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thoughts that undermine our intuition

Challenged to Prove Your Intuition

Natalie —  April 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

Lake Austin Dock

I was at a local watering hole on the shore of Lake Austin last week, with a co-worker and some of his friends.  The topic of my hearts work, clairvoyant reading, came up in conversation. As has happened many times in my life, my colleagues curiosity set off a peppering of questions, doubts and a challenge. How is it possible to do that?  Prove it!

I was in my last two days of taking a month off from seeing clairvoyant clients to allow spiritual renewal for myself.  Austin was icing on the cake, full of inspiration, a city after my own heart, where you can take a “sweaty yoga” class from 10:30 pm till midnight on Friday night.  It was perfect timing to have my soul’s vocation questioned.

When my commitment to intuitive seeing and healing was affronted with a demand “read me now!” it was tempting to put a wall up, resist the intrusion, just say NO. But I found myself closing my eyes in a packed open-air bar asking my colleague to say his name three times, and then ask me a question.

Explaining the way I see doesn’t energetically answer the question of what it means to be a psychic who doesn’t read the future, rather reads what is blocking people at a soul level from creating what they want in life to help them heal.  Understanding it is more experiential than analytical. When I opened my eyes after 10 minutes of witnessing his soul, moving energy and being in the meditative state, I felt great.  I looked at my colleague and his entire countenance had shifted.  He was softer, had opened-up and no longer doubted. He was still curious but not demanding.

One of the root lessons in my spiritual path has been learning to have healthy boundaries around my sense of intuitive awareness.  Healthy boundaries includes taking time off to renew, saying “no” when we need to, not violating a person’s boundaries by psychically reading them without their consent.  It also means learning to not automatically empathically feel everyone around you and avoiding the temptation heal people who haven’t asked for it.  It means, distinguishing what energy is me and my experience, and what is yours and your experience.

As an intuitive our nature is to sense what is beyond the five senses in the environment around us.  It can be tricky not to take that sense of awareness too far by taking the information personally when it has nothing to do with us.  Or by matching it so deeply we mistake the emotional energy or physical pain as our own.

I responded to my colleagues demand to “prove it” because I felt relaxed, spontaneous and willing to share this part of myself with someone authentically curious.  I also wanted to observe myself reading with permission in the cacophony of a crowded bar and feel safe doing it.  As a younger woman I did not have the trust in spiritual protection to hold my space in that environment.

We all experience intuition in slightly different forms.  Some see images, some hear the voice of guidance, others feel sensations in the physical body, or prophetically see a specific future potential as destined.  Regardless of how we know what we know, there is not a need to prove it to anyone.  Our intuition is a gift of Divine guidance to help us through our personal experiences.

When we share that information with others as a professional we will occasionally be challenged by clients or strangers.  This challenge comes to strengthen our seniority in what we know. The less we doubt the validity of what we see, the more we can smile and be amused when others challenge us with their doubts.

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Listen with Your Right Brain – Doctors Orders

Natalie —  February 1, 2012 — 2 Comments

Image thanks to http://performance-rules.com

Last week I was at my osteopath’s Dr. B, who had a student in training assisting the appointment.  As she was examining my back, he instructed her, “Listen to your right brain.  It knows where the spine is out of alignment. See how you’re hand has gone back to the same spot three times. You’ve got to turn off your left brain. It is making you question what your right brain knows.” In my world Dr. B was asking his student to listen to her intuition, to turn off her analytical minds interruptions and validate her sixth-sense awareness.

What was curious to me is that this medical doctor adamantly stated that the disrupted flow of spinal fluid could be felt without any equipment, simply touching the body and listening to the right brain.  He is very good at his work, and yet explaining how he knows what he knows to a student, was challenging in medical terms.

All good healers, whether they are doctors, dentists, psychiatrists or massage therapists actively use their intuition whether they acknowledge it or not.  My osteopath doesn’t think his awareness is of an intuitive nature.  His form of intuitive knowing is innate and he’s spent significant time cultivating it.  He doesn’t realize that it’s any different than the way his student might read a patient’s body.

