A Radical Way To Grow Spiritually In A Relationship

by Lissa Rankin MD -

As you walk a spiritual path, do you ever struggle in relationships with those who are not in the same place in their personal/spiritual evolution as you might be? In his online program Integral Enlightenment, spiritual teacher Craig Hamilton breaks relationships into three categories:

1) Those who have no interest in your personal/spiritual evolution or their own
2) Those who are curious and interested in personal/spiritual evolution, but who aren’t as committed as you to the spiritual path
3) Those who are totally committed to doing their own work and growing with you in an active partnership (what he calls “evolutionary relationships”)

Evolutionary Relationships

So what is an “evolutionary relationship?” Craig teaches that an evolutionary relationship need not be about romance or sex at all.

In fact, that dimension can often complicate things. He says many of us have sense that there’s a potential for an extraordinary type of human relationship, marked by an unprecedented level of intimacy, vulnerability, authenticity, and transparency, essentially being with each other without any boundaries or barriers, being together truly beyond ego.

Many have sensed the potential to be in a relationship that’s always moving, not getting stuck in old patterns, but always vital, dynamic, and thriving, resisting the urge to rest on familiar, known ground.

You may have tasted this kind of dynamic in a relationship, but it’s challenging to stay on this edge, to keep moving forward without sliding into destructive patterns, which might leave you thinking this kind of relationship isn’t possible.

Very few relationships will ever evolve to the third level. How will you know the people willing to go there with you? And what would a relationship like this be like?

Craig teaches us how to be proactive about cultivating such relationships. To do this requires essentially establishing a sacred contract, setting up what he calls “an evolutionary partnership”, which can be governed by the following radical principles.

PRINCIPLES OF EVOLUTIONARY PARTNERSHIP

1. The very context and organizing principle of the relationship is conscious evolution beyond ego.

This is the very purpose of why we’re in the relationship. Instead of organizing around comfort, survival, mutual benefit, comfort, and connection, in this kind of relationship, we explicitly commit to coming together for a higher purpose.

That’s the “why” of the whole thing. We have a shared agreement for why we’re here.

Instead of colluding together to protect and preserve the status quo of the relationship, we’re willing to put the relationship at risk, to constantly challenge the relationship, as a way to evolve spiritually together, as a way to avoid falling into stuck, habitual patterns that lead the relationship to go to sleep.

2. We agree to be mutually accountable to something higher than ourselves.

In most conventional relationships, we’re attempting to negotiate between two people’s individual needs and desires. The personal self is the only context we have, so the relationship is the result of two isolated personal selves with their own unique agendas attempting to negotiate so they can be in relationship together without too much conflict.

Typically, we ask, “What do YOU want to do? What do I want to do? What are we both willing to give up so we can meet in the middle?”

in an evolutionary relationship, our #1 priority is aligning with Divine will, rather than focusing exclusively on our own personal desires or the desires of the person we’re in partnership with.

When a conflict comes up, we’re interested not just in both personal points of view, but in what’s the right thing to do from the highest perspective, in service to the highest good of all beings. It’s about not caring so much what you get out of the relationship or what the other person gets out of it.

It’s more about a mutual seeking of truth, of what’s right and whole and aligned. We ask, instead, “What’s the right thing to do to the best that we can discern it?” This way, there is no fundamental conflict. You both want the same thing- the highest good- rather than focusing on personal desires.

You’ll always find your way through when you’re genuinely prioritizing this outcome. There is no “winner” or “loser” because the highest good always wins- and you both want that.

3. We recognize that we have an ego, that we’re prone to error.

Because we acknowledge that we both have egos, we know that we are prone to misinterpretation of circumstances. I defined ego here, according to Craig’s definition, so don’t be mislead by a term that often gets misused. Read what I wrote about ego here.

When we both acknowledge our own egos and our potential for error, we come together with the commitment to try to see clearly, beyond the ego. This means we’re willing to call each other on unhealthy patterns and try to break those patterns.

It’s an exercise in mutual humility, acknowledging that we aren’t going to do it right, that our egos are going to screw us up, but that we’re mutually committed to trying to uncover what is true, in spite of being prone to error.

This way, there’s no compulsion to defend your point of view. You’re both committed to seeing what is true. 

It’s a radical act, to be willing to stop defending your motives whenever you are challenged. Because we both have egos, we must recognize that we’re prone to distortions and be willing to acknowledge that with humility.

