Intuition… an unexplained feeling, often defined as gut feeling, a source of knowledge that can not be logically explained, but you know it’s true. All of us are born with it. In fact, according to Carl Jung, intuition is one of the four essential functions of the human brain.
Intuition is a unique form of communication we have within ourselves and with ourselves. When the subconscious mind passes information to the conscious mind, for example, this form of inner communication enables us to see and feel things differently and notice things we can not explain by logic. Once we channel this special form of inner communication or communication with our Higher Selves, we can benefit from it in many ways.
First and foremost, it helps us uncover hidden knowledge about ourselves, other people around us, and places and situations. We have more self-protection and awareness when genuinely in touch with our Higher Selves. It helps us relax and live with less stress, less fear, and less anxiety. It helps us make better decisions, make better choices, better plans. It keeps us in the present moment but gives us warnings or signs for the future. So how can we strengthen this natural ability and learn to live with it by being in an awakened state of mind?
It is not as complicated as you think; with a bit of practice, anyone can improve and strengthen their intuition. Here are ten things you can do to improve your intuition.
1. Meditation
helps us become more aware of our subconscious mind and clear our heads from clutter. There are a lot of different types of meditation. For this one, practicing Mindfulness Meditation is the most beneficial. Its focus keeps us in the present moment by making us pay closer attention to our bodies and surroundings. It is an excellent way to learn to recognize our five senses. It teaches us to better handle our problems and opens doors to find solutions for these problems. It helps us also recognize the positive things about ourselves.
2. Engage in creative activities.
Music, reading, writing, painting or any other hobby that enables us to use the left side of our brain helps improve our intuition. Both hemispheres of our brains work together, but when we improve our creative skills, we also improve our perception and recognition skills, such as recognizing faces, emotions and little things easily missed by an ordinary eye. These are gifts we can use to improve our intuitive skills as well. Once we know what the left and right sides of the brain do to our thinking and feeling, we learn to tell the difference in a given situation if the information our subconscious is passing us is coming from the left or the right side. Meaning, are we thinking or are we feeling a particular thing? You can quickly tell the difference between thinking and feeling with more practice.
3. Become comfortable with how you feel.
When you have a gut feeling about something, someone or someplace, listen to it. Analyze it. Figure out where this is coming from. Does it make you feel uncomfortable? Does it cause fear? Whatever it is, learn to face your fears and become comfortable with your feelings. Allowing fear to dominate your mind will only cause blockage in your progress.
4. Trust your feelings.
Learn to recognize your feelings as a different form of communication and information. For example, do you get flash images about certain situations? Do not dismiss these flash images. They mean something. Figuring out the message is your mission. Pay attention to your initial feeling when you meet someone or go to a place. Each situation is full of signs and symbols. Nothing is coincidental. It only takes a trained mind’s eye to see and interpret these signs and symbols. To achieve this, you have to learn to trust your feelings.
5. Spend more time in nature.
Nature is a gateway to our Higher Selves. It has a unique way of grounding us and making us feel complete, at ease and relaxed. All these things are necessary to get in touch with our intuitive side.
6. Listen to your body.
Our bodies give us many signs. Not just feelings, but we also feel physical symptoms when something does not feel right. Or the opposite; we see improvements in our physical conditions when something is going right. Listen to what your body is telling you. For this, a Body Scan Meditation can be very helpful. By allowing yourself 10 minutes at any time during the day, you can practice this kind of meditation, better recognize your physical symptoms, and work towards eliminating them from your life.
7. Analyze people more often and pay attention to how you feel around them.
It is not visible to an untrained eye, but each of us has an aura. We feel a certain way around certain people because of their vibrations. We are all made from energy, like everything else in the universe. Each frequency corresponds to a certain vibration detected by specific colours. Even though we can’t see it, we feel it. That’s why some people make us feel at home and relaxed right from the start, and some people don’t. Trust your first judgment.
8. Pay attention to your dreams.
Dreams are messages given to us by our subconscious minds. When we can’t notice certain things about ourselves and others or try to suppress certain feelings in our daily lives, our subconscious mind does not stop taking notes. It gives us messages and answers in our dreams. Take note of your dreams and try to figure out what they mean. Get a good dream interpretation dictionary but also, instead of taking these interpretations literally, apply them to your own reality.
9. Learn to detach yourself from situations.
If you want to be more in tune with your intuitive side, you need to learn how to become detached from situations and how they make you feel. It sort of sounds cold and perhaps selfish, but think of it this way: To come to an objective conclusion, you must let go of your fears, subjectivity and feelings. Perhaps you find yourself in a situation that reminds you of a past experience. If you dive into this new situation with the frame of mind and state of heart that past experience had put you in, you will be clouding your judgement, and you won’t be able to see things clearly and objectively. This requires complete honesty with yourself and is not an easy thing to do sometimes. But with meditation, you can certainly make faster progress.
10. Keep a journal of events.
Take notes every time you notice and feel something and watch the progress and see if you were right or wrong with your guess or your gut feeling. When you find out you were wrong, try to analyze if maybe you were not paying attention to your feelings but instead, you were acting upon your thinking. A journal will help you see the details you would otherwise forget in time. It is a great tool to learn from your experiences and strengthen your intuition.
The article 10 Simple Ways to Improve Your Intuition was originally published here.
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