Hunches, ‘gut’ feelings, listening to your heart and insight – these are ways of describing that ability we all possess yet often discount – intuition. Intuition can be used for more than getting a glimpse of the future. Creativity, self-improvement and inspired action all come from listening to our intuition.
Here’s an interesting piece on intuition, originally taken from an article called “What is Intuition”. It’s about how to recognize and how to use intuition in your daily life. We’ve reproduced it here for your reading convenience :)
What is Intuition?
The dictionary definition of intuition is “quick and ready insight;” and “the act or process of coming to direct knowledge without reasoning or inferring.” It is derived from the Latin word “intueri” which means “to see within.” It is a way of knowing, of sensing the truth without explanations.
Someone my not consider themselves to be particularly spiritual or metaphysically adept yet may be quite good at following their gut instincts. What goes on in front of the veil (in the conscious mind) is mostly about survival and procreation, and not much else, so some would say.
Getting The Message
Beyond that, things are a bit more of a mystery, and we deal with it accordingly by lumping things together in fairly broad categories which are treated somewhat totemically. Whatever we don’t understand we tend to put on a pedestal, treat as a god or a devil. It can be quite frustrating when we are GETTING the message, but NOT GETTING any logical reasoning along with it. When a person first becomes alert to intuitive messages it may seem disturbing not to understand the importance or unimportance of the messages.
Explanations usually come along with intuitive messages on a “need to know basis.” When the bigger, more important messages need to surface, they will, so pay attention! Listen with your heart. We know know that the heart has many more neurons than it would need just for circulation of blood.
Test Drive Your Intuition
By following through on your everyday hunches, you are actually taking test drives, virtually honing in on your listening skills. These skills will serve you well. Everyone is apparently somewhat psychic, but many people just have flabby psychic muscles. Learning to listen to your inner dialog tones and strengthens this muscle. The more you use your intuition the better you get at it. When we choose to ignore our gut instincts, we are only hurting ourselves. The holistic or wholistic movement is about healing this problem.
Listening to your intuition is the essence of art and creativity and soulful living. Intuition is what you use to find the purpose of your life and your place in the world. Once you awaken your inner guide by unlocking the wisdom of your subconscious mind, you already know what to do. Being objective is harder when you are emotionally involved. It is more mature to admit your emotions as a factor than to deny them.
A Philosophical Standpoint
In philosophy, intuition is the power of obtaining knowledge that cannot be acquired either by inference or observation, by reason or experience. As such, intuition is thought of as an original, independent source of knowledge, since it is designed to account for just those kinds of knowledge that other sources do not provide. Knowledge of necessary truths and of moral principles is sometimes explained in this way.
Energy is the essence of all that is. The desk in your room that you see as being solid wood is actually atoms and is not solid at all. In fact it is a great deal more open space than solidity. Our bodies, when broken down to their smallest levels are also energetic frequencies. Even Einstein said that most of his innovation was actually just good guessing. A talent is something that some people are born with while others have to work at it. The greatest artists usually study and imitate the techniques of the ones who came before them. In fact a museum had exactly that as its original purpose. It was intended as a place to learn techniques, inspiration, and intuition.
