Intuition is defined as immediate insight or understanding
without conscious reasoning. When we, as people begin the process of
learning to listen to and heed our own intuition, we often hit several
road blocks along the way. We often receive negative messages from our
parents, teachers, or peers at which point we begin to doubt our
intuition. Our intuition gets obscured by the fears and beliefs we have
erected in front of it. When we lose trust in our intuitive knowledge we
begin to close down that channel of information by ignoring it. The
good news is, though we may shut out the messages we receive from the
higher self, the higher self continues to give them so it is impossible
to completely lose the ability to be intuitive.
Some of the road blocks we hit during the process of re- awakening to our intuition are individual, some are unanimous but perhaps the largest unanimous barrier we face in this process is how to separate our intuition which comes from our true self from our fear which comes from our ego self.
Though there is a big difference between intuition and fear, understanding that difference in the moment can prove to be daunting. Our higher selves (the origin of intuition) will not interfere with the experience and free will of our separate physical bodies. It is a choice to heed intuition; it is a choice to even pay attention to it. You must invite intuition. Therefore, fear (which is an emotion that belongs to the physical dimension) easily overrides and obscures intuition.
The process of separating fear from intuition can also be a daunting one because it requires that we become intimately acquainted with our own fears. We must discover them, be honest to ourselves about them, learn to recognize them, address them and learn to dissolve them. Only then can we address what our intuition is telling us. There are many techniques which can be employed in order to address and dissipate our fears, by doing this; their influences no longer control our life. But in order to separate fear from intuition, you must first become acquainted with what your separate fears feel like so that you can identify them when they come up as if they were emotional "flags". You can begin to do this by writing a list of your fears. List every one of your fears that you can think of and keep the list in an easy to access place. When you come across a situation in which you are feeling intense negative emotion, instead of acting on anything, pull out the list and scan it and ask yourself if any of the fears on the list could possibly be creating the sensation. It is an inevitability that you will continue to uncover hidden fears as you advance in your spiritual journey, at which point you can add new ones to the list. If you find one which you think could be causing the sensation, sit in that sensation for a while, becoming intimately aware of its intricacies. Make a study of it. Learn the sensation of that fear. This way, you will begin to recognize those individual fears so that when they come up, you can know that they are not intuition. Intuition comes with a feeling of correctness and affirmation. Intuition will come as a sudden knowing, a gut feeling, thought, image, emotion, or bodily sensation. It will be a quiet, clear and often quick impression. Even if the message of intuition is about something negative, it will come across as being delivered in a "neutral" tone.
We will only experience intense emotion with regards to an intuition when we begin to feed the intuition with negative thoughts and feed it with fear. Fear is a highly emotionally charged sensation. It conveys no feeling of correctness and no affirmation until you logically talk your way into it. Fear reflects the past (past issues and past psychological pain). Perspective is not possible from a state of fear, it is so strong it is almost blinding and delusional and there will be no compassionate or transcendental element to it. False guidance is always rooted in fear. It is false guidance because it comes from the inaccurate assumption that the world is unsafe and that you are not secure, so the guidance you will receive will not be aimed at creating and maintaining freedom, abundance, joy and true self expression. Instead it will be aimed at increasing your degree of control. Genuine intuitive guidance comes from a place of love and the knowledge that you are safe and secure as you are. If strong negative emotion is involved, you should always be suspicious that you are either dealing solely with fear, or that you have clouded an intuition with fear. If, for example, you have a sudden persistent and strong emotional feeling that something bad is going to happen to someone you love... a fear such as the fear of loss is most likely what you are dealing instead of an actual intuitive insight which is informing you of something which is actually impending.
The problem with fear is that it is very persuasive. When we do not uncover it for what it is early on, it catches us in a creation trap. The trap is that once a person gets themselves into a state where they convince themselves based on the feeling of fear that something bad will happen, they often activate a strong enough vibration that they begin to actually create (by virtue of attraction) the negative event. At which point, when it happens they often say... "See... I knew my intuition was right when it said this was going to happen" when it was actually an event which was created based on a fear (which they mistook for intuition) that made them begin to think negative thoughts with enough frequency that it created the very event they feared.
