benjamin Spock
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