4. Despite the fact that we have egos and are prone to error, we want to be accountable to our potentials, to our highest and best selves.

This means that even though both parties know we are prone to errors in judgment and distortion, we’re not using that as an excuse at all. We are acknowledging that we always have a choice in the matter. Our egoic limitations are not an excuse for not showing up fully.

We acknowledge that we have a right to expect this from each other, even though we have egos and tendencies for error. This only works with two people who are really committed to showing up in this way, wanting to be accountable and be held accountable.

It’s not about always getting it right. We’re going to screw up. It’s not about beating each other up for our tendency to be prone to error. It’s about committing to operating at a risk-taking edge, which requires a lot of trust and commitment to mutual accountability.

5. The context for our engagement together is about leaning into our evolutionary edges, where we’re growing and evolving, sharing a mutual interest in our evolving edges.

Rather than meeting in our limitations, fears, and doubts, colluding in how we’re failing to show up to our highest potential, complaining about what doesn’t work, we take a stand for meeting in service to our highest potentials.

Some relationships are based on sharing every that’s wrong or not working or where we’re struggling or fearful. This fifth principle is about making that off limits, not that there’s no place to talk about your limitations, but that the relationship is meant to lift up what’s possible, rather than to devolve into a shared bitchfest that drags both parties down.

The context for the engagement, therefore, is from a place of desiring to manifest our highest potential, taking a stand for one another’s higher potential, reaching for what’s possible, sharing what comes up as we awaken.

It’s a positive, uplifting context for engagement but a challenging one, because it’s a stretch and requires moving out of habitual patterns that tend to plague a lot of spiritually-minded or psychologically-minded relationships.

6. We agree to be mirrors for one another.

Rather than merely affirming each other’s self image, as most relationships operate, we agree to reflect to the other person things about who they are that might be outside of their awareness. We tend to see others more clearly than we see ourselves.

As evolutionary partners, we agree to lovingly and gently, without judgment, point out blind spots in each other to help illuminate what we might not be seeing clearly in ourselves. This includes mirroring back not only negative traits- things that need to evolve- but also positive things that we may not see within ourselves.

This includes mirroring back how we’re growing and where we’re making progress. We can not only help undo negative patterns; we can also mirror back the uplifting things we may not see in ourselves. This means being willing to challenge each other’s assumptions, really striving to help each other see ourselves more clearly.

7. We aspire to set an example for one another.

We are not perfect. We are not going to always get it right. But we are aspiring to model what it means to have an evolutionary and enlightened relationship to life, stretching vulnerably into the unknown.

We aspire to uplift each other through our own examples. This means radical transparency. In many close relationships, you devolve when you get comfortable. You let that person see your worst self. But in these relationships we aspire to be our best selves, not our worst self with each other.

About Author: Lissa Rankin, MD is a mind-body medicine physician, founder of the Whole Health Medicine Institute training program for physicians and health care providers, and the New York Times bestselling author of Mind Over Medicine: Scientific Proof That You Can Heal Yourself. She is on a grass roots mission to heal health care, while empowering you to heal yourself. Lissa blogs at LissaRankin.com and also created two online communities: HealHealthCareNow.com and OwningPink.com. She is also the author of two other books, a professional artist, an amateur ski bum and an avid hiker. Lissa lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband and daughter.

lissarankin.com

wakeup-world.com

How to Trust in the Hardest Moments of Your Life

by Mike Iamele -

Trust. This is a hard one, huh? 

My whole life, I’ve been afraid to trust. I’ve been afraid to totally and completely let go of control. To just allow things to play out on their own course. I can’t do a trust fall without catching myself. And it pains me to not know what the future will hold.

I think that’s one of the hallmarks of a perfectionist—being afraid to trust. 

Being afraid to not have your hand on the steering wheel at all times. Because what if life leads you into a ditch? What if you veer off course? What if there is no destiny, and everything really doesn’t happen for a reason, and we’ve wasted our entire lives on trusting?

There’s so much uncertainty and we humans like certainty.

Right now, I’m putting in offers for condos—competing with many others for each. And we’ve already lost one place to a higher offer. I’m out there doing book signings and promoting my book. I’m launching a new mastermind and I truthfully have no idea where I’ll be six months from now.

Maybe in a new home. With a totally new business model and starting my next book or maybe with no home and a failed new offering and no book deal. Who knows?

