| Intuition—5 Tips to Access It The Mindbody Wellness Way
Dear Awesome Woman,
What is intuition?
It is my deep belief that no circumstance, relationship, or situation is merely a product of coincidence. There is a hidden spiritual meaning and purpose behind everything in our world. Accessing our intuition helps us tap into this hidden realm to guide us and give us clarity. It acts like a GPS navigator that dispels confusion and empowers us to take clear action in our lives from a very centered place.
The mere act of accessing intuition is healthy for your brain and your body. In order for you to even hear your “Soul Speak,” your brain needs to click into the alpha state. This means, as opposed to your mind being engaged in the more intense, linear processing of beta waves, it is in the state of the expansive, creative processing of the alpha waves. This state allows access to deeper regions of the brain where symbolism and insight are located. There is less worry and more tranquility. Your brain waves have sloooowed down—you are awake, yet relaxed.
Partaking in activities that allow you to hear your intuitive guidance also puts your body in the parasympathetic part of the nervous system. An easy way to remember this is by referring to it as the state of Peace. Imagine a lioness rolling in the grass, stomach full and satiated. She is relaxing. Earlier her body was engaged in a hunt with her ears forward and her eyes locked on her prey. Her body was tense, filled with cortisol and adrenaline. The sympathetic part of her nervous system was activated, allowing her to hyperfocus on her mission. After completing her mission, her body made the transition into the parasympathetic part of her nervous system, that time of peace, that time of rest and digest. It is the same for you—when you do practices that promote this state of Peace, your body is enabled to rest and digest allowing your mind to open to soul wisdom.
A common question I receive as a Somatic healer when I speak about intuition is how can you recognize the difference between mind stories and thoughts and intuition?
What is a mind story?
Mind stories are based in the ego/social self. Developed from a young age, we have beliefs and ideas as to how we want to be seen by others. Perhaps you want to be seen as a “good girl,” a “good friend,” a “good wife,” a “good employee,” etc. Attached to these beliefs are full definitions of what that means to you—always reliable, always selfless, never angry, etc. These are mind-stories.
What is a mind thought?
All day long your mind thinks thoughts. These thoughts are your general stream of consciousness that is based off of reason or rationale that you’ve adopted over the years.
There are a variety of thoughts that your mind thinks. There are the funny thoughts, the scary thoughts, the worried thoughts, the planning thoughts, the futurizing thoughts, the fantasizing thoughts, and on and on. It never stops thinking.
And our bodies react to these thoughts by way of the emotional energy each one brings.
A “scary” thought of being chased by a lion gets our adrenaline racing thru our bloodstream and our heartbeat quickens.
A “worry” thought that our boss said one thing, but really means another fills us with dread and foreboding—perhaps a heaviness and constriction in our chest.
A “fantasizing” thought of sitting on the beach staring at the sparkling blue waters of the Caribbean ocean causes our bodies to relax and breathe a sigh of relief.
When a certain choice makes sense or you rationalize that you should behave in a specific way, that is making a decision based on thoughts.
Intuition—a soul message— is different. It seemingly comes from nowhere and there is a neutralness to it because it lacks emotional charge. Your body receives a sense of knowing and relief. You may even say “oh” —just like that. It is dressed as a word, phrase, image or sense that feels neutral in your body. It was not developed by your mind and it is not a reactive emotional response. You are receiving a message from your soul, clothed in your human senses. It is for your retrieval.
When I take my clients through an inner child writing exercise, intuition sometimes flows in longer messages than just a phrase. This is also soul guidance. Again, it can be felt in the body as if a receiving channel has opened and words are being downloaded. These messages get integrated into the cells.
Intuition is always kind and truthful. It may be blunt, but it doesn’t put you down like the inner critic or cause you to ruminate, going round and round with looping thoughts. When you tap into your intuition the answers you receive don’t just sound good, they feel like they’ve landed in your body giving a sense of calm and often direction.
The more awareness you give your intuition and the more you practice using it, the more it can direct your life. This intuition, as opposed to mind thoughts, takes you out of the social-self and childhood-based limitations to give more centered, divinely aligned awareness. The guidance may not always make sense, but your body and soul are lining up to help you on your life path. This kind of guidance is beneficial for your relationships, your health and your career.
So how do you access intuition? We’re all born with it and it is always trying to guide us. But over the years we may have ignored and silenced it by only believing that we could solve problems with our logical, linear brain—our rational mind.
Here are a few Mindbody Wellness tips to help you access your intuitive wisdom:
1. PRACTICE: I invite you to jot down in a journal what comes up for you—images, synchronicities, words or phrases. Even if the lyrics of a song pop into your mind—write it down—it may carry a helpful message. The point of journaling is not only to have fun keeping track of the increased synchronicities and intuitive hits, but these things will happen more by giving attention to them—there’s a flow of energy that increases. Receptivity is the channel your divine soul uses when it communicates to you regarding your soul guidance.
2. REPLACE “SHOULD” WITH “COULD”: When you have a decision to make, replace the word “should” with the word “could.” Notice how using the word “should” causes constriction and tension in your body whereas the word “could” feels expansive. Intuitive wisdom can be heard when your body is in that state of expansion.