We all experience intuitive data differently. While the information is the same, the way it comes to us can be a feeling a sensation in our own body, seeing a mental image, hearing a voice that provides direction or simply knowing without an indicator from one of the other five senses.

Dr. B impatiently instructed his student, “Your right brain will give you the yes. Turn off your left brain!” To cultivate confidence in our intuition, we also have to set aside the left brain analytical mind and listen for the yes.  When we are aligned with the intuitive yes, there is a sense of peace that comes even if the information is difficult.

Our sixth chakra (center of head) is where we hold both our intuitive knowing (right brain) and our analyzer (left brain).  The analyzer is trained to process facts, calculate evidence and derive answers.  The analyzer does not do well with information that has no correct answer such as emotions, bodily sensations and spiritual awareness.  That’s not its job.

Yet we try to force our left brain to process all of our experiences because we are taught that logic, science, having firm unchanging answers is the most valued in our society.  Many of the best insights into non-linear challenges come when we focus our attention away from the question and let our intuitive mind, in parallel, process the emotions and senses around it.

Repetitive, creative activities stimulate this, such as jigsaw puzzles, knitting and working in the garden.  We are present yet our left brain is distracted, giving our right brain room to breathe.  It takes practice to follow the doctors’ orders, set aside our left brain and listen to the right. It feels awkward at first, vulnerable.  Yet the more we do it, the more clearly we hear the yes, and the more our intuition informs our every experience.

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Negotiating with Our Inner Guidance

Natalie —  November 30, 2011 — 2 Comments
Photo by Patrick Yuen

Heeding the direction of our intuition sounds wise and like a no-brainer but what happens when our intuition doesn’t give us the answer we want to hear?  We all have subtle agendas behind the questions we ask ourselves. These conscious or unconscious hopes and desires create bias or resistance to the direction we receive and may cause us to negotiate with our inner-guidance.

When we don’t get the answers we want from our intuition we are tempted to change the truth by looking at it from a different angle. Being pragmatic we ratchet up the volume of our analytical mind to overpower the subtler intuitive messages. We cajole, bargain and try to talk ourselves out of what we know, or we outright rebel, doing what we want, only to suffer the consequences.

All of these inner conversations are forms of manipulation or attempts to get what we want even if it’s not the best thing for us.  Crazy yes, but we all do it.  Sometimes not getting the answer we want is simply getting no answer, and having to live in the unknown for longer than we are comfortable.  The inner-critic and task master doesn’t like not having an answer so we pressure the inner-guide to give us what we want and NOW.

The internal conversation that occurs in this standoff can be frustrating and keep our minds spinning in circles.  The worst part is that these negotiations tend to hit is in our blind spots.  We don’t even notice them happening until we’ve missed an opportunity or made a poor decision, based on our agenda rather than our intuition.

When we notice ourselves in a circular conversation that undermines our inner-guidance, it’s an opportunity to step back and take a look at the source of our resistance.  What belief is in our space blocking us from accepting a path that is for our highest good?  Is it fear that we won’t get our needs met, fear that we’ll take a certain path and fail or is someone else’s agenda in our space influencing our choice? It may even be a global or cultural fear influencing us.

Meditation, being grounded and clearing our energy space of outside influence brings us closer to our truth. Examples of these practices can be found in my other blog posts such as The Meditative Path to Clarity, Own Your Space and A Dream Come True, Can You Have What You’ve Always Wanted.  Resistance to guidance from our intuition can be seen as a reminder to align our body, mind, emotions and spirit. To reclaim our energetic space and examine what inside us would prefer to stick with a predetermined agenda rather than take a path that is for our higher good.

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The Meditative Path to Clarity

Natalie —  October 12, 2011 — 4 Comments

We all want clarity, to feel solid about our decisions and choices.  We want to know what is best for us.  What path to take.  We realize at a deep level that no other person can give us the answer.  We may seek reflection and input from others, but we are doing so to hear ourselves speak our first thoughts, notice our response to this advice, to see if we agree or disagree and why.

We know there is information available to us that is immeasurable, essence level insight. Stuff we can’t explain even though we try to explain it.  We wish we felt a more solid about to the intuitive guidance available to us.  We want to know we are making choices that will lead to happiness.

