Learning to Trust Intuition

Reclaiming Our Lost, Wild Senses & Inner Voice

Intuition is how I survive the chaos of life here on Planet Earth.

I use my intuition to pick out my clothes in the morning. Opening each drawer and softening my eyes to see which article of clothing leaps out at me, I choose the socks, underwear, pants, and shirt that look more beautiful to me… shinier for no reason at all.

I use my intuition to decide what to eat. Relaxing and taking a deep breath as I stand in front of the refrigerator, I allow my body to move on its own, to reach for whatever nutrition my cells are craving.

I use my intuition to decide which way to drive through town during rush hour. Listening to the quiet voice inside saying, turn left... now change lanes… pass this car... I obey without question.

Years of practice has taught me that when I let go of my thinking mind and allow a deeper wisdom to take hold, things turn out better… often better than I could have imagined.

I’m doing it right now.

My dinner is on the counter getting cold, but I felt the sentences begin to flow. First one sentence floated clearly through my mind, then another. I felt the twitch of my fingers telling me to type, so I sat down to write.

My brain is telling me that my supper will get cold, that I should ignore this sudden intuitive need to write. Yet the feeling of satisfaction at how the words flow effortlessly when I trust myself, my timing, and my inner voice… is more nourishing than any meal. And I know from hard-won experience that inspiration won’t wait around until after dinner.

(Editors Note: The supper was delicious and easier to reheat than I could have dreamed.)

It isn’t easy to recognize what’s best for us. Even harder is making that choice when we don’t understand why we’re making it. It took me years of NOT LISTENING to that small, sweet voice inside before I understood how to choose what’s correct for me and feel good about it 99% of the time.

Learning to decipher the subtle intuitive information our systems provide AND value it enough to take action is the lesson of a lifetime.

It’s a path we each have to walk for ourselves.

Making Choices is Hard

Tonight at bedtime, my 2 year-old wanted a different blanket. When I offered her a second choice, she refused that one too. When Papa tried to come to the rescue with a third option, she said “No! Not that one!”

On the one hand, she’s a stubborn toddler on the edge of bedtime and ready to melt down for no reason.

On the other hand, she’s a human being learning about Planet Earth and trying to decide what is right for her (with very limited options at her disposal).

As a tired Mama ready for my little one to go to sleep, I tried a variety of techniques without really noticing that this was an opportunity to teach her to trust her intuition.

I asked her about the blankets one at a time, hoping she would gain some clarity, “Do you want the turtle blanket? …The rabbit blanket? …The Papa-Izzy blanket?

That didn’t work.

I tried Eeny Meeny Miny Moe (which she’s been super into lately).

Not a chance.

Finally, exasperated, I put all three blankets on the bed and said, “When you figure out which one you want, I’ll tuck you in. Okay?”

As I turned to leave the room, the poor creature burst into tears. “I don’t want three blankets!”

I turned around to see her piled with blankets, totally lost, unable to figure out which blanket (If any of them) would feel right for her tonight.

Isabelle was honestly too tired to figure anything out at the moment, so her Papa stepped in and chose a special blanket for her. I could tell he used his intuition to choose, and she calmed immediately.

But what about the next time…

Or the rest of her life…

How will she learn to listen to her intuition and follow it without first being given guidance, encouragement, and the space to explore?

Learning to Trust Intuition

How do we learn to trust our intuition?

I look back at how I learned, and I realize that I had people all along the way, urging me to trust myself, offering hints and clues as to what that felt like.

My grandmother used to ask: “What does your belly say?”

My father often talked about the things you “just know”.

All around me I had people who knew this ancient secret—that the wisdom of the heart and body combined are correct more often than the mind.

In the bestselling book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell explains how our systems process information in the blink of an eye and how those split-second intuitions have often been shown scientifically to be more accurate than even our best educated guesses.

There’s so much subtle information available to the body, but we each assimilate and access that information differently. There’s no secret recipe… no one-size-fits-all solution for learning to trust intuition.