The strangest part about it all is I trust. 

I trust that it will all work out one way or another because it has to and because I deserve it. 

Because the best things in my life have all happened when I let go of the fear and anxiety and stress—and just trusted.

Like when I got really sick, and I was scared for my life, I got better and found a new path in life.

Or when I had an accident at work—arguably the most embarrassing moment of my life, I cleaned myself up, and—with the help of colleagues—snuck out. 

Or when I fell in love with Garrett and wasn’t sure how it was going to work. It eventually worked out and brought me the greatest love of my life.

In all of the hardest moments of my life, I had no choice but to trust that this was happening for me, not to me. And that it was an opportunity to learn more about myself—about self-acceptance. Because that’s all success is. That’s all it ever is.

All it takes is a little trust.

Despite what we want to belief, we can’t control everything. 

The things we want most in this world are out of our control—that’s just how life works. Love, prosperity, fame, success. In some way, it’s all reliant on the outside world, other people, the rest of the Universe’s plans.

No matter how hard we push or strive or try, it might not happen or us. In fact, we might be closing ourselves off to the miracles that happen when we trust. 

Like how getting sick is a nightmare, except it might push you on a new path. Or falling in love with a straight friend doesn’t make any sense, until it opens your eyes to even more love and losing a condo seems devastating, until you fall in love with the next one.

One day you don’t just trust—you know—that the world will work out for you and you slowly release that grip. You surrender to whatever’s happening for you—no matter how miserable it seems. 

You’re okay not seeing the road totally laid out before you because you’re here—in this present moment. Doing the best you can. 

Living it the most successful way you possibly know how and you hope that’s enough for the future you want. No, you know that’s enough for the future you want.

Because you’re enough. You’re enough already to have the life you’ve always dreamed of. All you have to do is trust that it’s true.

bostonwellnesscoach.com

5 Steps for Resolving Negativity

by Don Turner -

1. The first thing we need to do is to overcome the resistance to looking deeply at areas of pain or difficulty.

This typically comes from (false) assumptions of:

• one's inadequacy

• one's incapacity to deal with the pain involved

• one's belief that truth or reality is against us and will show us something bad. (The worst thing we will find is that we have falsely identified with false beliefs -- the truth is only good. And the sooner we look at pain the sooner we can move beyond it.)

• the eventual success of plodding forward and thereby leaving it behind without dealing with it

2. We have to become conscious of and clearly articulate the core images and assumptions that underlie negative experience and the issues or problems we might have.

To do this we have to reverse our normal thinking which would attribute our conclusions about life to our experiences, rather than the core beliefs that caused them. Repeated patterns of experience are clues to an image.

3. We have to consciously appreciate the creative freedom and power we have; how the creative process works; how we are actually continually co-creating our reality; how unconscious beliefs are more powerful than conscious beliefs and how they can sabotage conscious intentions.

4. We have to deeply reflect within ourselves and choose to release attachment to the negative images that heretofore we had accepted as "just the way things are".

We must begin to realize that attitudes, assumptions and values that are negative, separative or fear-based are ultimately false and self-denying.

5. We have to open up to and trust the positive truth within our inner self, making it conscious and articulate and begin to live it. This requires specific actions that demonstrate our new trust.

soullifecenter.org

Exploring Trust

by Jennie Griffin -

7 Heart-centered messages of Trust from a variety of perspectives:

Join our contributors as they journey into the world of Trust, visiting vulnerability and inner power along the way, touching on forgiveness and surrender, all the while exploring what it means to Trust.

The articles are divided into thematic groups (What is Trust?, Getting to Trust, Trust and Surrender plus The Gifts in Trust)  and within each, links are provided to both the author’s about page and directly to the article. courtesy of  thepowerofchange.me

What is Trust?

Martine Joseph examines wisdom found in A Course in Miracles. In her piece, Trust in What you Really Want, she outlines the six stages of Trust, and the gifts that come of allowing yourself to flow with each one. She reminds us, 

‘You can move beyond struggle, gain or loss. You Are the Light. You Are All of It! It’s time to extend and share who you are. Heaven is here!’

Getting to Trust

Roberta Fitzsimmons, with us from Roberta Relates, asks important questions about the level of trust you feel, and the root(s) of your perceptions. In her article, Question: To Trust Or Not To Trust? she poses a number of questions designed to move you towards a more trusting perspective. Why not ask yourself a few, such as,

‘What is the story I tell myself about trusting this person? Will I be ok if they reject me or my ideas? Am I able to trust without attachment to a specific outcome?’

