Have you ever been tempted to take one of those ‘I’ll teach you to develop your intuition’ courses that we see so many spiritual influencers offer nowadays?
Have you ever witnessed someone else talking about how they just ‘followed their guidance’ and it led them to their perfect career/partner/life situation - and felt like they must have something that you simply don't?
Have you ever felt like there are those magical people ‘out there’ who have this special ability to connect to their truth, their guidance, this ‘higher wisdom’ and you are just someone who seems to not have access to that?
Do you feel like intuition is maybe something you’re either born with or not - and you must be one of those people who is simply missing the gene?
If so, I want you to know that you’re not alone.
So many people in the spiritual and self help world have mystified the concept of intuition to the point of making it seem like it’s an illusive gift that requires years of refinement and mentoring to achieve or that truly IS something reserved only for ‘special’ people.
Many people are ‘selling’ the idea that they are an empath/intuitive and charging massive amounts of money to do ‘readings’ on people - claiming that they hold wisdom that others don’t have access to that can be used to change/improve others lives.
While this concept of having access to higher wisdom and guidance has always been something that humans have both sought out and have seen as being something that’s deeply shrouded in mystery - it feels like even more than before we are living in a culture that is making intuition this deeply ‘special’ thing that can be monetized in the form of selling courses, readings and other ‘resources’ to help people connect to what they are being told they can’t connect to on their own.
Today, I want to remind you that all of this comes from a place of either misunderstanding or manipulation.
The reality is, intuition is something we ALL have access to, and it’s something that ALL of us have the ability to develop in ourselves if we are willing to take the time to do so.
The reality is we are all ‘hearing’ from our intuition pretty much on a regular basis - we just don’t know how to IDENTIFY when our intuition is speaking to us, and we don’t know how to listen when it does.
The truth of the matter is this - it’s not that any of us lack CONNECTION to our intuition - it’s really that we either don’t know how to understand the language our intuition is speaking, or we are so deeply trapped in our conditioning/culture that actually following THROUGH with what our intuition is saying to us is really, really challenging.
So let’s break all of this down today.
Let’s get you to a place of understanding what intuition is, how it speaks and how you can foster your relationship with your intuition so that it can become a part of your guidance system.
Your Intuition Is Speaking To You Right Now
Have you ever noticed that every time you get around a certain person or group of people, your gut tightens and you feel uneasy?
Have you ever noticed that you can’t ever make yourself ‘happy’ in a certain work environment, no matter how much you try to adjust your thoughts or how much you try to adjust the externals of the job to match what you think you would want or need?
Have you ever found yourself doing something you think you ‘should’ do in terms of your career, your love life, your friendships, your life in general - and even though it all makes sense on paper, there is a part of you that constantly feels a kind of resistance or repulsion?
Have you ever found yourself fantasizing about visiting a place you’ve never been before and don’t actually know that much about, but there's a deep sense inside you that you need to go there?
Have you ever found yourself quitting a job or leaving a relationship because you simply couldn't stand it - even though on the outside you were doing the ‘right’ or ‘successful’ thing?
Have you ever experienced your digestion or your ability to think and communicate clearly shutting down every time you get around a certain person or as you have pursued a career path?
Have you ever noticed that you get into a ‘flow state’ really easily when engaging with certain activities, where with other activities no matter how hard you try to concentrate or force yourself to work on, you find that it’s a constant slog and effort?
Have you ever noticed yourself being able to retain information about a certain topic without any effort, whereas with other topics you literally can’t force yourself to remember a single fact?\
Have you ever found yourself feeling really sad, down or unhappy for no reason in a particular environment - where you matter what you do your emotional state is just ‘off’, where as in other environments you find that you can easily find yourself in a state of joy with seemingly no effort at all?
Have you ever felt anger? Sadness? Resentment? Tension in your body? Expansion in your heart? Inexplicable joy or relaxation? A full body release?
All of that was your intuition talking to you.
The reality is, your intuition isn’t something that’s ‘out there’, nor is it something that you have to develop any kind of special ‘skill’ to hear and access.
Rather, for most of us the process of learning how to hear and then follow our intuition is more of an UN learning than it is a learning.
Your intuition is an inherent part of your being - and it’s one you can’t actually get rid of or turn ‘off’. Rather, the way most of us miss our intuition or feel disconnected from it is through the cultural education we get around how we are ‘supposed’ to respond to and think about our emotions, feelings and inner sense.
We get ‘cut off’ from our intuition because our intuition isn’t based in logic and reason the way our culture teaches us that ALL of our choices must be - but rather it’s based in feeling.
Learning to connect to our intuition is about learning how to FEEL again, learning how to HONOR our feelings and most importantly, learning how to follow our investigated and processed feelings even when they don’t ‘make sense’ to the outside world.
How Culture Teaches You To Shut Down Your Connection
You see, in our culture we are trained to IGNORE our intuition at pretty much every turn.
We are trained to see our emotions as hindrances to our progress and happiness.
