If you want to develop intuition, the best thing you can do is start meditating. When our minds become still, we are apt to be more aware of sensations, niggling thoughts or feelings that don’t go away, or images that arise seemingly out of nowhere. Meditation gives us clarity about which of these thoughts or “gut instincts” are worth paying attention to and strengthens our intuitive muscles.
But there are many other ways you can develop intuition and good reasons why you should want to. Intuition helps protect and guide you in life. It helps with decision making. Spending time in nature, practicing a form of movement, such as yoga, and regularly being creative all build intuitive powers within. Fundamentally, if you want to hone your intuitive perceptions, you need to listen with the right side of your brain.
Let’s explore what intuition is, how it’s beneficial to our lives, and how to strengthen it.
What is Intuition?
Intuition refers to the ability to understand or know something without conscious reasoning or logical analysis. It is often described as a gut feeling or a hunch that comes from within. There may not appear to be any clear or logical explanation for why one knows or feels a certain way.
Intuition is thought to be a natural ability that humans possess, and it is often associated with creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making, which is more of a right-brain function. It is unconscious information bubbling up from within that gives us wisdom or knowingness about a situation.
Intuition is not magical. But it mirrors the fact that our brains are an amazing storehouse of all the information we’ve ever come across and possibly inherited. It’s our brains ultra-fast processing speed of information that our conscious/logical minds cannot always catch right away.
Examples of Intuition
What actually is “a gut feeling”? Here are some ways intuition may show up for you:
- A repeating negative thought about someone or something despite a normal outward appearance of the person
- Recurring dreams or nightmares
- Your face tightens or your body angles away from someone instinctively
- Lightbulb moments/flashes of insight
- Reading between the lines/non-verbal understanding
- A sinking feeling when making a big decision or an instinctive urge to say “yes” to something
- A flash of an image in your mind showing you an answer to a decision you have to make
Why Intuition May Have Developed
Scientists believe the function of intuition, which can be bodily cues about our environment like faster heart beats and muscle movements and heightened emotions, developed in order to escape danger. It is an instinct that helped humans quickly make a felt-sense choice about their environment and urged them to act.
Personal safety expert and author of the must-read book The Gift of Fear, Gavin deBecker, says there’s nothing woo-woo about intuition; that it’s simply a survival mechanism humans have (related to the fear function) to protect them from danger and threat. It can happen at lightening speed because danger does. Our brain processes information, such as a micro-expression on someone’s face, quicker than our conscious mind can often grab it. Thus, what we call intuition is really just data processed at a subconscious level.
People rely on their intuition when they lack sufficient information or time to make a decision, or when the situation is complex or ambiguous. Yet, intuition can also be influenced by past experiences, knowledge, and emotions, and it is not always accurate or reliable. Therefore, it is important to balance intuition with rational thinking and critical analysis to make sound decisions.
Why Developing Intuition is Good for You
Developing your intuition is good because it helps you make better decisions, increases creativity, and enhances self-awareness. Also, intuition guides you towards what will ultimately serve you in life, such as a choice between two job options or which man to date or not. Furthermore, it can literally save your life.
The safety expert mentioned above, Gavin deBecker, relates a story in The Gift of Fear about a woman escaping being murdered by using her intuition. Consciously, she didn’t know for sure her rapist was planning to kill her, but when he left her bed, she instinctively followed behind him quietly and made her escape out her front door.
Turns out, the man went to the kitchen to get a knife and had murdered his previous victim! In the book, you’ll see all the red flags (her intuition!) she ignored when she first met the man outside of her building. Thus, developing our perception of our gift of intuition may just save ours, or someone’s, life.
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How to Develop Intuition
There are many ways you can increase your intuitive instincts. Mainly, you’ll want to quiet the louder, more logical voice in your mind and do practices that help you listen to your body and use your abstract thinking. This is because, while intuitive impressions can come from a place of logic, and often do, the information often comes from our unconscious or subconscious minds.
Additionally, intuition speaks in ways that the rational brain doesn’t necessarily hear. Intuition will not say, “Hey you! Don’t go out with that guy!” or “This job will suck!” But it will, instead, make your palms sweat every time you’re around someone or give you tension in your stomach at every thought of starting a new position.
Here are 9 things you can practice to become in-tune with your inner compass- your intuition. These will help you learn to decipher what is real intuition or just your thoughts and judgments or normal ideas about a situation.
1) Meditation Helps Develop Intuition
Being the best method to increase intuition, meditation helps calm the mind and allow you to be aware of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. The more we meditate, the better our mental health improves and we can suss out what is mental clutter or our own issues from what is our intuition trying to actually tell us something. Try to sit quietly every day for at least 10-15 minutes just focusing on your breath and non-judgmentally being aware of yourself.
2) Body Exercises and Scanning
Movement helps quiet the thinking mind and gets you in-tune with your body, which is often how intuition speaks (that gut feeling). Yoga, weight training, or even taking a brisk walk, if done with the intention of allowing yourself to drop out of your mind, can increase your awareness of physical sensations that may be your intuition speaking to you.