Clearly interpreting our inner-guidance is not a skill taught in school or at home.  Often when we have an intuitive aptitude for reading other’s energy it is a result of needing to develop this skill for our own safety or survival.  It can be more difficult to see our own truth when our intuitive skills were cultivated from a point of trauma or lack. To develop clarity we need to remove obstacles to our vision.

There are as many layers of experience influencing us as there are years in our life, some would say more.  When we begin to focus attention on listening to our inner-guidance, it’s like learning to walk all over again.  Our legs are a little wobbly, we let the momentum of gravity move us forward and toss a leg out to balance ourselves, then another. Only learning to trust its support and gain confidence in our body as we maintain our balance with each forward step.

To develop the skill of trusting our intuitive guidance, a daily meditation practice is essential.  This doesn’t need to be an hour with your eyes rolled back into your head and an empty mind.  The type of meditation I refer to is tuning into your energy body for 5 or 15 minutes. I do so every day while walking my dog.  It’s that simple. Focus awareness on the following elements:

  • Grounding Cord – that which connects us to the foundation of the earth, our root extending from the tip of our spine to the center of the earth
  • Cosmic Energy –energy from the spirit realm, flowing down into us from the crown of our head
  • Earth Energy – energy from the earth, it runs up through our legs to join with the cosmic energy
  • Aura Bubble – our personal space as defined by an energy field that surrounds our physical body
  • Center of Head – the space between your ears and behind your eyes where you “see” rather than “feel” intuitively

Tuning into these energy tools and claiming them for ourselves, will dissipate the fog of doubt and help us clean out external influences.   Meditation is an essential form of spiritual housekeeping that allows us to see clearly.  From the
space of greater clarity we can even identify when we need external perspective to get beyond our own blocks. Meditation prepares us for deep listening, the kind that helps us break through the mistof uncertainty so we can align action with our vision to create the life we want.

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Dark Night of the Soul

Natalie —  July 21, 2011 — 1 Comment

A Dark Night of the Soul is a period of time or season that many of us on the spiritual journey find ourselves in once or more in our life.  The Dark Night comes unexpectedly through some change or experience that causes us to question all that we’ve known to be true.  It is a time where we find ourselves feeling disillusioned with a temporary loss of faith.  What we trusted appears in a new light to have been temporary and incomplete.  The foundation we’d built our perception of the world on shifted and in that shift we found ourselves unsettled.  What felt meaningful feels meaningless, what seemed solid looks unreliable, what we thought we knew to be true comes into question.

Walking through a Dark Night of the Soul period requires intense resilience.  It pushes our edge, uses every ounce of our psychological capacity for survival. The Dark Night can be triggered by things like divorce, loss of a job, loss of a role or identity we’ve identified with or physical illness. Where it takes us is a profound void that may feel like depression, hollowness, hopelessness, emptiness and doubt.

How do we endure this mental and spiritual struggle? What gets us through the void and back to a point of inner-peace?  I’ve found that, an essential aspect of the healing and growth the Dark Night has to offer comes through the following conscious choices:

  • Acknowledging that the cycle of living in the unknown has purpose. 
  • Calling on our inner-guidance with much more frequency and consistency. 
  • Moving our body to allow the cycle to stay in motion on the physical level. 
  • Seeking support through the council of spiritual mentors who have walked the path before.

These paths of self-care give us strength and help us see that we will make our way to a season of light again.

The Dark Night may feel like a stuck place in our external life or a place where everything is in chaos.  However stagnant it feels or looks in the physical form it is an active season for the soul.  The soul is in chrysalis.  It has gone within and on certain levels may require us to go unconscious about some of the work underway. Transformation, upgrading our soul to integrate all the bits-and-pieces we’ve been encountering in our self-awareness and growth at the deepest level. 

Some of these levels of processing are beyond what we can or are ready to consciously “see” as they transform.  We have to be patient and trust the inner activity.  We have to ask our mind, as it seeks to fix what appears to be broken, the mind that wants a solution, wants answers, to be patient while the Dark Night chrysalis is evolving us from the caterpillar to the butterfly. 