We are trained to see our bodies and our feelings as things that ‘get in the way’ of us being and doing what we ‘should’ be doing.
We are trained to believe that we ‘should’ or ‘have to’ become a certain kind of person who lives in a particular kind of way - who’s interested in specific things that are culturally acceptable, that has a culturally acceptable personality, that values what culture values and lives how culture tells us to live - at the expense of taking the time to actually learn about who and what WE are and what kind of lives WE want to live.
Our culture is all about how things LOOK vs how they FEEL.
Our culture, for the most part, values profits over people.
Our culture tells us that we have to look a certain way in order to be considered ‘healthy’ and therefore ‘respectable.’
Our culture tells us that we have to work specific careers making a certain amount of money in order to be safe, loved and ‘good enough.’
Our culture tells us that there are certain ways we have to express in relationships - and that being ‘partnered’ in a highly specific way is what determines how valuable and desirable you are.
Our culture tells us that we should all have very similar goals in life - and that when we DON’T align with those goals or when we want something different that this means that there’s something wrong with us.
Our culture tells us that if we aren’t pursuing what culture tells us to pursue that this means we’re lazy, unmotivated and aren’t ‘taking responsibility’ for ourselves.
Our culture tells us that if we don’t find happiness in the pursuit of what culture tells us to pursue, that this means that there is something fundamentally wrong with us - if we experience, depression, anxiety, burnout, an incapacity to stay motivated and ‘on track’ that this means that we need therapy, self help or spiritual guidance so that we can get back ‘on track.’
Our culture tells us that it is the outward appearance that matters - that what we are feeling or experiencing on the inside has no merit and is to be ignored or even ‘fixed’ if it doesn’t ‘match’ what culture tells us we SHOULD be feeling.
Culture tells us that we need to be driven, professional, authentic but not vulnerable, self responsible, wise, poised, rich, thin, perfectly polished and HAPPY. That we must be working a ‘respectable’ career, making x amount of money, dressing in a particular way, married, having babies and contributing to society through consuming as much as possible without looking like we are excessive - rather just looking ‘luxurious.’
And our culture tells us that we should be pursuing all of the above because they are going to make us happy, fulfill us and lead us to that state of safety and security that we are all looking for.
In order to live the above life, we have to shut ourselves off from our emotions.
We have to see any aspect of self that doesn’t align with the above ends as being ‘wrong’ and something we need to ‘fix’ in ourselves.
We have to override any sense of overwhelm, exhaustion, depression, feeling in the body or lack of fulfillment that we may experience as we pursue all of these things in order to keep ‘pressing on’ and doing what we ‘should be doing.’
We are trained to be in a constant state of seeking external approval - and external approval that can really never come because no matter what we accomplish, no matter who we become, no matter what we accumulate or experience - it’s NEVER going to be enough because our culture is set up in a way that makes SURE we always feel like we need to be ‘onto the next thing.’
In order to live this way, we have to be disconnected from our intuition, because our intuition, if listened to, would be guiding us in a totally different direction.
The TRUTH About Why We Don’t Listen To Our Intuition
The reality is, if all of us started to actually LISTEN to our intuition overnight - the world as we know it would have to radically change.
If we were to shift from a culture that lived for how things look and that lives for profit over people, to a culture that prioritized our actual lived, felt experience - most of the systems we have would have to be deeply questioned and restructured.
Because *most* of what we are doing as a culture doesn’t actually FEEL good, and doesn’t actually ALIGN with what’s most beneficial for us as a species long-term.
You see, our intuition, our feelings, our senses and our emotions are all about the long term.
Our intuition isn’t about immediate pleasure, immediate outcome or pleasing people so that we are seen as ‘good’.
Our intuition is about alignment.
Our intuition is about full self expression.
Our intuition is interested in what’s actually healthy, what’s supportive of life, what helps us to deeply connect to ourselves, nature and others.
Our intuition is all about reconnecting to our HUMANITY and living from a place of honoring what has actual value, and shifting away from what we are ‘taught’ to value that has no value in real reality.
Our intuition is all about reality. How things ARE vs. how they LOOK.
The intuition is about our lived experience - it’s not about what the external world can look at and determine to be good or bad based on a set of rules that has nothing to do with actual reality.
The intuition is about self actualization and true fulfillment - and what is required to reach THAT is oftentimes totally at odds with what culture is telling us we ‘should’ be doing.
Your intuition isn’t trying to stop you from being successful, from having what you want and from getting where you want to go - even though it can seem that way sometimes when we start to listen to our feelings and in so doing realize that our feelings are NOT supporting us in going in the direction we thought we were supposed to be going in - rather your intuition is trying to help you align with a path that would ACTUALLY bring you health, balance and happiness.
What will ACTUALLY bring you health, balance, fulfillment and happiness may just be something very different from what CULTURE is telling you will.
Which is why it can be so hard to listen to our intuition.
