Do you trust your intuition, or do you sometimes ignore gut feelings? Yes, at times I have ignored mine too.
Intuition is a style of taking in information that processes the big picture and detects patterns. Our intuition is partially informed by experience, formal and informal education, as well as rapid appraisal of a situation. Yet, we often harness our intuition by unconsciously assessing the situation through detecting non-verbal cues and feeling the energy of a person or space. (A note: It is often said people born female have greater intuitive depth. I do feel that although that is true to a point, I’ve interacted with countless humans in all ranges of gender preferences who have well developed or underdeveloped intuition!)
Did you also know that in recent years, the enteric nervous system has been discovered? The enteric nervous system has the same type of neurotransmitters as in the central nervous system, but they are located all through our digestive track. This is where our “gut feelings” and the butterflies and messages from our stomach come from. Your non-cognitive messages are important and are not to be ignored!
Holistic body/mind/breath yoga practices can help you to identify and trust your intuition.
Yoga can support the deep belief that your perceptions of a situation, non-verbal cues, are real and have value . Of course, I don’t claim our intuition is correct 100% of the time. After all we are human and could miss certain information from the world.
However, too many times we discount or retrospectively realize that we knew/felt/detected on some level that our health, or a relationship, or a work situation needed tending to or changing.
Yoga supports your intuition in at least four major ways including:
-Becoming more aware of your body and it’s signals. Put another way, we refine listening to what our body is telling us from the brain and the gut. We pay attention and RESPECT the messages from our “sixth sense”.
-Through self-realization. Holistically, we know ourselves better. We know our mind through meditative practices and listening to our self-talk. We know how we can best serve ourselves, our loved ones, or the world.
-We know that our perceptions have inherent value as humans.
-We acknowledge and celebrate the value of information and education (sometimes we surprise ourselves and don’t even know what we know!)
I’ve taught communication skills for many years, and I’ve written about Intuition in the context of authoring books about the Myers Briggs Type Indicator(R) and interpreting it literally 1000 or more times over the years.. I coach my students to refine listening to their intuition. This skill is basic for interpersonal relationships if one needs to set a boundary, take a risk, make a request, or even communicate something positive.
Can you recall a time when you’ve successfully followed your intuition? In retrospect, what did you already “know” that helped? I’d love to hear more. Comment or reach out and share your story!