If you find yourself in a place where you have uncovered a fear which is clouding intuition, the best way to get back into the state of receptivity to intuition, is to meditate or center the mind. Quieting the mind when it is alive with fear can be difficult, but it is necessary in order to clear away the mental clutter so that you can access your own inner knowing. Begin by using deep diaphragmatic breathing. This will trigger a relaxation response within the body. Close your eyes, and begin to focus on your breathing. If your mind drifts, without getting frustrated that it has wandered; simply bring it back to your breathing. Do this for as long as it takes for the fear and negative thoughts to fall away leaving behind a quiet peaceful, centered feeling. Sometimes it helps people to listen to music which educes this peaceful, centered state within them. If you find that it is especially hard to concentrate, it can be beneficial to listen to a guided meditation. Once you are centered for a while in that neutral, peaceful state, you have opened yourself to the flow of intuitive information and you can pose your question or ask for intuitive guidance. Once you have posed your question, put forth the intention that you will receive your answer and listen. To truly listen for intuition means to listen with all of your senses. Intuitive messages come in many ways and they come differently to different people. You may hear the answer, or see the answer. You may just "know" the answer. You may get a physical sensation such as a chill or hot flash or feel the answer emotionally. As you practice listening and honoring your intuition you will get better at recognizing the ways by which you receive intuitive information no matter what form it may appear in.
There may be times when you are looking for intuitive guidance that you will not receive a clear answer right away; however, the information may come to you later through other synchronized events or possibly through dreams or in future meditations. If you become frustrated and try to force an answer to come, you will block the flow of intuitive information. Simply trust that if it is a message your higher self wants you to know, it will be made known to you, and if you are on the lookout for it, just at the right time, you will see it. You will recognize it right away. Intuitive messages which are ignored simply get louder and louder in their manifestations until they can no longer be ignored.
If it is truly your goal to become intuitive, you will eventually learn to distinguish the voice of ego from the voice of the true self. Your ego which is driven by fear rationalizes as well as creates reasons why you should not follow the instruction of intuition. Truth however, does not need the rational justification that fear needs to be valid. Truth will simply be conveyed over and over again in the same loving unconditional way until it is received. We must simply remember that true intuitive messages are always in the service of our best interests, it is impossible to cut one's self off from the capability of being intuitive and it is possible to differentiate our fears from the intuitive messages we are receiving every day. All we need is a little practice.
Some of the road blocks we hit during the process of re- awakening to our intuition are individual, some are unanimous but perhaps the largest unanimous barrier we face in this process is how to separate our intuition which comes from our true self from our fear which comes from our ego self.
Though there is a big difference between intuition and fear, understanding that difference in the moment can prove to be daunting. Our higher selves (the origin of intuition) will not interfere with the experience and free will of our separate physical bodies. It is a choice to heed intuition; it is a choice to even pay attention to it. You must invite intuition. Therefore, fear (which is an emotion that belongs to the physical dimension) easily overrides and obscures intuition.
The process of separating fear from intuition can also be a daunting one because it requires that we become intimately acquainted with our own fears. We must discover them, be honest to ourselves about them, learn to recognize them, address them and learn to dissolve them. Only then can we address what our intuition is telling us. There are many techniques which can be employed in order to address and dissipate our fears, by doing this; their influences no longer control our life. But in order to separate fear from intuition, you must first become acquainted with what your separate fears feel like so that you can identify them when they come up as if they were emotional "flags". You can begin to do this by writing a list of your fears. List every one of your fears that you can think of and keep the list in an easy to access place. When you come across a situation in which you are feeling intense negative emotion, instead of acting on anything, pull out the list and scan it and ask yourself if any of the fears on the list could possibly be creating the sensation. It is an inevitability that you will continue to uncover hidden fears as you advance in your spiritual journey, at which point you can add new ones to the list. If you find one which you think could be causing the sensation, sit in that sensation for a while, becoming intimately aware of its intricacies. Make a study of it. Learn the sensation of that fear. This way, you will begin to recognize those individual fears so that when they come up, you can know that they are not intuition. Intuition comes with a feeling of correctness and affirmation. Intuition will come as a sudden knowing, a gut feeling, thought, image, emotion, or bodily sensation. It will be a quiet, clear and often quick impression. Even if the message of intuition is about something negative, it will come across as being delivered in a "neutral" tone.