Because for most of us, it’s going to drive us AWAY from lifestyles that revolve around getting the approval of culture. It means driving us away from lifestyles that get us approval from our families, our churches, our governments, our educational institutions, our social media influencers and our spiritual guides.
Our intuition is going to take us on a path of letting GO of over-achieving, over consuming, over producing and living for externals and it’s going to drive us inwards. It’s going to take us on a path of learning how to validate ourselves, learning how to live for how things FEEL vs. how they LOOK and learning how to assess whether something is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on actual long term outcomes vs. what other people tell us ‘should’ be the outcome.
Our intuition is going to drive us deep into our own humanity - a place where we are going to have access to empathy and awareness of just how destructive our current culture is to both us and to those around us, and it’s going to drive us to wanting to REBEL from this in a healthy way.
Which again, is often going to mean that we then start to live lives that other people DON’T approve of, DON’T understand, DON’T validate and DON’T value.
It’s going to mean having to let go of who we thought we would be, and having to let go of the path we thought was going to make us happy.
It’s going to mean having to PROCESS all the painful emotions we have been suppressing as we have tried to live in culture, and having to wade through what those emotions were and are telling us about what is and isn’t actually sustainable and healthy.
It’s going to mean having to slow down and listen to our bodies that may be telling us that how we are living our lives right now is harmful - even if they ‘look good’ on the surface.
It’s going to mean having to trust our own path even when our path is messy, complicated and confusing - rather than defaulting to just ‘following the rules’ of culture and going with the flow of what everyone else is doing.
It’s going to mean having to go through those ‘dark nights of the soul’ where we grieve the old way, where we grieve the pain we’ve experienced, where we grieve the ways we were taught to sacrifice ourselves and where we don’t yet see where we are going or what we are becoming - we just know we are letting go of what was without anything there to replace it.
It’s going to mean losing love and approval. It’s going to mean looking like you’re giving up sometimes. It’s going to mean giving up the image you have had to craft of who you are. It’s going to mean having to question your values and having to reassess what is truly beneficial. It’s going to mean looking at all the places you have been unknowingly participating in the harm being perpetuated on this planet and having to shift away from those ways of life.
It’s going to mean dying to who you thought you were, over and over again, so that you can make room for the true you to emerge and then giving yourself permission to actually LIVE as that person even in the face of rejection and lack of validation.
It’s a lot.
It’s not easy.
Which is why most of us don’t do it.
Because hearing and listening to your intuition is an exercise in stepping away from our culture - and that’s a BIG and SCARY thing to do if we don’t know what to expect.
What To Expect When You Start Listening
What I want to leave you with today is this - listening to your intuition is something you are going to learn how to do SLOWLY.
There’s no ‘one way’ to get to a place where you have access to your intuition - rather it’s going to be a process of learning to slow down, learning to listen to your body, learning to FEEL how things FEEL, learning to be with your emotions and give them space to speak to you, learning to question your thoughts and perceptions and learning to challenge the deep, core belief that you must be approved of by others in order to be deemed good, worthy and safe.
This is a long process for most of us - and that’s why I have my Youtube Channel, this blog, the Mystery School and my coaching.
That’s why I encourage you to read books by Martha Beck.
That’s why I encourage you to start doing somatic work.
That’s why I encourage you to find a therapist who is there to help you understand yourself vs. looking for someone who is trying to ‘fix you’ so that you will do what you are ‘supposed’ to do.
Because this work isn’t easy, and it takes a lot of deconstructing and a lot of faith.
We have to be willing to take the numbing agent off of our emotions and bodies, and we have to come out of SHAME in order to start to process what we are actually feeling and in order to discover WHY we are feeling how we are, and what our feelings are leading us towards.
Which is hard.
It’s painful.
It’s like opening an email inbox that we haven’t opened in months, and being flooded with all sorts of messages - some in languages we don’t know how to speak.
When we first start to listen, it’s going to be a lot of UNlearning. It’s going to be a bunch of realizing that what we thought was true isn’t what we believed we needed to be and do is actually harmful, that who we thought we had to be isn’t who we are and it’s going to be a rude awakening that we need to learn to love, support and validate ourselves because the world is likely not going to be loving, supportive or validating of us walking this path.
Then it’s going to be about taking slow, steady steps towards what actually FEELS right even when we don’t understand ‘why’, as well as taking steps away from what doesn’t feel right even when we can’t explain the reason.
It’s going to mean letting go more than it means taking on.
All of this is A LOT.
It’s not easy.
It’s not straight-forward.
It’s going to be two steps forward, one step back.
Spirals of learning and repetition.
Many moments of doubt and distrust.
Many moments of thinking you’ve ‘lost it’ and are totally out to lunch.
Many moments of synchronicity and seeing life from a whole new perspective.
It’s all of it.
And it’s only for the very brave.
I hope this article has helped you start to conceptualize what it means to listen to your intuition - it means listening to your FEELINGS - and that is a big deal.
Start to use some of the tools and resources listed above, and see where the path takes you.
One step at a time.
<3
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Check out The Mystery School Here