Let’s look at an example: if you told yourself that you “should” look for a new job, you would feel pressure in your body. You might even experience the fight/flight and freeze response and you would be making choices based on thoughts and mind stories basically closing off your intuition’s ability to inform your decision. By substituting the word “could,” your body will feel more relaxed, opening up the way for more possibilities and giving your intuition a chance to express itself.
3. BRAIN PLAY BY DOUBLE DOODLING FIGURE EIGHTS: This simple practice can bring relief when you are in stress-mode thinking. Your brain waves will shift from the busy “linear” mind to a more relaxed awareness. All that’s required to do with this practice is to doodle figure eights using both hands. You can also hum at the same time as you doodle and this increases the calming effect on the body.
Why figure eights? Because they enable the right and left side of the brain to synergize in a very holistic way.
“Repeatedly doodling a figure eight may stimulate eye movement patterns that create calm,” says Tracy Latz, M.D.,associate clinical professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “When my alarm buzzed, I started drawing figure eights on a pad. For the first 10 seconds I felt silly, but then my hand relaxed and my mind wandered. After a minute of tracing the same path, I sighed happily and got out of bed.”
I invite you to take a few seconds out each day to get that pen out and doodle! If I don’t have a pen, I just use my fingers.
4. BE HONEST WITH YOUR EMOTIONS: In my Mindbody Soul sessions with clients, women are able to hear their innate intuitive guidance after being honest and processing their emotions. Emotions are “energy in motion” in the body, felt as physical sensations. Putting attention on that flow of emotional energy which is cellular based, helps reveal the client’s intuitive whisper. One technique we use for processing that flow is the ROAR! Process which releases pent up anger, grief, sadness, and trauma. Neuropathways shift and the body’s tension releases, revealing more compassionate messages of intuition.
5. COLLAGING: Simple, yet impactful, collaging can be done in as little as 15 minute chunks of time.
All you need is:
1) magazines and store catalogs
2) a glue stick, or if you want to get fancier, a Scotch 3M wrinkle-free glue stick
3) a pair of scissors
4) a piece of paper or the hardcover of a book, no longer wanted
Now, unlike vision boards, you are not future-tripping with this exercise. You are cutting and pasting whatever feels good now, in the present moment. You are only choosing pictures and words that pop out at you and feel good to you right now—not how you want to feel or be like in the future. There are no “shoulds” here. No “I should like this” or “I should want that.” Nada, zero, zilch “shoulds.” Not even “whys” like why am I putting this on my paper? Don’t question, just cut and paste on the board/paper you are using. You could do this in a random fashion or with an artistic flair—doesn’t matter as long as everything that goes on there, you love—it lights you up, lifts your spirit, sparks joy.
Collaging tunes you into words, activities and things that speak to your soul. Is it a picture of deep blue waters, misty forests or blooming vast flower gardens? Is it clothes, makeup, different hairstyles?
Collaging should bring a sense of enjoyment and lightness to you. If it feels heavy or unpleasant, then you are probably “shoulding” yourself —“I should or shouldn’t choose this picture, word, sentence etc.”
Tune into your body as you choose what lights you up. Does it feel uplifting and expansive in your chest? Cut and paste it.
What starts happening as you create these collages is that your inner and outer worlds begin to shift. More of the things that you’ve noticed, chosen and pasted on your board start to crop up in your life.
“Where your attention goes, your power goes.” And as Martha Beck once shared from her conversation with a white water rafter, “If you pay attention to the space between the rocks, then that’s where you’ll go. If you pay attention to the rocks, then, bam!—that’s where you’ll go.” Focus on paying attention to the words and pictures that light you up. Go towards the flow and light, not rocks!
You’ll also start feeling more of the emotional energy behind the words that you’ve selected. As a Chassidic sage once said, “You are where your thoughts are.” Emotions and feelings echo thoughts. So, if your thoughts are on joy and rolling green expansive landscapes with blooming flowers, that’s where your emotional energy is as well. Feel that in your body.
Each person’s collage will look different and yours will be unique to you and your life.
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These Mindbody Wellness tips to increase your ability in hearing your intuition are just a handful. There are so many more and you may be doing some already, like present practices and meditation.
***Reminder—only do what feels good to you. The practices I shared are meant to be helpful, not another addition to your already overstocked to-do list. If one doesn’t feel good to you, don’t do it.
May your intuitive receptors bloom as you travel your path in life.
Need a guiding hand? I invite you to schedule your Free Clarity call today. As a Somatic Healer, Clarity Coach and Relationship Expert, I help empower women to trust themselves through the wisdom of their bodies and intuition. Stress, pain and insomnia relief, career clarity, marriage magic for singles and couples, narcissistic relationship detoxing, and trauma processing can all be accomplished through Mindbody Soul sessions over the phone. Download your free gift eguide: “3 Secrets to Solve Burnout and Get Energized the Mindbody Wellness Way.”
Free yourself from the harmful effects of built up resentment, stress, trauma, anxiety and disempowerment by using the ROAR! Process, a simple and effective somatic release technique. I use this often with clients and I’m excited to share it with you: The ROAR! Process .
Needing help? Schedule your Free 20 min call & let’s see how we can work together.
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