5 Steps to Becoming More Intuitive
A gut feeling. A hunch. Sneaking suspicion. A premonition. Sixth sense.
We’ve all had this experience from time to time. You don’t know how, but you just know something.
We call this phenomenon intuition, and we generally believe someone is either born with this “gift” or not.
It’s true that some people are naturally more sensitive to their intuition, but anyone can become more intuitive with practice.
And it’s 100% worth your time and energy to develop this skill of inner knowing, particularly in the times we are living in now when there is so much input coming at us constantly.
The velocity of information keeps increasing exponentially and your intuition and discernment are vital tools for making sense of it all and knowing what to pay attention to.
There is more than one path to walk in this life – so how do you know what is best FOR YOU? Your intuition… your inner wisdom.
How do you become more fully your authentic self? Your intuition guides you there.
How do you embody your truth? Your intuition is a big part of it.
Intuition is how you access more of your pleasure.
An unshakeable awareness and trust in your inner knowing is incredibly empowering.
What exactly is intuition?
Our culture tends to regard intuitives with some measure of suspicion.
I know I used to think intuition was a bit “woo-woo”. I used to think intuition wasn’t really “real.” It could be explained as luck, or coincidence, or imagination.
Maybe you can relate? Maybe you’re not really sure you’re buying into this intuition thing yet?
The more I’ve learned about the body at the level of the nervous system, the more I’ve come to understand that intuition isn’t mysterious esoterica. It’s actually one of the subtle ways our bodies and our nervous systems process sensory information and communicate with our higher conscious awareness.
Intuitive abilities are rooted in survival, like instincts that helped us sense when a tiger was nearby, or where a water source might be, or that someone was trying to manipulate us.
We’re able to sense these things because parts of our nervous system are able to pick up on sensory cues in our environment before they come into our conscious awareness.
I’m sure you’ve had the experience of being able to FEEL someone is looking at you. You can try this for yourself the next time you’re out somewhere: try staring at the back of someone’s neck and see what happens. Unless they are super distracted, they will probably turn and look at you! They can sense someone’s eyes on them.
Your nervous system is processing billions of hits of information every day. If you had to consciously be aware of and filter through them all, you wouldn’t be able to function! Your body and brain have developed finely tuned perceptive abilities that let you pay attention to only what’s important and sift out the rest.
That means that a lot of sensing is happening below the level of your conscious awareness – in your subconscious. That is where your intuition is operating. If you are able to be sensitive to it, you can bring it into your conscious awareness more readily.
The majority of your nervous system - and the majority of the neurons in your body - is not in your brain, it’s elsewhere in your body. A large portion of neurons are in your gut, which might explain the phenomenon of a “gut feeling.”
So you can see that intuition is a real thing that happens when your nervous system picks up information that is normally outside your conscious awareness.
Not only can your nervous systems pick up on things that your conscious mind isn’t aware of yet, but you can also sense what will happen in the future!
There is some interesting research being done by the Heart Math Institute that shows that our psychophysiological systems are able to perceive things that haven’t even happened yet.
In one experiment researchers measured physiological responses of people viewing either neutral or frightening images. They were able to measure elevated responses in people shown the frightening images BEFORE the images even appeared. The people seemed to sense in advance when a frightening image was coming next, and the results were statistically significant.
Intuitive perception is a whole-body process where the nervous system, the heart, the gut, and the brain are all playing a role in sensing information and communicating with us.
Maybe she’s born with it…
Can you become more intuitive?
Most of us have turned down our sensitivity to our bodies and our intuition for a variety of reasons. Our culture doesn’t value this sensitivity, so we aren’t taught these skills. In fact, many of us, especially women, are taught that our bodies are chaotic and untrustable.
We also live in a world where there is constant high-volume external stimulation of all kinds – media, Instagram, news, etc, etc. It’s like being at a concert where you would never hear a whisper – it’s much harder to hear the subtle signs of your body and intuition when the external sensory environment is so loud.
