Do you find using your intuition difficult sometimes or do you feel that you don’t really receive intuitive responses? Here are a few misconceptions about intuition.
You may find that keeping an intuitive journal will help you discern real intuitive guidance from the standard daily chatter of the mind.
How We Hear our Intuition
How do you picture your intuition talking to you? Do you think that your intuition talks to you in a loud booming voice, like an epiphany, as though words are coming down from the sky telling you what to do next?
Your intuition is actually quite subtle, more like a soft, quiet whisper. It is actually that small, still voice that seems to come from nowhere, and can easily be drowned out by a busy or chatty mind. Learning to listen to that small, still voice can be challenging and may take some practice. A guided meditation is a good place to start.
Intuition and Free Will
Intuition also does not interfere with free will. It will just be that small voice in your mind that recommends that we do or don’t do something. It will never stand in the way of your own free will.
Intuition will not make choices for you, even though we may continually ask it to do just that. It will not take your choices away from you either. This is not something that will just put your life on autopilot and take away your free will and ability to make your own choices and decisions.
Using Your Intuition – The Big Picture
When you receive intuitive guidance, it doesn’t explain itself. It may guide you to a certain person, event, or book, but that is all you will get for the time being. Intuition comes in bite sized chunks and you are only given the next step in the process. It is like driving and only being able to see 50 feet in front of you.
Even though you wish to see the entire road to be sure that you are indeed on the correct road, intuition just tells you to do one, single step next. Learning to trust your intuitive insights and not override them will allow more steps to show themselves to you. Bit by bit, the answers will appear and when you look back, it will make much more sense than trying to see the end of the road all at once.
What about you? How have you learned to trust your intuitive abilities? I would love it if you would share your thoughts about using your intuition in the comments below. Don’t forget to sign up below for my newsletter if you are new to this blog.
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It has taken me a lot of years to be comfortable with trusting my intuitive side. I have always had great “gut” feelings but within the last couple years have learned to speak with my guides, (which is still a work in process : ) ) read auras, and i have recently gotten my 1st degree reiki attunemensts.
It’s a lot of practice and a lot of faith in yourself and knowing that everything is a learning experience and knowing how to determine what the signs or guidance mean for you….
Hi Mindy,
Thanks for stopping by! Yes, intrepeting the signs you intuitively receive and figuring out proper actions to take does take some practice. It definitely takes faith to make a jump and do something that may not be easily explainable to others or make much sense to even yourself. Keep working at it. It does get easier to trust your own feelings with time.
Hi Laura,
Thanks for the article. I’m doing a 30-day trial of living on inspiration and intuition. I feel I’m very much the thinking kind and quite out of touch with intuitions. But I’m a little confused about something.
When you say the soft inner voice, do you mean that literally? Like, English words in your head that you hear? Or do you mean ‘voice’ more generally to mean gut feelings?
And do you have any advice on separating actual bonafide intuitions from desires, urgings, cravings, and so on?
Many thanks,
Warren
Hi Warren. Thanks for stopping by! I took a look at your site and wish you the best of luck with your current 30 day trial.
For me, my inner voice is spoken in English words that I hear in my head. For others, it may very well be a gut feeling. Each of us hears their intuition a bit differently.
Your ego (desires, urgings, cravings, etc.) is usually the loudest voice that you hear and the one that you hear most the time. There is nothing wrong with ego, as it protects you from harm in many cases, but it does not give you guidance from your higher self. In many cases the ego thinking mind is based on fear.
Your intuitive voice is much quieter, and can very easily get crowded out and bowled over by the thinking mind. To me, intuition is that thought that you instantly know is right and resonates with you completely. It is like a personal truth teller. Intuition comes to me as short, sweet ideas, similar to a headline. It is brief, simple, and no-nonsense. Many times intuition will speak to you when you are daydreaming about something and you then get that Ah-Ha moment. It is coming from a place of love and is there to help. This is different from your ego which will want to have a long drawn out discussion about a situation, complete with anxiety and fear based thinking. That is why meditation can be helpful in connecting to your voice of intuition.
Yes I think distinguishing between ego and intuition will be the challenge of this. Sometimes I get an… idea to do something. Maybe read a book. But my thinking mind says “No, that’s not as valuable, I don’t think we’ll benefit more from that that we will from x.” It takes a lot of trust to follow the idea and not the reasoned thinking, since as a psychology student for ~5 years I’ve been training the latter faculty regularly.
But I get you about the meditation. I’ve noticed I get flashes of inspiration in the morning. Not sure inspiration is the same as intuition of not, but they seem to come as images, very quickly. At first I thought it might be to do with sleep, but then I realised I meditate first thing, before getting out of bed even. On the other hand, inspirations that seem to have led to some pretty incredible results seem to occur in the evening, and sometimes it takes a chain of them to get there, like one intuition leads to a situation, and an intuition in that situation leads to another situation, which leads to a “good thing”.
I’m not sure this is a regular pattern or not yet but I think I’ll probably know by the end of the month. Anyway, thanks for the reply Laura!
My intuition definitely ebbs and flows. I’ll get a bunch all at once and then nothing for days or weeks. In the book, “Open to Channeling,” by Sanaya Roman (chap 14), there is a fantastic explanation for this. You may need to grow in increments before you can handle more info. In other words, you don’t want an energetic overload. They liken it to a sunburn. Too much light too quickly isn’t good for you. When I get information, I tend to “feel” the voice rather than actually hearing something. It does feel like I’m making it up but I follow it anyway just to see what happens. Some really fantastic things have happen to prove to me that I am receiving information. Just playing with it and practicing was the best way for me to tune in. Also, even if you follow your intuition and nothing seems to happen just then, you may be setting yourself up for something in the future.
Stacy,
That is a great explanation and makes perfect sense. Sometimes I just get impatient, thinking I should be progressing faster. I like the idea of being playful with intuition. It seems to work far better to be playful with it, rather than try to force it to work for you.