How to increase your intuition
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
― Albert Einstein
We've all heard the Einstein quote about intuition; it is more important than knowledge, he tells us. But what exactly is intuition? Is everyone intuitive? And can we develop it further? I believe the answer is yes to the final two questions - we are all intuitive, and we can all develop our abilities. It's something I teach in a program called: Intuitive.
As for what intuition actually is, let's dive in...
What is intuition?
I'm sure we've all had the experience of intuition - perhaps a gut feeling that someone or something is off, and that feeling is later confirmed to be right. Or a feeling of certainty about a decision that doesn't make logical sense - but turns out exactly as we imagined. When we use our intuition, we may feel we know something, and this knowing is not based on consciously using our rational thinking.
Some scientists suggest we are tapping into our unconscious to do this - we are accessing past memories and information which we may have consciously forgotten. Experience and knowledge can also play a part - if you have mastery in something, you may be able to make instinctive decisions with ease.
This Research gate article on Intuition explores some of the research and shares these two definitions of Intuition:
“Intuition involves a sense of knowing without knowing how one knows.”
“Intuition involves a sense of knowing based on unconscious information processing.”
Where is intuition felt in the body?
Where intuition is felt in the body can vary between individuals. Our bodies can respond to intuition with sensations such as: butterflies in the stomach, tension, relaxation, a racing heart, a sinking feeling, flushing of the face, tingles on the arms or even pain or discomfort, such as a headache.
The physical sensations we described are of course very real. Research tells us the brain and body are connected by the autonomic nervous system. Emotions evoke physical responses and sensations.
We may interpret these sensations as guiding us to take action or say yes, or conversely as a warning or a reason to say no, or to avoid something. In this way, intuition can help us with decision making.
Receiving intuitive information in the form of bodily sensations is a common form of intuition that when developed, is called Clairsentience (clear feeling). The main other ways of receiving intuitive information include hearing intuitive messages (clairaudience) and seeing visual information or signs (clairvoyance). Personally, I receive information in each of these ways, which you can witness in my group Reiki healing for 2023.
To develop our intuition, we need to learn how to interpret and trust the sensations, signs, and perhaps audio or visual information we receive. Practice, experimentation and refinement can all aid us to develop our intuition.
Here are some of the ways you can develop your intuition.
1: Get intentional
Intentionally deciding you would like to expand your intuitive abilities has probably led you to read this article. When we are intentional about learning or developing a skill, we might seek out new information and teachers on the topic, and be more willing to commit to practices that will support us.
Ellen Langer has a great book about Mindfulness (vs Mindlessness). In it, she shares various experiments and studies that have shown how bringing mindful attention to a situation or experience improves how you show up within it, and even the results you create.
A Growth Mindset (a theory by Carol Dweck) will also support you to grow your intuition. A fixed mindset will tell you that you are either intuitive or you are not - you can't do anything about it. A growth mindset will remind you that whatever your current level of intuitive ability might be, you can always learn how to grow your intuition.
In the context of developing your intuition, mindful attention combined with a growth mindset might look like: seeing yourself as an intuitive person who can learn to become more intuitive and who is actively working to improve your connection to your intuition.
You might seek to develop your intuition by going deeper with some of the ideas we'll next discuss.
2: Clear the mind
One of the biggest barriers to receiving clear and helpful intuitive insights and information is a busy mind. Many of my clients know they are intuitive - but when we're busy, we can forget to check in with ourselves, and to create space to receive our intuition.
Intuitive messages can be quiet and subtle; easily drowned out by constant thinking.
Spending a lot of time watching Netflix or TikTok, scrolling social media on your phone, drinking alcohol, eating junk food or mindlessly shopping are sometimes used to quieten the mind and provide distraction, but they can also dull your connection to your own thoughts and feelings.
They might help clear your mind in the moment - but they're not going to address the cause of overthinking, stress, anxiety or worry, or enhance your connection to your own intuition.
So, how can you clear your mind. Here is one way:
EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)
EFT is one method you might use to clear your mind and is backed by considerable research. With EFT, you identify the thoughts that are causing you to feel stressed. By tapping on a series of meridian end points whilst saying specific statements related to the stressful thoughts, you can create a change in how you feel.
I teach you how to use EFT to clear your mind in my course, Intuitive, and we also look at other methods you can use to clear your mind.
3: Regulate your emotions
Strong emotions can provide you with helpful intuitive information. A strong emotion like fear may require instant action, provide you with a warning about a person or situation, or indicate change needs to be made.
However, strong emotions can inhibit your access to your intuition too. If you want something to be true and feel strong emotions about it, you might feel very optimistic about it and then think your intuition was wrong if the person or situation was not as you anticipated. Your strong emotions may have influenced your perceptions, perhaps you really wanted something to be true, rather than it being your actual intuition.
