Cultivating Intuition

Toward the end of my 10+ year journey with mind body pain and sickness, I decided I was no longer interested in being led by my brain’s fear-based thinking. I began to say, “No, thank you” to the voice I had grown so familiar with throughout these years and my childhood leading up to it. The voice had been punishing and fearful for so long that I was not sure there was another voice within me or another way to be guided through life. When I started saying “No,” firmly at first and then more gently over time, other voices emerged. I discovered a softer voice that supported settling down my nervous system, staying present, and letting emotion and belief energy pass through me like waves. As this voice grew more powerful so did my practice of present-focused awareness, and I significantly reduced the spirals of fear and despair that so often trapped me in a given moment, day, or week. I received the message from my healers to begin recognizing not only a a more authentic voice within me, but also an intuitive connection to Spirit that served my highest and best intention for this life. I have always been an open-minded person, but not until this moment had I trusted that I could actually access a source of knowing beyond my brain. I had already come to believe fully in others’ abilities to use intuitive guidance to be of service to themselves or others, but I believed them to have unique gifts qualitatively different from my own. I was not yet ready to let go of my attachment to the intellectual knowledge I had built up over the years, including all of my clinical training, which I put on a pedestal and always strived to perfect. Upon reflection, it was painfully clear that this knowledge never served me in the way it appeared to serve others. My intense pursuit of intellectual knowledge stemmed from a place of lack, and the illusion was that a certain amount of knowledge would ever be enough to validate my sense of worthiness.

I never felt smart enough as a child given my proclivities for intense emotional experience which pervaded my view and disrupted my behavior and attention. I was frequently in trouble with teachers and even when appearing still, my mind was elsewhere, dancing off in fantasy escapades of how I could break out of these systems keeping me stuck. Amidst the stormy experience of my emotion and belief energy, I pushed for the intellectual knowledge that I was conditioned to desire within my educational and family systems. Everyone around me seemed to value this knowledge, though it was hard for me to take it in at times. A more spiritual understanding, such as the buddhist philosophy my father exposed me to, always resonated on a deeper level and came more naturally to me than history books or mathematics. As a result of my struggles, I received several psychiatric diagnoses common for children with emotional and attentional difficulties, none of which addressed the source of my issue. With great effort, I persevered in high school, college, and ultimately in graduate school. I continued this pursuit in earnest, especially as I got closer to the area of study that interested me and aligned with my purpose as a healer. Through graduate school, I pursued knowledge in the area of psychodynamics, trauma, and attachment theory with fervor and became adept at navigating these fields, though underneath this burgeoning library of information lived the same fears and doubts that I would never know enough and, therefore, could never be enough. Alongside my studies, I weaned and wained with more eastern philosophies and mindfulness practices, striving to embody this knowledge as well but always falling short and never fully understanding or feeling at ease with my inner experience. I was able to speak the language of these concepts well, but there remained walled off parts of me that I could not access. Many times on this intellectual pursuit, I felt I had finally stumbled upon the theory for which I could understand my life and the lives of others, yet I was ultimately left dissatisfied, anxious, and confused.

My intellectual pursuits persisted as I was hit with mind body sickness, which presented the perfect opportunity for my brain to attempt to think it’s way out of suffering. I learned all of the theories and concepts related to mind body medicine and could speak the language well, just as I had done in other areas of my life, yet I remained sick. The illness was a true wake up call that this pursuit was simply not going to work, though I stubbornly pushed it as far as I could. As I grew more disillusioned with my conditioning to pursue western knowledge, I became more open to the world of energy medicine and intuition - a source of knowing beyond the brain that had the capacity to transform suffering in a way I had never experienced. With acceptance of the ways western medicine was not serving me, I practiced being present to and honoring the truth of my experience. I left my therapist at the time and stopped consuming the many books and podcasts by leaders in the more traditional mind body community. The limiting beliefs and fears I had been carrying for a lifetime came more clearly into focus, specifically the fear that I had to continue proving myself as intellectually worthy to those around me. Once I began to let some of those expectations fall away, a space opened up and a readiness emerged to practice listening to a different source within me. I was finally ready to acknowledge a more intuitive nature and connection to Spirit that served my highest intention for this life and was not distorted by the expectations or conditioning of others.

The path of returning home to your intuition takes courage - all that you can muster. Those around you that support the conditioned expectations of how you are supposed to work, relate, heal, or make decisions will likely be challenged, triggered, or simply not understand your path. Many of the clients I serve now arrive to me after learning all there is to learn from the overwhelming amount of information in the worlds of mind body healing, chronic pain, and trauma. Psychoeducation is important at first, but at a certain point you no longer need more information and you need to practice filtering out others’ opinions in order to create space for your own voice to emerge. With encouragement from intuitive guides, I began by asking a deeper part of myself questions. For those of you who are guided by the familiar voice in your head, you may easily be able to recognize when an answer comes from that brain-driven place versus when you focus your attention on a different source and a different voice. I started with very low-stakes choices like what to eat or drink throughout the day, though even these proved tricky! The fear-based patterns in my brain quickly took over and injected doubt and indecision into every question I asked or answer I received. As I went toward this truth, inevitably the conditioned blockages in my way showed up first. I was often left paralyzed with fear, but I persisted because I had enough conviction and healing experience at that point to know what was possible. I had crossed the 51% threshold of faith in the intuitive life I was being called to birth, and the conditioned, fear-based life I was being invited to let die.

