How Intuition Can Enhance Health and Healing

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakens.” ~ Carl Jung

How often do you find yourself trying to make a decision, but not sure which one is best or trying to make sense out of why something is happening and feeling frustrated or confused? Intuition is a great tool we all have that is underutilized. It is a part of you that likely got trained out of you with all of the focus on science, logic, and reasoning. While those skills are important there is another aspect to you that you can learn to access to help guide you in all areas of your life.

Intuition is a way of knowing without conscious reasoning. We all have it. We are born with it. It may be thought of as an aspect of cognition. However, that describes only part of it. It is not solely a mental process. In fact, it is beyond or different than rational and logical thinking and can be used in combination with it. It can enhance health and healing, and help you to experience more peace and joy.

Your intuition may come to you in the form of a hunch or inner knowing. It may also be experienced as images in your mind’s eye, symbols or flashes of insight. It may be communicating to you through messages you keep hearing over and over from people, signs, or lyrics from a song.

You can easily access it when you’re in a more calm, meditative, or relaxed state. You’ll know when you’re connecting with as you will feel more in a flow state. You will be more detached from thoughts, emotions, worry, and judgments. It is often described as wisdom, the higher self or witness consciousness, love, the soul, spirit, the truth, the heart, God, or higher power.

Here are 5 simple steps you can take to understand how you Intuit and to begin listening to it and trusting it:

1. Relaxation and Meditation – There are many ways to meditate. Choose a meditation that speaks to you, one you enjoy practicing, and quiets your mind. A simple practice is to become aware of your breath coming in and out of your body. Let your body relax with each breath out. Get out of your Head, and in to your Body. Allow space to occur between each thought. Notice your thoughts as just ‘thoughts.’ Focus on your Heart, and imagine it opening to a feeling of love and compassion for yourself and every living being. Observe your inner and outer world from this awareness. Rest in this peace.
2. Imagine being in a beautiful special place. Notice what you see there, notice how you feel, what you may taste, smell, or hear. Notice what may be getting your attention. What do you want to do in this place? Maybe it is something active or something more calming such as just being. Notice if a symbol, animal, guide, or spiritual figure comes forward. What does this place or guide have to share with you? Hang out here for 5 – 20 minutes.
3. After you slowly reemerge from your beautiful special place, recall how you perceived your experience there. Did you see things? Hear things? Feel things such as a breeze on your body or a deep knowing? Did you taste or smell anything? Notice what senses were more engaged. This is likely how you also sense your Intuition.
4. As you go through your day, while being silent or interacting with others, notice when these same senses become engaged and what they may be communicating to you. Do they feel like accurate interpretations of what they may be saying to you?
5. Follow your Intuition to the best of your ability. See how the situation plays out given the path you chose to take. Notice if your interpretation was serving your and others’ greatest joy. If it did, great! If not, keep listening and feeling and with time and experience it will become clearer and stronger.

Continue to meditate on a regular basis. Then, your mind and heart will be able to receive the messages and accurately interpret them. If you become too serious or doubt your Intuition, you may block it. Have fun with it!

Contact Emmy Vadnais, OTR/L if you would like assistance developing your Intuition at [email protected] or consider registering for the class The Power of the Mind in Healing: How Meditation, Relaxation, Spirituality, and Intuition Can Enhance Health & Healing.