It's the same with negative emotions; when you are consumed by worry or fear about something, you may react to this. It can be hard to receive helpful internal guidance about how you might proceed, or indeed to take action at all.
In Intuitive, I guide you through two processes I use to defuse heightened emotions.
4: Connect to the present
It is when you are connected the present moment that you are going to have the best access to your own thoughts, feelings and body sensations - and your own intuition. When you are spending a lot of time thinking about the past or future, it can be difficult to be in the present and access your intuition.
How do you connect to the present? Here are two practices you might go deeper with:
Breath work
Breathing practices can help you connect to the present moment (and can also help clear your mind).
Simply taking longer and slower breaths for a minute or two can help you connect to the present moment - try it now.
I guide you through a number of specific breath practices you can use to relax and connect to the present moment in Intuitive.
Meditation
Finding an approach to meditation that works for you could be really supportive as you develop your intuition if you don't already meditate regularly. There are many meditation apps you can use, my personal favourite is Insight Timer.
When in an earlier stage of actively developing my own intuition, I found doing a daily Chakra cleanse meditation very helpful, and created one for you to use as part of your Intuitive experience.
5: Learn to trust your gut
A big part of improving your connection to your intuition is learning to trust your gut. We can do this by consciously tuning into the more micro, every day messages we are receiving from our body, and increasing our self-understanding and connection to our own emotions and thoughts.
If you never ask yourself what you're thinking or feeling, and have little awareness of how your body is communicating with you on a daily basis, it is likely to be more difficult to access a big intuitive hit of information or guidance on a decision when you really want to.
Let me share two ways you can learn to trust your gut:
Listen to your body
Your body is always communicating with you and responding to people and experiences throughout your day. Consciously decide to tune in to how your body responds to different situations.
Try doing this multiple times a day to help enhance your connection to your body. In doing this, you will build self-trust in being able to feel and interpret the messages your body is giving you. We go deeper with this in Intuitive.
Journalling
Reflecting on how you're feeling, or asking yourself questions and answering them in the form of journalling can help you to become more aware of your thoughts and feelings, increase your self-knowledge, and in turn your trust in yourself.
We look at specific options for your journalling in Intuitive and you are invited to commit to a practice that feels good for you to explore in more depth.
6: Reflect on past experiences
Reflecting on your past intuitive experiences can help you build an understanding of how you connect to your own intuition so you can build on your existing skills.
We go deeper with this and explore how to build on your past intuitive experiences in Intuitive.
7: Build your knowledge and experience
As you develop mastery in a subject or sphere, this can also increase your ability to be more intuitive in the way you work or operate in that area.
Example: as someone who has studied Holistic Kinesiology, become a Reiki Master, completed a Diploma of Positive Psychology, engaged in NLP training (current), done thousands of hours with 1:1 clients and who has also studied a lot in the online business space, when I am presented with an emotional, mindset or strategic problem in the areas of online business or personal life, I usually instinctively know how we can start to tackle it. I can work quickly to help you effect real and deep change. That is a combination of experience, knowledge AND intuition.
If you want to become more intuitive in a specific area, developing your knowledge base can support that.
8: Experiment
Use the tools I have shared to prepare you to receive more intuitive information. Then, practice and experiment.
You might build your confidence by starting to consciously use your intuition to make decisions in low-risk situations. Practice asking yourself questions with the intention of using the wisdom of your body to feel your answer (this could be as simple as: what would feel best to eat for lunch, and feeling the difference between two options).
What if I want to go deeper?
In my course Intuitive, I guide you through the processes we have discussed in more detail through a series of videos. I show you exactly how you do the practices I've described and provide more examples so you can (intuitively, of course!) choose your favourites to commit to. I also provide supportive structures so you can learn how to gain more helpful and insightful intuitive information,
One of the ways I do this is to use my skills as a Reiki Master to create specific energetic containers to support you to experiment with using your intuition to make decisions, solve problems and access your creativity.
This is because I'm very experienced in creating containers which facilitate crystal clear guidance. You can take years and spend thousands of dollars to develop those skills yourself - or borrow mine while you develop your own intuitive abilities.
Over time, you will no longer need the support the containers provide, they provide scaffolding whilst you are in a phase of development (I am a former teacher).
Remember: You are Intuitive. And you can develop your intuition.
Becoming more intuitive can have so many benefits, not least, the increased connection you cultivate to your own body, thoughts and feelings.
In my own life, my intuition has allowed me make great decisions about what to say yes and no to in business and life, write my book in a highly creative format that was new to me, create the alignment process I teach in Align + Attract, it inspired me to create my latest course called Intuitive.
It just helped me now as I acted on an intuitive nudge to save this article to an external document before I saved it here. I then got an error message and lost the whole article - nearly 2500 words. But of course I had it saved in the doc. Phew!
