HONE YOUR Intuition By Using It More

We are all intuitive beings, but as we leave our realm of childlike wonder, we become more aware of our physical surroundings and social impact and we listen less to our inner voice, putting more and more trust into our environmental factors. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but as with everything in our universe, a balance of awareness is ideal. So how do we get it back?

Everything rewarding in life does not come without practice. A yoga practice, a meditation practice, mastering a musical instrument, you name it. The same goes for discovering our inner guide. Our intuition is always conversing with us, but we’ve learned to disregard it to make deducted choices so often that we’ve completely shut it out.

Just because we have trained ourselves to quiet our inner voice, however, doesn’t mean it’s gone. We can still listen for it. Consider it in daily, menial tasks, like commuting. Have you ever felt a soft urge to take a side street home instead of your regular drive? Perhaps that tiny internal nudge was warning you of the road closure ahead that added 20 minutes to your drive and put dinner behind schedule.

While that’s just one minor example, it gives us an idea of how subtly our intuition is trying to reach us. Recognizing it is the first step in your practice. It might come to you as a hunch or gut feeling that you experience emotionally, but it may even be more physical, like a sour taste in your mouth, a sense of unease that leaves you dizzy, lightheaded, or with a bubbling feeling in the core of your stomach. Pay attention to these cues—your energy is picking up on something.

A great way to interact with your intuition is to start an internal dialogue with yourself. Going back to the commuting example, imagine yourself at the wheel, seeing a turnoff coming up that you don’t usually take but you feel subtly compelled. Ask yourself, “what’s the harm in trying this turnoff? How long will it delay me if my intuition is miscommunicating with me?” Give yourself some reasoning and check-in to see if you elicit any physical or emotional responses based on your formation of a decision.

You can practice your intuition when it comes to your nourishment, as well. Perhaps you’ve given yourself a strict regimen of smoothies and salads, but you feel you really don’t want that smoothie first thing in the morning. Perhaps your body is informing you that you need something warm, cooked, well-spiced. Listen. Tune in. Deliver what you think your body is telling you and see how you feel.

Practice this with every action of every day, within reason of your schedule of course. Waking up in the morning and feeling like you don’t want to go to work is not a sustainable practice, but perhaps it is a message that a relationship with a colleague needs some TLC, or that you need a role change, or perhaps a career shift. Take small cues, discuss them with yourself privately, and honor them. Heed them when possible, and check-in. The more you practice, the stronger and more reliable your intuition will become.