Last week, as I was listening to us all talk about dependence vs. independence, many of us also spoke about intuition. I would like us to explore our intuition for this upcoming week.
“Intuition is challenging to define, despite the huge role it plays in our everyday lives. Steve Jobs called it, for instance, “more powerful than intellect.” But however we put it into words, we all, well, intuitively know just what it is.
Pretty much everyone has experienced a gut feeling — that unconscious reasoning that propels us to do something without telling us why or how. But the nature of intuition has long eluded us, and has inspired centuries’ worth of research and inquiry in the fields of philosophy and psychology.
“I define intuition as the subtle knowing without ever having any idea why you know it,” Sophy Burnham, bestselling author of “The Art of Intuition”. “It’s different from thinking, it’s different from logic or analysis … It’s a knowing without knowing.”
Our intuition is always there, whether we’re aware of it or not, as Arianna Huffington puts it in her book “Thrive”:
Even when we’re not at a fork in the road, wondering what to do and trying to hear that inner voice, our intuition is always there, always reading the situation, always trying to steer us the right way. But can we hear it? Are we paying attention? Are we living a life that keeps the pathway to our intuition unblocked? Feeding and nurturing our intuition, and living a life in which we can make use of its wisdom, is one key way to thrive, at work and in life.
Cognitive science is beginning to demystify the strong but sometimes inexplicable presence of unconscious reasoning in our lives and thought. Often dismissed as unscientific because of its connections to the psychic and paranormal, intuition isn’t just a bunch of hoo-ha about our “Spidey senses” — the U. S. military is even investigating the power of intuition, which has helped troops to make quick judgments during combat that ended up saving lives.
“There is a growing body of anecdotal evidence, combined with solid research efforts, that suggests intuition is a critical aspect of how we humans interact with our environment and how, ultimately, we make many of our decisions,” Ivy Estabrooke, a program manager at the Office of Naval Research.”
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It is somewhat reassuring that the military and other “higher ups” are learning about intuition, and putting that knowledge to good use.
Ways to Get in Touch with Your Intuition:
—Listen to your inner voice
—Take time for solitude
—Create
—Practice mindfulness
—Observe everything
—Listen to your body
—Connect deeply with others
—Pay attention to your dreams
—Take time to recharge
—Mindfully let go of negativity
Many of these we naturally do; others take more work. Over the years, we have focused on some of these within our circle…
Wisdom Question:
- Do you practice any of the above?
- How do you know when your intuition is talking to you?
- Do you listen, and act, on your intuition?
- What other ways does intuition come to you?
- Do you think intuition supports dependence, independence, or both?
- I try and practice all; these last two weeks I have practiced solitude, observation and listening to others, listening to my body, connection and letting go of negativity.
- Intuition just comes to me. When I try to force it, it may not come. It is more than a feeling; it is a deep knowing, both within my body, and my mind. I just KNOW that whatever I am intuiting is RIGHT. I may not be trying to find an answer – and sometimes it is THERE. Mother was intuitive, and I felt my sister.
- Yes, most definitely. There are degrees of intuition, and the stronger it gets, the more I know how to act.
- I would like to cultivate my intuition more; the meditation we had this evening was from a website called “intuitiveandspiritual.com”, written by Cynthia Safeleaf. The more I visit this site, I feel like she is an honorary sister! I have been working with this meditation, and will continue.
- I think intuition supports both! When I “know” something about my own life, and act on it, I feel this is independence. Conversely, when I have an intuitive feeling about another person – what they are feeling, what they may need, and I act on it, this is dependence! We are all in this circle of life, and using our intuition to help ourselves and others raises us up and fills us all with love.