Body scanning also helps develop intuition. Try this: Stand up and say something true to yourself such as “My name is such-and-such and I am 45 years old,” or whatever. Notice any movements in your body such as leaning forward, standing taller, having a relaxed face.
Then, say something false such as, “I am the color blue,” or “I have pickles for feet,” or whatever. Notice shifts in your body. You may start to lean backwards or turn one way, or scrunch your face up. This will help you learn ways your body scans for truth and lies.
3) Reflecting on Your Past
Reflecting on past situations that were crossroads or important times in life will help you develop intuition. Think back on one moment and ask yourself if there were any red flags you ignored. Were there signs to go in a better direction, such as you always felt joy around one date and confusion around another (but for some reason you went with the latter)? Learning to recognize how intuition was trying to work for us in our past will help us decipher our instincts better now.
For example, when I was 21, I met a man who made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know why, he was nice, he was well-dressed, and respectful on the surface. But every time I saw him I got this knot in my stomach and my brows furrowed. Then, I allowed myself to go to an event with him and wound up having to spend the night at his place because it got too late to drive the more than an hour’s ride home.
While there, I had a dream that he put his arm around me trying to make out. I woke with a jolt. Not a moment later, he was right next to me asking if I wanted to “cuddle.” I hopped up and drove home in the middle of the night. Looking back, there were so many red flags that my intuition was warning me of that I rationalized away.
4) Spending Time in Nature
When we get outdoors in the wild Earth we become one again with our animal natures. (Well, maybe not that extreme!) But being in nature does open our 5 senses and helps to clear the mind and quell negative emotions. Take time to regularly walk in the woods or sit by a lake or creek. Just listen, see, touch the ground, and feel the air on your skin. Get out of your critical thinking brain and practice being aware of the information your senses are giving you. This listening to the senses will strengthen your intuitive powers.
5) Journaling
Like reflecting, journaling helps us decipher information coming up from within. Journaling can be a place to empty mental burdens and stuck emotions. When we allow ourselves to be completely vulnerable in writing, letting go of judgment and telling ourselves the truth of our lives, we free ourselves up to hear the wisdom within and learn to trust our own judgment and reasoning.
Not only that, but journaling can be a place to write out daydreams and first impressions. Often, daydreams are information trying to point us in a better direction or away from something. We can use journaling to record and look back on these impressions to see how they played out in real life. This will help you see where you got it wrong and where intuition was truly guiding you.
6) Art Helps Develop Intuition
Art unlocks the creative powers of your mind. Putting your hands to work in a creative way allows your critical thinking brain to relax and the abstract, problem-solving brain to work it’s wonders. Because intuition operates more from the creative, right-side of the brain, any art we do bolsters this tool within and gives us greater access to it’s profound gifts. Doodling at the end of the day, painting, making music- doing anything artistic regularly gets you in touch with your intuition.
For instance, in 2015 I went through a few week’s period of regularly making paper mache art. Suddenly, I had a series of 3 dreams where a former residence of mine burned down. Days later, a friend called to tell me that indeed, that place burned in the California Valley Fires of 2015. Now, this was more of a psychic experience but could also be intuition working. I believe my working with art allowed me to be open to unconscious information and deep intuitive impressions.
7) Dream Work
Dream work is a great path for self-development and to increase intuition. By learning to understand dream symbols and decoding the abstract information they present, you’re flexing the muscle of intuition; of sensing meaning through seemingly non-logical modes of communication. Keep a journal by your bedside to write down the days events and overarching feelings before you go to bed. When you wake, record the dreams and emotions from them and reflect on what meaning may lie within it. You’ll get to know how to read your own mind’s symbols and guidance.
8) Obeying Gut Instincts
Gut instinct refers to a sudden and often inexplicable feeling or intuition that guides our decision-making without relying on conscious reasoning or analysis.
Take time regularly to notice gut instincts. Do an experiment where you follow through with them and record the results. This will help you know and hone in on what is a true gut instinct for you or just other internal distractions or informational “junk”.
9) Limit Stimulants and Technology
Things like coffee and caffeine and too much time on social media and devices can cloud your intuition. You may think your palms are sweating due to a gut feeling but really you’ve had too much caffeine! Similarly, you may think that other parent from your son’s school is a creep but really you’ve been listening to too many true crime podcasts and he resembles a bad character!
Take time to cleanse your information intake valves, so-to-speak. Eat well and turn off your devices to clear your mind and body system from too many technology stimulants and junk food. This will help you learn what is actually coming from you or what are distractions from other stuff.
Developing Intuition is a Powerful Life Tool
In conclusion, intuition is a powerful tool that can guide us through life’s uncertainties and protect us from potential harm. By taking the time to develop our intuition through various practices such as meditation, dream work, spending time in nature, journaling, and reflecting on our past experiences, we can tap into our inner wisdom and make more informed decisions.
Trusting our gut feelings and instincts can lead to a deeper sense of self-awareness and a greater appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. As we continue to cultivate our intuition, we can live more authentic and fulfilling lives, with a greater sense of purpose and direction.