How to Hone Your Intuitive Skills

With first impressions, for example, the immediate, strong feeling about someone you’ve just met is probably based on experience you’ve had with similar people in the past.  Intuition might even go against what you want to do.  When this occurs, it’s very hard to trust that feeling.

Getting in Touch:

            In order to get in touch with your intuition, you need a sense of balance; an awareness of all your normal bodily sensations and emotions, and of the environment around you.  To avoid unpleasant feelings, most of us try to block out as much of the outside and inside world as possible.  But intuition is based on that very awareness which activates an unusual sensation when something is not quite right or is out of balance.  You can try some exercises to get in touch.

Awareness Exercises:

1)      Play a game while driving a familiar route.  Keep guessing what’s on the next corner.  You’ll be surprised at what you’ve missed.  Most people see only 12 inches on each side of their nose.  Try to open up that space and learn to be aware of everything around you.

2)      Stand in front of the mirror and think “smile,” but don’t actually smile.  You’ll see the muscles in your face changing.  Then think “anger,” and see how you look.  This exercise can help you learn how your body reacts to emotion.  Then, by looking at your face you can see how you feel.

3)      While listening to a song on the radio, try not to hear the vocal.  Listen only to the instrumental.  Then do the opposite, listen to the words but not the music.

Intuition Exercises:

1)      Pay attention to the first two seconds of a thought.  Your first impression, the spontaneous one, is your unconscious thoughts rising to the surface before you’ve had time to rationalize them away.  Danger: When you take an instant dislike to someone, you might be reacting to something in that person that you don’t like in yourself.  Always examine your motives carefully.

2)      Keep a pad or recorder with you at all times.  Jot down spontaneous thoughts, including words and phrases that pop into your mind.  When you get over jottings at the end of each day you’ll often find you’ve solved a problem that’s been bothering you.

3)      Before you go to bed, put a problem into your mind and let yourself sleep on it.  When you wake up, you may discover that you have the solution.

4)      Relate to a feeling more than one time.  Example:  You’re feeling fine, but suddenly your stomach becomes very upset.  Don’t immediately assume it is the flu.  Try to relax by dropping your lower jaw for a second or two, and allow a thought to come through.  That thought could be of a particular family member.  Within a short time that person may phone with bad news.  Pay attention, and write down what happened.  If it happens again, you’ll know that feeling in your stomach signals as intuitive reaction.

5)      If you get a spontaneous idea that you should do or should not do something, don’t play with the thought, just obey it.  After heeding such thoughts for a while, you’ll get a sense of trust when they’re accurate.