Renee Avard, of Catch a Falling Star also looks at Trust from an internal perspective. She reminds us, in Listen to your Heart Whispers Before Making a Decision, that 

‘A bird does not rest itself on a branch counting on the branch to hold him up, he places his trust in himself that his wings would work and he would be able to fly and save himself.‘ 

She asks us to fall in love with ourselves first and dive into the experience of trusting, reclaiming our power in the process.

Trust and Surrender

Lorraine Watson of Follow Your Light explores a twist of Trust where not trusting leads to more. Instead of asking ‘who do I trust’, the question ‘who am I being?’ opens up the space to see where our Inner Power has been given away. In her offering, Trust without Trust, she writes, 

‘Trust because you don’t have to. Allowing who you are within to flow full out is the greatest expression, and receipt of trust for all.’

Pamela Jorrick (ZestyMom) offers a piece called Learning to Leap, in which she discusses the sometimes frightening leaps of faith, and the level of trust involved in taking them. She writes, 

‘Everyone knows change is natural, but it’s also really uncomfortable, especially when you really have no freaking idea what’s next. Generally, I like to plan, analyze and ponder (and sometimes end up way overthinking things.) But I’m finding that sometimes, in uncharted waters, all that planning just stresses me out...’

Jenny has contributed a piece this month entitled Romancing Trust. In it she explores the idea of trust as an inherent quality of our divinity, if only we can find our way (back) to Source. She writes, 

‘What are we surrendering to, when we follow the path towards trust? Ourselves, and Source. We’re surrendering to the idea that separation is a fallacy that exists only in our minds, and that we are Divine representations of Oneness.’

The Gift(s) in Trust

Karen Riordan Palmer from Positively Pets and Kids looks at Trust through the lens of forgiveness. In Trust, the Ultimate Act of Forgiveness, she writes, 

‘It takes Trust to have the Faith to Forgive!‘ 

She writes of her journey through the patterns of abuse to healthier and more fulfilling relationships, which involved shifting into trust and forgiveness. At the end, she provides us with three steps she uses to move into a mindset of forgiveness.

thepowerofchange.me

Intuition: Unfolding Our Super Intelligence

by Carole Cravath -

Decisions mean everything to us. 

Our lives are a reflection of their positive effects or negative consequences. Using the analytical mind to make decisions can be a hit or miss technique.

Analyzing situations over and over trying to predict an outcome can be exhausting and erroneous. 

Analysis is a mental activity that makes comparisons and breaks things down into their component parts; but it can't see the big picture , the future, what another person is really thinking or intending, or know what's truly best for us.

Intuition can! 

Intuition comes from another level of our minds and is a natural part of our awareness.

It can deliver the truth about any question we have if we know how to identify it. Intuition doesn't think; it simply knows, without any rational thought. 

It is a higher intelligence because it can see the future, know how others really feel and provide us with accurate answers about what's best for us. 

Intuitive knowing comes to us through feelings, our inner voice, bodily sensations, hunches, and inner pictures and images. 

Remote Viewing studies by scientists Jahn and Dunne repeatedly show that this level of mind is innate to all of us and connects us to direct truth!

We're all familiar with a common scenario that illustrates this point. 

A young man is seeing a girl and has a strong feeling (intuitive knowing) that she just wants to be friends. His mind, however, begins to operate and he begins to analyze. "What if she changes her mind. People change their minds every day." "Maybe if I do such and such, she will like me more." 

Down the road, of course, she tells him clearly that she only wants to be friends. His intuition (strong feeling) had already informed him of this fact but he tried to get around it by analyzing.

How intuition connect us to direct truth:

Quantum physicist David Bohm and physiologist Carl Pribram have provided evidence that we're connected to everyone, everything and all information in existence through frequencies and waves at the quantum level of life. 

How does this work? 

Every thought, feeling, action, experience and event that occurs is recorded (like a photograph) in the quantum field of energy and intelligence that underlies all life. 

Picture this: you've just finished reading a popular book and your feelings and experiences of it have been "photographed" (recorded) in the universal archives of energy and frequency.

This experience (photograph) travels by wave and frequency through all of life's interpenetrating energy fields and becomes available to you, me and everyone else. 