Over time, I started to notice that I would get a visual representation of a “Yes” or “No” to the questions I was asking, but the truth is I had no idea what it meant and was surrendering completely to this experiment. In the beginning, I would go against the stronger answer I received just to see what would happen. One low-stakes example is when I asked about eating potatoes for dinner and got a “No.” I really did want potatoes and did not have much other food in the house so I ate them anyway. I ended up feeling bloated and uncomfortable that night. I practiced not fearing the answers as much as learning what what is in my body, mind, and spirit’s best interest. From there, I still had free will to choose to live my life as I please. To further this exploration, I would ask for an explanation of the answers in order to become clear on understanding the why. Otherwise, I would fall into a trap of impulsively following guidance I did not understand. I committed myself to listening to this source of information in every facet of my life and was soon checking in hundreds of times per day. It might sound crazy, but I knew that if I was really going to unlearn my previous conditioning, I needed to lean in. I moved back and forth between experiences of pure astonishment and magic to painful frustration and confusion. It felt like everything I knew about life hung in the balance. Despite the fear and doubt about what these answers meant, I was motivated by the bizarre fact that these answers proved to serve my highest good every time. I also learned quickly about the importance of what emotional state I was in and what place of intention I was coming from before checking in. If I knew prior to asking that I wanted one answer to be true over another, the process would inevitably be distorted and unclear. I had to learn to settle my mind and be open to receiving what was meant for me in order to discover what was in my best interest.

So what is “intuition?” Others may refer to this practice simply as a deeper knowing within the body that can bypass the thinking mind, specifically, the heart and gut due to the plethora of neuronal connections there. I value the natural intelligence of the body as well, but I want to be clear that I consider my intuition a connection to the spiritual world beyond mind body medicine. For me, it has become a combination of muscle testing, which is an intuitive process that allows you to detect what is healthiest for the body; energy medicine, which is the capacity as an energetic being to pick up on the energies within you and around you; and a connection to Spirit, the source energy or creator of all things, which may take the form of guides delivering messages for me on my path. You may not believe in some or all of these aspects, but this is how intuition manifests for me. With this understanding, I have to be intentional about who or what I am asking for information and to recognize that not all information I receive in this form is in my highest and best. Just like I would not ask all friends or family for certain relationship advice, I see that not all guides have the same source of information or intention. Just as you have to shed the layers of your childhood in order to grow into the truth of your adulthood, I invite you to shed the layers of your conditioned ways of knowing in order to grow into the truth of your intuition. I still do not always understand the messages I am getting or where they are coming from, which is why I continue to practice.

Here are a few crucial lessons I have learned on my journey in connecting to Spirit:

-In matters of the heart, Spirit always knows.

-In matters of finance or competition, check your intention. You are not meant to use this connection for greed or ego, so you must become clear that you are using this practice to serve your highest intention for yourself and others. I continue to grow in this area.

-Do not ask questions you are not ready to hear an answer to. Remember that life will continue to be a mystery and you may not be willing to learn certain truths yet.

-Similarly, if fear or anxiety shows up as you ask, you are likely not yet ready or able to listen clearly and you must not force an answer or decision until you can come from a grounded place of readiness.

The more I practice, the more clarity and conviction I gain. I continue to let go of the fears around being “right” or “wrong” and focus more on the intention to be of service. With practice, I clear the cobwebs of emotion and belief energy that were keeping me stuck, misguided, and mistrustful of myself and others. Recently, I discovered my capacity to receive answers about ancestral trauma and to specify where limiting beliefs come from in a person. I use this when guided to do so with myself and others. I do so only with permission and with guidance from Spirit. I am a bit rebellious by nature and have a human ego just like all of you, so this journey is also one of humility as I continue to learn what is in highest service of myself and others in this practice. Cultivating intuition is a practice of strengthening the deepest and truest part of yourself with integrity. I encourage you to begin checking in and asking yourself questions. Inevitably, you will first recognize the voice you have been listening to on repeat for many years and it may seem daunting, but you will also begin to understand how and why you make the decisions you make on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, and you may recognize the readiness for a change. Keep listening. Even if you do not associate intuition with all the energetic and spiritual connections that I do, you will likely resonate with the innate knowing of your body, which holds more accurate information about you and your environment than your brain does. As you practice, you may recognize sensations of fear and doubt emerge because your brain is not used to taking a backseat and will try to steer you back to its learned patterns of survival. Do not despair, the emotion energy is a sign you are beginning to expand beyond your limiting beliefs and outdated brain patterns. By checking in with a deeper source, you begin to align with the truth of your being. Start small and see where it goes. Your intuition is waiting for you.