Intuition

Over the past couple years I have begun to reacquaint myself with my intuition. It’s been an interesting process and is difficult to write about because of the limits of language. But I’d like to give it a shot.

For me, inherent in the process of getting in touch with intuition is the feeling that it is a ‘blind’ endeavor. This process isn’t something I’m going through in a very concious way… how could it be? I’ve been as conscious of my progress as possible, but there is a frustrating outer limit to my ‘cognitive body’. In order to better hone my intuition I continually have to go beyond the thinking process. In metaphor, it feels as though I can only walk so far down the path with my eyes open before I am blindfolded for the rest of the journey.

As I ponder I am tempted to write: “intuition is so subtle it can be barely perceptible”. But as I sit with that idea for a moment I am aware that if I weren’t so accustomed to letting my cognitive self run the show it really wouldn’t be subtle at all. Just because this magic happens ‘behind the back of the CEO’ doesn’t mean that it isn’t a powerfully commanding force.

A year or so ago I found myself sitting in traffic, sandwiched between a pickup truck in front of me and the grill of a dump truck behind. We were stopped at a red light and although the dump truck had rolled up slowly and stopped successfully, I was a little uncomfortable with how close it had pulled up behind me. While waiting for the light to change my imagination conjured an image of the dump truck driver attacking me, ramming my car in an act of aggression. As my imagination ran wild I wondered how I might save myself, with the other truck blocking me in front. I considered whether I could escape by turning up onto the curb to the right and concluded I could not. A feeling of panic started to rise in me until the ‘CEO’ kicked in with thoughts which included “get a grip on yourself woman”, “wow, I must be under too much stress right now” and “stop catastrophizing”. No sooner had I put the brakes on my terrible fantasy than the light turned green  and traffic began to move. All was forgotten and my thoughts turned to my destination when suddenly the dump truck hit my car, bumping it forward. The CEO said: “oh no, now we’re going to have to exchange information and I’m going to have to deal with my insurance company, what a pain”. I put the car in ‘park’ because I was preparing to get out, when the truck hit it again. In short, the dump truck hit my car repeatedly from behind, pushing it (and me in it) all the way through the intersection, over some train tracks and right up to the next intersection. I wasn’t able to drive out of the way because of all the traffic in front of me and beside. I don’t feel the need to write out all the details of the events that followed except to say that I was not intentionally attacked by the driver. But it wasn’t until the dust settled and the police had gone that I remembered those moments prior to the crash: my panic-inducing ‘vision’ of being hit repeatedly by that dump truck.

Not so subtle after all.

The problem in this case, and probably in many, is how to respond. Have there been times when I’ve had sudden worries or envisioned a scenario going badly and everything has turned out fine? Yes, plenty. So am I to respond with life-preserving heroics every time my imagination runs wild? That likely wouldn’t go well for me. So the question remains. How do we recognize intuition and how are we to respond?

Francis Cholle offers three ways to listen to that internal voice and allow its guidance into your everyday life:

“1 – Keep a journal. Writing your thoughts and feelings down on paper—even if you “think” you have little to say—helps the nonconscious mind open up. You may find you’re writing words and phrases that don’t make sense to you, or stir emotional responses rather than intellectual responses.

2 – Turn off Your Inner Critic. Often times we rationalize away those voices within. This time, listen without judgment. Allow the inner dialogues to happen without fear or ridicule.

3 – Find a Solitary Place. A place where you can allow emotions to flow freely is an imperative part of finding and retaining the building blocks of intuition. Here you may also want to create an emotional connection to an object, a color, a piece of music or literature – anything that will allow feelings to stir that are solely from within and do not carry intellectual or rational reasoning.”

(From Psychology Today)

Yesterday while at work I was struck with the urge to go home during my lunch break. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense: I brought food with me to work already, it takes 10-12 minutes to drive each way which leaves me only 8-10 minutes to spend at home, and there was nothing particular that I wanted to do there. I gave it some thought and the result was “No, that would be silly, I’m not going to drive home at lunch”. Then I stopped thinking about it for a few minutes and the decision came back again: I would drive home at lunch. When I walked in I was surprised to find the house full of sewer fumes. I traced the problem to the main bathroom where the toilet bowl was not holding water, so the trap beyond the bowl was open-air. Had I not gone home at lunch I would have arrived no sooner than 6 hours later. I assume the fumes would have been a whole lot worse by then. My pets would not have been pleased!

I believe that intuition is usually the result of unconsciously processing a multitude of barely-perceptible cues. A momentary shadow, a glint in the corner of our vision, a flash of an expression on someone’s face. But sometimes (like when I went home at lunch) there is no way to explain it with cues; at least not in the realm of our basic senses. So how do we explain it? Should we chalk it up to dumb luck? Delve into the esoteric? What do you ‘think’ about intuition? I’d love to hear stories of your intuitive moments… feel free to share in the comments!

P.s., If you work in a helping profession how does intuition play into your practice with clients? I’d like to write a ‘Part II’ to address this specifically, but some further reflection is in order first!

[optinform]