Learning to TRUST AND Use Your Intuition

Intuition is a tricky topic for most of my clients who are just starting out on their spiritual path. I can relate because I spent most of my life not understanding my emotions and not honoring my intuitions. I had a lot of trouble differentiating between fear and a multitude of other feelings, mindless mental chatter, and the intuition or Higher Self. 

What I've noticed about intuition is that at certain points of my life, and for my clients, intuition can be heightened. There can even be a practice and habit of listening to your gut and following it. But often times individuals become stagnant, comfortable in the status quo, or life becomes too full, and the daily practices that gave them success in following their gut get placed on the back burner. Muscles that don't get used atrophy and intuition is a muscle. 

The best way to trust your intuition, act upon it, and amplify it is to differentiate between fear, mindless mental chatter and intuitive hits. To do this, take out three sheets of paper and write fear on one sheet, chatter on another and intuition on the third sheet.  

First sheet is fear. Fear typically falls into one of two categories. The first is what I like to call "congruent fear". We feel congruent fear when we are in a dangerous situation and our fear is to our benefit. It helps us pay attention and do something different. For example, if we are driving dangerously, fear kicks in and encourages us to drive more carefully. The second is what I like to call "incongruent fear". We feel incongruent fear when we are choosing and behaving in the present moment based on past traumas or wounds. Incongruent fear clouds our thinking, keeps us stuck and prevents us from making choices that are congruent for our highest good. On the sheet of paper that is titled fear, list out your fears. What fears do you have about your work, finances, family? Which fears are congruent? Which fears are incongruent? 

Next is mindless mental chatter. Mental chatter keeps us distracted from being able to hear our intuitions. Mental chatter is often a form of protection because if we really heard and listened to the truth, that is deep down inside of us, it might require that we make changes around the people, places and things in our lives. Mental chatter keeps us stuck, similar to incongruent fear. On the sheet of paper titled mental chatter, write down the types of mental chatter that rattle around in your head every day? Are you even aware of what that chatter is? A great way to become acquainted with the thoughts are is to pause intermittently throughout the day and ask yourself, "What was I just thinking about?" You might start to notice that your mind was somewhere other than where you and your body were.  

When I first started on my path of self discovery I had a therapist who told me to document in a journal every time I was being hard on myself (recovering from perfectionism is part of my story). Since I was a perfectionist and wanted to hand in my homework to my therapist, I began writing down all of the times that I was judgmental of myself. After a few days and many pages later, I had a life altering moment - I realized I was spending more time writing down judgments, than I could actually keep up with, and as I re-read the thoughts in the journal I started to cry. I made that promise to myself in that moment that I was not going to waste my life away with distraction and self annihilation. 

Only once we've lasered through the fear and distraction can we start to hear the whispers of intuition. Making choices on blind faith is hard for most of us. But making choices from data and facts is a lot easier. Data can come in the form of running your own experiments - observing what works and what doesn't. This is where my former career in pharmaceutical research serves myself and my coaching. Only by running your own intuition experiments and having your own data to prove your intuitive hits are accurate, will you start to trust, act and live your life upon your intuition.

Intuition is usually much quieter than fear and chatter. Intuition typically doubts itself, at first. So the best way to track your intuition is to take the third sheet of paper and write down ten life decisions that you've already made and experienced. As you reflect on those big decisions, what was the first thought that you had about it? Was it to move forward? Was it to hold back? Was it to go in a totally different direction? Was it to hold and wait for more information?

Write down what that quiet, and often times illogical voice said. Then document what unfolded. Look back to your original hit on the situation. Was it accurate? What most of my clients discover is that their first thought was accurate. By having this data, you can start to see that your intuition has always been there and it is usually on point. You will also start to differentiate between fear, chatter and intuition. I would love for you to share what you discover by emailing your findings to me at gwen@gwendittmar.com. If you'd like to learn more about bringing this practice into your daily business transactions and personal life through coaching schedule a discovery call here. I look forward to hearing from you! 

With love, Gwen