We will only experience intense emotion with regards to an intuition when we begin to feed the intuition with negative thoughts and feed it with fear. Fear is a highly emotionally charged sensation. It conveys no feeling of correctness and no affirmation until you logically talk your way into it. Fear reflects the past (past issues and past psychological pain). Perspective is not possible from a state of fear, it is so strong it is almost blinding and delusional and there will be no compassionate or transcendental element to it. False guidance is always rooted in fear. It is false guidance because it comes from the inaccurate assumption that the world is unsafe and that you are not secure, so the guidance you will receive will not be aimed at creating and maintaining freedom, abundance, joy and true self expression. Instead it will be aimed at increasing your degree of control. Genuine intuitive guidance comes from a place of love and the knowledge that you are safe and secure as you are. If strong negative emotion is involved, you should always be suspicious that you are either dealing solely with fear, or that you have clouded an intuition with fear. If, for example, you have a sudden persistent and strong emotional feeling that something bad is going to happen to someone you love... a fear such as the fear of loss is most likely what you are dealing instead of an actual intuitive insight which is informing you of something which is actually impending.
The problem with fear is that it is very persuasive. When we do not uncover it for what it is early on, it catches us in a creation trap. The trap is that once a person gets themselves into a state where they convince themselves based on the feeling of fear that something bad will happen, they often activate a strong enough vibration that they begin to actually create (by virtue of attraction) the negative event. At which point, when it happens they often say... "See... I knew my intuition was right when it said this was going to happen" when it was actually an event which was created based on a fear (which they mistook for intuition) that made them begin to think negative thoughts with enough frequency that it created the very event they feared.
If you find yourself in a place where you have uncovered a fear which is clouding intuition, the best way to get back into the state of receptivity to intuition, is to meditate or center the mind. Quieting the mind when it is alive with fear can be difficult, but it is necessary in order to clear away the mental clutter so that you can access your own inner knowing. Begin by using deep diaphragmatic breathing. This will trigger a relaxation response within the body. Close your eyes, and begin to focus on your breathing. If your mind drifts, without getting frustrated that it has wandered; simply bring it back to your breathing. Do this for as long as it takes for the fear and negative thoughts to fall away leaving behind a quiet peaceful, centered feeling. Sometimes it helps people to listen to music which educes this peaceful, centered state within them. If you find that it is especially hard to concentrate, it can be beneficial to listen to a guided meditation. Once you are centered for a while in that neutral, peaceful state, you have opened yourself to the flow of intuitive information and you can pose your question or ask for intuitive guidance. Once you have posed your question, put forth the intention that you will receive your answer and listen. To truly listen for intuition means to listen with all of your senses. Intuitive messages come in many ways and they come differently to different people. You may hear the answer, or see the answer. You may just "know" the answer. You may get a physical sensation such as a chill or hot flash or feel the answer emotionally. As you practice listening and honoring your intuition you will get better at recognizing the ways by which you receive intuitive information no matter what form it may appear in.
There may be times when you are looking for intuitive guidance that you will not receive a clear answer right away; however, the information may come to you later through other synchronized events or possibly through dreams or in future meditations. If you become frustrated and try to force an answer to come, you will block the flow of intuitive information. Simply trust that if it is a message your higher self wants you to know, it will be made known to you, and if you are on the lookout for it, just at the right time, you will see it. You will recognize it right away. Intuitive messages which are ignored simply get louder and louder in their manifestations until they can no longer be ignored.
If it is truly your goal to become intuitive, you will eventually learn to distinguish the voice of ego from the voice of the true self. Your ego which is driven by fear rationalizes as well as creates reasons why you should not follow the instruction of intuition. Truth however, does not need the rational justification that fear needs to be valid. Truth will simply be conveyed over and over again in the same loving unconditional way until it is received. We must simply remember that true intuitive messages are always in the service of our best interests, it is impossible to cut one's self off from the capability of being intuitive and it is possible to differentiate our fears from the intuitive messages we are receiving every day. All we need is a little practice.