The void has us fear a loss of Self.  It has us feel alone and as if we may have lost all of the ground we had gained through our conscious growth and commitment to self-awareness and health.  In reality there is no loss, at the other side of this deeply challenging soul searching cycle we find ourselves renewed, more mature, with an inner radiance that transcends our prior light.

The Dark Night is a soul crisis.  It pushes us to the full extent of what we feel our soul is capable of handling.  It may temporarily break our spirit but the Great Spirit/God never gives us more than we can handle.  The discovery of our inner strength, the renewal and appreciation for what generates inner-peace for us, makes the journey through the void, the rebirthing of our higher Self, well worth the battles we face when staring at the unknown.

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You Want It, but Can You HAVE It?

Natalie —  May 5, 2010 — Leave a comment

The biggest block to creating the life you want may not be lack of vision or action but your capacity to have it.  Like that old saying “have your cake and eat it too,” if you can’t eat the cake that you spent your time and money baking, you’ve participated in an energy depleting activity. 

When you request something from the universe through visualization, prayer or simple intention and it never shows up, or it does and just as quickly goes away; it may make you doubt your capacity to create or the support of your higher power.  Most likely something is blocking your ability to receive.  Receiving is harder than it sounds.  To receive you must acknowledge your worthiness for whatever has arrived.  And override past experiences that programmed your mind with thoughts like, “That’s impossible. I can’t have that.  It won’t last.”

While considering a goal for your life, use your inner-guidance, your sixth chakra or center of head space, to visualize what you want to manifest.  In your daydreams or journal you can play with design, forming a ‘mock-up’ of the desire.   Focus on the energy you would like to create, such as joy ease or playfulness, more than the form it will take.  From your intuitive mind, look for any conflict between your desire and its possession.  Notice areas of your life where you resist having what you want or where your vision is not grounded in reality.  The power of bringing these conflicts to your awareness will begin the process of moving the block out of your space.  Now visualize a bubble outside of your aura, like a magnet drawing the conflict energy away from your desire.  Once you see all of the energy has moved into the bubble, send it somewhere far away with your minds-eye and pop it.  This will create more space for you to have your cake and eat it too.

Here are some examples of thoughts that may get in the way of having what you want:

  • Attachment to past creations that are out-dated, “Wow, my dream house is for sale and I can afford it but I’ve invested so much time and energy in the house I’m in.”
  • Change, “I wanted this but now that I have it, I feel uncomfortable.”
  • Control, “She has to agree with me or we might as well not have a relationship.”
  • Old identity, “I was poor growing up.  It’s always been hard to make ends meet.”
  • Lack of permission, “Having time to play my guitar is selfish.  I should be helping the kids with homework.”
  • Unworthy, “I really don’t deserve to be happier than my parents, friends or lover.”

If you find yourself stuck in a pattern that is preventing you from having what you want in relationship, work, prosperity or any other area of your life, seek outside help from a trustworthy source such as a spiritual mentor, therapist or clairvoyant reader.  We all have unconscious beliefs and programs at work in our space that are so powerful it is hard to see them, let alone move the energy ourselves.  Finally, commit to replacing negative thoughts with positive thoughts through regular affirmations.

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What Will Tomorrow Bring?

Natalie —  April 14, 2010 — Leave a comment

A desire to know the future is deeply ingrained in human nature. Seeing the future would eliminate doubt and simplify decision making. If I do this it will be a great day, a happy relationship, a rewarding job. If I don’t do that it will cause me a lot of trouble down the road. The Magic 8 Ball is a fun cultural example of this type of validation seeking. Wouldn’t it be great if someone or something would tell us that we are on the right path; that we are not going to have our heart broken or buy the lemon of a car? The truth is we are capable of doing this for ourselves. Our intuition is available to us to consult in every situation. Thanks to free will we have the choice to follow it or ignore it. This is personal empowerment versus being a victim.

There are often factors that divert us from heeding the advice of our intuition. We worry about what others think and feel. We desire approval from our loved ones and tend to do for others before taking care of ourselves. Acting on our intuition can cause us to feel awkward if our actions are challenged by someone who doesn’t think it’s a wise choice or the choice isn’t what they want us to do. We may not act on our intuition because we feel that we can see the future by choosing a familiar path with a reliable outcome. We have more control. Although the predictable path is not taking us to a place we want to be, it’s less risky.