Then, a friend of yours starts to think that you might like that particular book for your birthday, because she loved it.

As she thinks that thought, she gets a feeling (intuitive knowing) not to get it. She doesn't know why but decides to go with another gift. She doesn't consciously know that you've read the book but the intuitive level of her mind where this type of information is processed knows.

Science shows that we are holographic, tiny fragments of the whole of all that exists; but every part of a hologram contains within itself the entire whole and can access all of its information. 

Our natural intuitive senses receive and translate the truth and facts that these waves and frequencies carry and our right brains interpret this factual information and relay it to us in the form of inner pictures in our minds' eyes, our inner voice, persistent feelings and pure knowing. Thought is not involved!

There is a bio-organic basis for our intuitive senses that has been researched. In his paper titled "New Scientific Studies Regarding the Existence of Certain PSI Faculties", Ingo Swan discusses at least 12 additional senses beyond our basic 5 that have been documented. 

They include skin receptors for clairsentience, neurological senses for telepathy, bio-electronic receptors for clairvoyance and pineal gland receptors that allow us to know the future, as well as use x-ray vision. 

We are all naturally wired for intuitive intelligence.

We can know in advance what course of action is best for us; i.e. which choice we should make. 

Why? 

At the quantum level of energy and intelligence, past, present and probable future blend and are all part of a frequency continuum, which we're part of energetically and physically. 

Through our intuitive receptors, this data is available to us as a matter of course. We "know" the correct answer because of our interpenetrating energy fields and holographic brains.

How Intuition Works in our Daily Lives

Intuitive information is an integral part of our awareness as we go about our day and we just need to understand how it works and practice using it. 

A feeling not to walk down a certain street, an inner voice that says "Call Mary" and you discover she's in need of support, a persistent inner picture in your mind that a certain house is best for you are all examples of intuitive knowing. 

As we deliberately choose to cultivate and apply intuition in our lives, we quickly see how vastly it improves our decision- making!

When my son was going into 5th grade, a male teacher was available as a choice, because this school was open to parental requests. I asked for him, because I logically assumed that my son should have a male role model in his life, since I was divorced. 

Wrong! This reasoned decision became a huge mistake! It became so bad in that classroom that my son refused to go to school, point blank! 

The teacher, it turned out, was an angry person and was taking it out on the kids. My son had literally become sick from that environment. Intuitively, my child had the solution. 

He "knew" which class would work for him and after I had several involved meetings with the Principal and Director of Elementary Schools, he was transferred and simply thrived in the new classroom! 

Had I originally listened to my intuition instead of analyzing, I wouldn't have had to make this correction.

Educate yourself about how to develop and use your intuitive faculties, teach your children to trust their feelings and hunches and enjoy the following exercises!

DAILY INTUITIVE GUIDANCE STEPS:

Method #1

A.) Allow yourself to become quiet and deeply relaxed. Float, tingle, melt into your chair.

B.) Set your intent to receive general guidance for your life or an answer to a specific question. Know that your intuitive mind has the information and answers that you need. Trust that you can know now, because you can. Relax your mind , erase your thoughts and become a blank slate ready for truth. Intuitive flashes are about to begin!

C.) As you start to experience inner images and pictures , feelings, body sensations, and words and messages, write them down , with your eyes still closed. What have you learned? What is the answer to your question?

Method #2

A.) Deeply relax yourself with either music, focusing on your breath, repeating the word "peace", or imagining a pleasant color surrounding you.

B.) Experience yourself walking in a beautiful rainforest. Ahead of you is a rushing waterfall. Step into the pool beneath it , and feel the rejuvenating water splash your feet and legs. You can see a large pink scalloped shell resting on the bottom of the transparent water. Pick it up and hold it in your hands. 

Notice that it contains a shiny white pearl. Look carefully at the pearl and you will see images, pictures, or words written on it. What's there? What is it saying to you? How do you feel? Wisdom is symbolized here. Your answer is symbolized on this pearl. Reflect on what it means to you.

Deliberate development of the higher level of your mind, your intuition, will accelerate your growth, success, and well-being! Truth is a gift!

Carole Cravath (B.A.) is a counselor and teacher and does private consultations on Somatic Visualizing. She teaches the Perceptive Awareness Technique Workshops which link the Intuitive and Conceptual Minds for rapid control of higher awareness in 3 days.

perceptiveawareness.com

tiptopwebsite.com

ezinearticles.com

Does Life Have to Be So Hard?

by Shirlee Hall -

Ever since I could read the printed word and carefully listened to religious teachers and philosophers expound on how they interpret universal law, creation and alchemy, I have always asked myself whether they know the Sublime firsthand.