But anyone can learn to be more intuitive with a little practice. Intuition is a skill you can get better and better at over time. Let’s dive in to a few simple steps to developing this skill.
5 Steps to Becoming More Intuitive
1. Develop more sensitivity to your body
Like the analogy of the concert, you need to turn down the volume on external stimulation in order to pick up on the subtle cues your body is sending.
As you become more sensitive and skilled, you will be able to drop in to your body as needed. But in the beginning, it can be helpful to set aside some time where you have the space to tune in to the sensations of your body.
Regularly noticing and attuning to the sensations inside your body helps develop this sensitivity.
2. Discerning yes and no in your body
Your body doesn’t speak in words, she speaks to you in sensation. To allow your intuition to guide you, it’s important to tune in to the sensation of your body’s yes and no.
Start to pay attention to the easy things, like, do I want fruit for breakfast? Or, do I want to wear those earrings?
To me, a yes feels open and expansive. I can feel it more in my heart, and a sensation of energy moving forward to the front of my body. It feels warm and light.
And for me, a no feels like a closing or a contraction. It feels more like the energy is moving back, or closing inward, or even maybe like there’s a wall. It can feel like a pit in my stomach.
What does yes and no feel like in your body?
With greater sensitivity and awareness, you will be able to feel your yes and no in the moment, instead of only realizing later on that something was happening you weren’t ok with.
3. Build trust
You build trust in your body and your intuition by following her cues when she speaks to you.
Every time you honor your body’s sensation or her yes/no, you’re building trust in her wisdom and inner knowing.
On the flip side, the more you disregard your body’s cues, the harder it will be to trust yourself when it’s important.
For example, if you’re exhausted but you do a HIIT workout anyway. Or you really feel like taking a bath, but you take a shower instead because it’s faster. Or your body is really wanting a hot meal, but you grab a granola bar instead because it’s more convenient.
Maybe you can think of some recent examples where you could practice honoring your body’s voice in small ways? Right now I’m thinking about how I often get busy and don’t take time to go to the bathroom or drink water!
Where are there opportunities for you to build trust in your intuition by following your body’s signals?
4. Tune out outside voices
When we have important decisions to make, we often have the impulse to seek input from friends, family, or trusted resources.
I know I’ve had this experience in the past, where I basically wanted someone to tell me what the right thing to do is! At times, I’ve spent a lot of energy reading, chatting, talking to people, mulling the decision over from all angles, asking other people for their opinion.
But when we look outside ourselves for answers, we cut ourselves off from our own intuitive voice.
Like the concert analogy, it makes it a lot harder to hear the voice of our own inner knowing when it’s being crowded out by a bunch of other peoples’ voices.
It’s really normal to seek wisdom when we have a big decision, but it’s important to tune in to your own intuition first before you take on a lot of outside opinions.
If you are going to talk to other people when you’re making a decision, pay attention to what’s happening in your body as you do. As someone is telling you what you should do, notice if you’re feeling contracted and closed off (no) or expansive (yes), or if you’re feeling chaotic and confused. Let your body be the final say.
5. Follow intuitive hits
Similar to building trust in your intuition by following your body’s cues, you can develop more sensitivity and trust by following your intuitive hits. These are times when something pops into your awareness seemingly out of nowhere, like “I should walk the long way home.” Or “I should call so-and-so.” Or “It would be nice to buy flowers today.” Or “Maybe I should research art classes.”
Not only does this build trust and sensitivity to your inner voice, it also often results in serendipity or coincidences that lead you into greater fullness, aliveness, and actualization.
I’ve experienced before where I followed an intuitive hit and suddenly it led to an opportunity opening up, or a chance meeting that led to something great. It’s really fun to see your intuition guiding you into kismet circumstances!
Now I’d love to hear from you – do you feel like you’re already intuitive or is it a skill you desire to expand? Leave me a comment and let me know!
If you haven’t already downloaded my free audio “Embody Your Feminine Wisdom,” it’s a guided embodiment practice that helps you drop in to your body’s wisdom and activates your connection to your intuition. Click here to download it now!