The next time you are presented with a decision in your life and desire a different outcome than you have experienced in the past, pause to check in with your intuitive truth. A great way to do this is to close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and try one of these exercises:

  1. See yourself taking the path. How does your body feel? Relief, tension. If you feel tension is it rooted in fear of the unknown or a sense that this is not the correct path for you? Then visualize yourself taking the alternate path. How does your body feel? At peace, uneasy? Listen. 
  2. Visualize a rose to the right of you and one to the left. Ask your intuition, “What is my yes?” and see which rose comes closer to you. Then ask, “What is my no?” Notice which rose moves. Now ask a question regarding your decision and see the rose as a symbol of your inner yes/no.

The more often you directly seek your intuition the stronger it becomes and easier to access. Not knowing what will happen in the future is a part of the wondrous surprise of life. Many paths we take which result in great opportunity come with challenges along the way. If we had seen the hard parts in advance, would we have taken the risk or avoided it altogether?

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Blinded by What We Want to Believe

Natalie —  March 10, 2010 — Leave a comment

Why are we blinded in certain situations, when it retrospect the truth seems so obvious? It may be that we have:

  • Attachment to a specific outcome
  • Resistance to how the information will change our life
  • Hope that a person won’t deceive us or cause us harm
  • An unspoken agreement with the person to not notice something they are hiding
  • Given power to a past experience of our own, society’s or a parent’s

It is human nature to give preferential treatment to what we want to believe is true, brushing aside our intuition. Seeing the truth is not always pleasant. We start down a path with partial information, make decisions and follow our hopes. Then a new piece of information presents itself that changes our perspective on the path we’ve chosen. We need the experiences of the journey in order to collect those bits of information that illuminate our vision. Yet it is hard to agree to step into the unknown.

When we put one foot in front of the other in response to our inner “yes” “no” or “I don’t know yet” the action leads to greater clarity around a specific choice. We don’t always have all of the information at hand. In fact, if we had all of the information we may not have acted and thus missed a valuable opportunity. Noticing our physical sensory responses can assist in fleshing out the less overt details behind a decision. It is as simple as taking pause to look at our attachments, resistance, agreements and other potential blind spots through the lens of messages from our body. These messages help us discover facts that are material for making better decisions.

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Be-aware of Conflicting Information

Natalie —  March 1, 2010 — Leave a comment

You have a gut feeling but it doesn’t line up with what the person in front of you is saying.  Making sense of the conflict between actions, intentions and words can be challenging.  People show us what they want us to see.  This is not necessarily intentional deception it can simply be the individual reflecting what they believe to be true, having an incomplete picture of themselves or what they represent.  Assumptions are made without asking enough or the right questions.  Doubt seeps in.  This is where it is critically important that we learn to validate our intuitive knowing.  When we get that inner nudge that something is awry in a situation the first thing to do is listen, question what is instigating the red flag.  Is it incongruence in words and actions or words and words; is it the lack of eye contact or an energetic sensation?

Use your five senses to flesh out doubts.  What do you see in the person’s body language and eyes, do you hear clarity or a wavering in their voice, how did that handshake or hug feel, is there a subtle acidic smell emanated from anger or fear?  The only way you will learn is from acting on your intuitive truth (it).  There will always be opportunity for doubt especially when you want to trust someone, their information sounds logical and listening to your intuition is counter to what you want to believe.  I’ve found this in business when looking at a sales opportunity.  The client has a project they need your service or product to make happen.  You have a competitive chance and may be blinded by the desire to win the business.  Access you intuition to sense if the business is truly available to be won.  Often the decision is yet to be made.  Your intuition will help you see if the client has already selected a competitor’s solution without revealing it or is just collecting detailed scope and pricing through a proposal process in order to do it themselves.  Using your intuitive sense can save a lot of energy and time chasing a dead end opportunity.  The more curious you become of your intuitive nudges the more you will learn to trust the information. 

Look for more next week on how what we want to believe gets in the way of seeing the truth.

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