Let’s talk about what intuition actually is and why we should care about it.
According to Wikipedia Intuition is… the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledge; inner sensing; inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition; and the ability to understand something instinctively.
According to Merriam Webster— Intuition is the power of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference, immediate apprehension or cognition, knowledge or conviction gained by intuition, quick and ready insight.
According to Psychology Today;
Psychologists believe that intuition relies on powers of pattern-matching, as the mind combs experience stored in long-term memory for similar situations and presents in-the-moment judgments based on them. The automatic information processing that underlies intuition can be seen in the everyday phenomenon known as "highway hypnosis,” which occurs when a driver travels for miles without a conscious thought about the activity of driving the car.
In my own words— Intuition is that feeling you get deep inside without knowing why or how. You just know it! The hunch feeling you get in your gut, telling you what is right or wrong. The instinctive feeling you get when just the right decision pops into you head and you trust it.
Reason # 1
It’s wiser that we give it credit for.
We are all on this path of life. Somewhere there is a master plan is out there. I don’t know , maybe written in the sky somewhere. We don’t know what’s going to happen, day by day. But I believe the plan is already in motion. If we follow our intuition, we stay on path, when we don’t listen to our intuition or ignore it, we veer off path.
Reason # 2
We all need guidance—It’s your inner voice guiding you. Listen.
In my twenties—I let that voice go unnoticed and didn’t act on it. In my thirties, I made a major decision that my intuition was telling me was wrong and suffered the consequences. Since then
I vowed that I would always listen to that little voice inside of me. I now feel like I am being guided and that’s an awesome feeling.
Reason #3
If you don’t— you will at some point in time come to regret it.
Just like my husband who took a long bike ride recently on a nature trail. He came to a fork in the road and decided to take the unmarked and go off trail. I bet you if he listened to his inner voice that voice would have said—don’t go there Bruce—it’s not going to turn out well.
After about three hours of wondering where he was, he arrived home, muddy, sweaty, bruised and bleeding. Yup, his bike got stuck in the thickened woods and he had to fight his way out. Lesson learned. “I knew I should not have taken that path,” he said.
Reason # 4
It’s a hidden gift of insight—accept it
Just like how I was thinking about what I should write about in my Healing Thoughts page for my web page. Thoughts were going through my head on a number of topics. When the word Intuition stopped dead in its tracks during my thought processing, and no more words came though after that, I knew that was what I was going to write about. It’s a gut feeling, a knowing, an inner guidance. Today, I am grateful for my strong sense of intuition. Because it wasn’t always so.
Reason # 5
It’s fulfilling a purpose –maybe we even don’t know about.
As I nurse, I had worked on a unit that had a lot of heart bypass patients. This one weekend, I was caring for a number of patients. One of them was a gentleman who was four days into his recovery from a triple bypass. There was something about him that worried me. His vital signs were fine, he was alert, oriented and not in pain. But, as I was leaving my shift at midnight that night, I told the residents to please keep an eye on Mr. Brooke. I didn’t have a good feeling about him and was worried that he would get worse overnight. I couldn’t put my finger on it and the feeling never went away. The following night, I went into work and immediately noticed Mr. Brooke’s name was not on the board. I found out that I was right, his condition worsened during the night and he was transferred to the ICU. I’m not the only nurse that that has happened to. Nurses have been known to have a high sense of Intuition.
We are wiser than we give ourselves credit for If we believe there is a reason for everything that happens in life. We will all be much calmer.
To help recognize and accept your sense of intuition: Try to live in the present.
Take the time to stop and literally smell the roses. Meditate. Take a yoga class.
Get yourself centered. Take a long walk in nature. Be still… notice all that surrounds you.
Journal your feelings and thoughts, and smile. You got this!!
I love this quote from Lao Tzu: It rings true to me.
“If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
~ Be present
~ Listen
~ You will learn things about yourself that you never knew.