- I just love this shellI wish I could describe what happens when you get the signs that let you know that you must follow your intuition; when your intuition wakes up and you're aware of it so you're paying closer attention.
You either know what I mean or you don't. You've either experienced that feeling or you haven't been aware of the feeling.
For me, it's as if some dormant little being inside wakes up; as if she's been bored for a long time, hasn't been paying attention and then when I learn something, meet someone or I'm trying to decide about something - something that is or will be significant to me - she wakes up fully alert trying to catch my attention so that I too will be paying even MORE attention as well.
If feelings had words attached, the predominant feeling would be saying very deliberately, Now Watson, THAT'S VERY interesting!
It's a checking in process that requires when you're re-examining it, that you be very still and quiet. For me, when I do this, my attention aligns very naturally with the center of my chest. Automatically my awareness shifts to there.
Let me give you an example. A few years ago - 2006 - I wanted to go on a vacation. I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go but for some reason New Mexico kept coming into my awareness. I started looking on the web. Within a short time, perhaps even that very day, I came across a website for this place called The Ghost Ranch. It offered all sorts of courses: creative, spiritual and more formal courses related to church congregations etc. It's owned by the Presbyterian Church.
Now, when I looked at it I immediately got that feeling like this is it. This is where I need to go. Now, some people would have looked at it and thought are you kidding me? I'm not going to some religious ranch on my vacation. But I just knew that when I looked at the website that it was much more about the spiritual and the artistic than about christianity. So, I went. And, for me, it was the perfect place. I met some wonderful people. The landscape was everything the late Georgia O'Keeffe had said it was and the course and the instructor were the perfect experience for me at that time. I have to this day kept in touch with him and he is an amazing man. How did I know this? Intuition! Listening to that feeling.
If you haven't read the story about how I came to Salt Spring then you should try and find it on this blog. I am now living on Salt Spring in a cottage that was an artist's studio. She made baskets. In all the years in the past that I've come to Salt Spring, I'd never made a point of visiting artists's home studios. I don't know why. I'm a little shy. It seemed a bit intimidating to just drive up someone's driveway not knowing whether it was a good time to visit. (So freaking Canadian of me or what?)What if it's a bad time?
Anyway, I'm now LIVING in the cottage of the only artist in all those years that I ever went to visit. She doesn't live here any more or own the property now. She made beautiful baskets out of seaweed and all the other interesting stuff in the sea. That's where I'm living. I knew as soon as I saw it that yes, I'd be moving to Salt Spring because it wasn't a coincidence. You can be cynical and think I've got too much "magical thinking" going on or you can wonder...
Intuition is every bit as important as rational thought. In my mind, it's more important because intuition will lead you towards your passion or the thing that you really MUST do for your journey to unfold in a way that is best for you whereas rational thought will only enable you to make what I think are "safe" decisions.
Many times the two are aligned. The trick is to know the difference and "that feeling" is what will tell you the difference.
The other day this guy comes into the place where I work. We talk to people one on one constantly. He's come in a few times. He's native. He says he's on a dream quest and that's what brought him here to the island. Okay. I don't understand. But who cares. I don't need to understand. He says that he is going next to North Carolina. Again. Dreamquest. Okay. I don't even remember my dreams so who am I to question? It makes no sense to me at all. If I'm being honest, I'm judgementally thinking, man you know you're really lost when you're following your dreams because you don't know what the hell to do next.
Anyway, he's very personable, good communicator, nice, funny. We get along well. He comes in after about a week and we start chatting.
I decide that he'd be a good person to practice my little affirmation exercise on. So, I tell him about it and he goes back to doing whatever he was doing on the computer and at first I"m having a bit of trouble but then out of the blue this sentence comes to me:
Your heart is clearly visible in spite of yourself. I print it out and I give it to him. He reads it. It's not an affirmation. It just a message.
What do you mean he says? In spite of myself? What does that mean?
I don't know I say. I'm just the messenger. It's for you to figure out. How should I know?
Now, as I'm saying that I'm thinking, Gayle, stop messing with the clients' heads - that's the rational. But the intuitive is saying that came for a reason. I felt that for a reason. I'm sure it exists for a reason. I'm sure there is a reason I wrote that for him.
Okay, enough already. I can't say enough good about intuition and developing it.
The first step has nothing to do with intuition of course. I has to do with feelings. You must be aware of your feelings as you are feelign them.
I spent years not being aware of my feelings; didn't know what I was feeling when I was feeling it. Try and develop awareness around what you are feeling when you are feeling it. Verbalize it to yourself and double check that what you think you're feeling is accurate.