Humanity has been repeatedly impacted with rules, regulations and tedious suggestions on how to attain enlightenment.

Could interpretations actually be a ‘back door’ method?

According to ancient and current thinking, Pure Awareness, Christ or Buddhic Consciousness and the multifarious degrees of Enlightenment require lifetimes of study, self examination, patience, compassion, mindfulness, meditation and a wide array of available tools.

Love is the golden thread behind the teaching. 

It is suggested we have a physical teacher. A temporary teacher is very helpful if he has personally experienced everything suggested to the student.

If persistent, once a soul decides it has had enough of all the programming, deception, judgment and abuse on many levels, a genuine and heightened awareness will surface.

The meaning of Oneness is finally understood. When pure intention allows light to flow into the right channels, desire is good. When our inner reality is harmonious, duality is good.

It is then that we see clearly; our peace understands and acts.

Suffering is the direct result of falsity being in charge.

If a strong foundation of real understanding is not established, energy is corrupted. The collective consciousness continues to be immersed in the illusion of matter.

As souls awaken, everything is understood from a loftier perspective. Even though words are written, Silence is preferred. The words heard, written and viewed by the inner Self emanate as the language of Light.

Light is a subtle and spirit directed language. First, a firm and conscious connection must be established. I’ve always referred to the connection as a love affair. Being psychic or experiencing the gifts of Spirit are not a prerequisite.

The greatest healing is spontaneous and natural; it occurs when the participant inwardly decides he is ready to be the grander Self in matter.

The process is triggered by a higher form of surrender. 

Why not establish a celestial consciousness in matter? Why not live as a conscious example of the inner divinity?

Why wait? Waiting is reluctance prompted by fear.

Thousands are ready to sound the trumpet. Although willing, there may be a magical note missing in the song they have created. Intuitively, feelings are true and hearts are in the ‘right’ place and yet, they have not fully surrendered.

Surrender is a choice. Surrender is a focused unconditional love powerfully trusting, knowing, watching and participating in life from the view of the Sublime.

behealedforever.com

So Much More

by Julie Krull -

In this Holy space of quiet contemplation I embrace the promise of today and its sweet taste of eternity. 

Trusting the field of all-possibility, I surrender into divine presence. She holds me like a swaddling baby and bathes my thoughts with love. 

The fragrant scent of awareness fills the air. I look into the eyes of God and see peace. I am so much more than I “think” I am. 

Full of the nourishing gaze, I move completely into the space between my thoughts and gently align with the cosmic blueprint, returning to my own true nature without ever really leaving. 

My heart pulses with infinite joy in formless, luminous, essence.

The peaceful song of creation rocks me to the place of no more sleep and I become so much more than I think I am.

juliekrull.com

Easy Ways to Strengthen Your Intuition

by Nichole Carrington -

Intuition is practical:

Everyone has it no matter what you call it, gut feeling, hunches, eureka moments, knowing, seeing or hearing. Your intuition is a shortcut to productivity, insight, knowledge, innovation and decision making. 

So how do you harness your intuition? How do you become more user-friendly with your intuition? Sometimes we think intuition is an event – like a flash of light. If we take this concept as how it happens, you are left to wonder. 

"The primary force is intuition. In that deep force, the last fact behind which  analysis cannot go; all things find their origin." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you can think of your intuition as your partner, then the two of you can work together into a really rich partnership. 

I’ve used both and I much prefer the latter. If you concept it as a partnership then it becomes like a real gift and tool to be honed. 

SIGNS AND SYMBOLS

You’ll have your own interpretation or meaning for what your intuition gives you. Why not start a collection of symbols you get and the meaning they are to you. For example: when I feel butterflies that for me means release, evolution, awakening and light touch.

You Have the Ability to Solve Problems Instantly.

Have you ever looked at a problem and known the root cause and the solution – instantly – without research? 

You’ve been taught to distrust that inner voice, right? So you reflect back on all the times you knew and did something different. 

In hindsight (the I told you so of intuition) your intuition was right on, wasn’t it? You have the ability to solve problems instantly if you trust yourself. We all do. 