Personally, I’ve learned from experience that my initial instinct is always the correct one. Though I still need to explore all options in order to feel satisfied with my choices, I know instantly what’s correct for me. When I listen to my mind, it’s easy to haggle with myself and try to override that initial impression, but I’ve learned to take note of my split-second awareness and come back to it again and again.

Watching my mother through the years, however, it’s obvious that she operates quite differently. That initial impression often isn’t the best choice for her. Her first response is usually one of excitement about the shiny thing that catches her eye, rather than what’s truly best for her. To discover what’s correct for her at a deeper level, she feels into the options, noticing how her body and emotions react to different choices.

My grandmother has a different style that served her well through most of her life. You might expect this of the wise old woman archetype, but even when she was much younger, she took the time to sit quietly for a long time with a decision before what’s correct for her would finally bubble up to the surface.

There are subtly different flavors to the process each person experiences in trusting that inner voice. There must be as many ways to listen to intuition as there are people in the world!

No wonder it’s so difficult to teach… learn… do…

How We Lost Our Intuition

Instinct runs through all animals, including humans. Underneath everything is a silent thread of knowing pulling us forward. But we aren’t taught to attend to our primal instincts. We’re taught to ignore them.

In the West, there’s been a great divide between mind and heart. But Descartes didn’t do anybody any favors when “I think therefore I am,” became a mainstream philosophy.

While the rational mind is amazing and powerful, it has specific limits. It is limited by the natural parameters of language, by self-imposed constraints on consciousness, by availability of information, and most of all, by the mind’s ability to synthesize, analyze, and assimilate the information available.

When we ignore the subtle signals of the body, we cripple the mind of it’s ability to guide us toward our best life. Our phenomenally evolved human brains have so much going on that we must consciously give space to our wilder selves for our brains to work on the same team with our hearts and bodies.

In other words, we must value intuition enough to attend to it.

The trouble is that sensory information from the environment… the subtle perceptions of the micro-organisms that make up our bodies… and our awareness of the vast invisible, energetic worlds we inhabit… often feel wishy-washy.

Intuition isn’t made of concrete thoughts and stories that are easy to put words to. It is a collection of vague impressions drifting through the subconscious, easy to ignore. And if we don’t attend to it—fleeting as it is—it quickly disappears.

We all know the feeling of not trusting that little voice inside and looking back to regret it. We face this dilemma again and again throughout our lives. Moving beyond this struggle into trusting ourselves requires us to recognize that we’re taught to devalue our inner voice!

Somewhere along the road from Descartes to the modern day, we started valuing the thoughts of the conscious mind over the experiences of the unconscious. We became obsessed with understanding.

As our cultural value system moved away from intuition because of it’s unexplainable nature, a wall gradually grew between the mind and the body… between reason and intuition.

Yet as Malcolm Gladwell would tell us… it’s logical to trust your intuition.

Reclaiming Our Intuitive Birthright

What does it look like to begin to value again the subtle, wild, instinctual, intuitive information coming into your system?

What are you noticing right now?

How does this article feel to you?

What is your inner voice saying?

Learning to trust yourself about the big things in life comes from practicing listening to the little things. I spent years in my twenties paying attention to tiny details—things even my spiritual friends told me didn’t matter. Somewhere deep inside, I knew they did. Now, looking back, I can see how that time in my life taught me to listen deeply.

For each of us, it’s different. But I can say with certainty, that as you practice listening to yourself and taking action consistent with your intuition, it gets easier.

It gets easier to hear and interpret subtle cues. And though you may have to accept that we don’t always get to understand, as you practice taking action consistent with your intuition, you will accumulate experiences telling you whether or not it worked. Paying attention, you’ll begin to see the way things are connected… beyond anything your rational mind could know.

I’ve found that the more I experience the profound wisdom of my inner knowing, the easier it becomes to trust and follow it no matter what.

Like gathering raindrops to form a stream, then a river, then an ocean, the first drop may seem insignificant. Yet gathered together, these intuitive experiences can become a powerful force that guides you through the world, carving through any obstacle.

Trusting your intuition is a gift you give yourself and a discipline that pays off infinitely. No one else can hear the small, sweet inside of you…. and there’s no shortcut, only practice.

Don’t take my word for it. Try it on for yourself.