So how do you harness the power of your inner guidance system – the voice that cuts through all the blah, blah, blah and tells you the truth of your direction and development? 

Why not use these 6 ways to buff up that guidance system?

Six Ways to Strengthen Your Intuition

1. Use your natural empathy 

Imagine yourself in someone else’s shoes. Better yet go experience what they’re experiencing. 

If you are working a helpdesk and someone calls from the factory floor complaining about the speed of the printer, don’t sit at your monitor looking at graphs and metrics. Get off your monitor and imagine being down on floor with them, looking through their eyes and see what’s going on. 

Get your whole self involved and it will strengthen your intuition. Great battlefield generals know this. 

Get out of your bunker and ride up to the front line and see it, feel it, and act on it. Experience what others are experiencing. 

Just remember to come back to your own body and bring nothing back with you except your intuition message.

2. Allow yourself to name fear 

When you are an empathy, you feel the fear and pain of another. Fear blocks intuition and is strengthened when we try to resist it. 

When you open to your intuition, it’s important that you not make anything you feel personal. It’s not about you. 

For one day, make a personal rule that nothing you feel is yours. Nothing. Allow yourself to say, I’m noticing fear. What is the fear? Hmm, I’m noticing fear of making a lot of money through business success and losing it all. Hmmm, whose is this? 

You see, if you are a natural empathy, you will know that the fear or pain you feel isn’t yours if a half an hour earlier you felt fine and were happily going about your business. Name what you feel and it strengthens your intuition. 

When you name it, the energy information will leave your body because you picked up the message. The messenger doesn’t need to keep delivering the message.

3. Connect with others 

When you engage with another person, face to face, on the phone, or online, try to read their emotions. 

Name their emotions to yourself. Does the person sound angry, happy, hopeful, joyous, depressed, or sad? The more you connect with others emotions, the deeper your understanding of social situations and the better your intuition will function. 

Intuitive hunches and abstract ideas come from the same place inside you that form your emotions, so the better you are able to read and identify emotions in others the better you will be able to create and communicate via intuition. 

Identifying and naming emotions within yourself and others is a powerful exercise. 

When you name you become the witness, not the empathy that feels to the point of debilitation. 

Employ just enough empathy that you get the read. Name them to yourself. I’m noticing sad. I’m noticing anxiety. I sense butterflies. I get the feeling of plowing a field for planting. Connect and notice and name.

4. Shut down internal subjective judgments 

When you find yourself judging someone or something – including yourself – that isn’t intuition, its negative energy that blocks your intuition. 

When you hear the critic in your mind saying, “he’s stupid”, “she’s ugly”, “I’m fat”, or “I’m gonna lose.” Stop and think – Is this me or am I picking up their self-judgment and internal identity state? 

You can ask, Hmmm, what am I picking up here? What does this mean for this person? Is this mine or am I picking up their state? 

When you strengthen your intuition, don’t make it about you – make it about what you are becoming aware of. You can check it out – ask, I’m picking up some internal self-judgments. Does that make any sense to you? 

They will tell you or dismiss it, but pay attention to the energy you feel from their response. Your intuition is not for you to sit in judgment of them, only to recognize what you pick up.

5. Make time for Solitude 

The best way is meditation. Find at least thirty minutes a day to spend alone with your thoughts. Take time to sit alone with your thoughts, feelings, and visualizations. 

I’ve spent most of my life nearly unaware of all the stuff going on inside me. By taking the time to listen to your inner world, you’ll find out what an amazing magical being you really are. 

Learning to listen to yourself in solitude will train you to listen to your inner intuitive voice when you aren’t alone and will lead to catching powerful intuitive ideas right when you need them.

6. Ask questions – lots of them – Get buff with your intuition. 

Two thoughts here: 

• Questioning is the best way to create stronger intuitions. The most powerful creative intuitions will come to you after long question and answer sessions. Get together with a group of curious people and discuss complex issues – philosophical, scientific, sociological, medical, or literary topics. The most power comes not from the answers but from the questions, bringing you down paths you hadn’t considered, spurring further questions and more answers. There is no better way to exercise your intuition than lively question and answer sessions. 

• Asking questions includes checking in to gain verification that you did indeed pick up that thought, feeling or impression and it’s not just your imagination; "Is any part of this true for you?" "I’m feeling ……." "I’m wondering if that means anything to you?" "Does this make sense to you?" Questions make it so you don’t feel alone in strengthening your intuition.

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