Intuition: As an Inner Journey to Self Improvement and Personal Growth

Intuition Definition

First of all, what is intuition? Many people associate intuition to a gut feeling or hunch that they get. Let’s begin with creating clarity around the intuition definition.

The word intuition comes from the Latin word “intueri”, which means “to look at” or “contemplate”. In the dictionary, intuition is defined as “the act or faculty of knowing or sensing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition” and “a sense of something not evident or deducible; an impression”.

Intuition can be regarded as our “sixth sense”, “gut feeling”, “unexplainable inner knowing”, etc. In Western mainstream culture, intuition has been given little credence. Intuition has certainly not been considered a source of information to be relied upon for matters of importance. Interestingly though, Albert Einstein, a man whose theories are only now being proven correct by modern science, was quoted as saying, “The only real valuable thing is intuition”.

Intuition is not directly observable although its effects are. Just like the wind in the trees, it may not be visible, but we can see and hear its effects. Perhaps you can now imagine intuition as simply a different dimension of the same space. Intuition lies on a different plane or angle. For example, if conventional knowing is on one plane, the X-Y axis, then intuition is on a connected but different plane, the X-Z axis (connected through point X). If we use this graphical analogy, then you can see now that everyone has access to intuition which can be developed and refined with practice.

Develop Intuition

For me, intuition is so much more that just an inner knowing. it is a process of tapping into your deep sense of inner wisdom. Intuition comes from that place of you where you know your Oneness with “All That Is”. At its highest level, intuition is the part of you that is one with “Love”, that great mystery that people are willing to even die for.

To develop intuition, you first of all must have courage and be willing to step beyond your intellectual mind. And once you begin to develop intuition more and more and learn to embrace it, integrate it, you will begin to know and experience the infinite possibilities that exist beyond the “normal” boundaries of “ordinary consciousness”.

Intuition is believed to have its seat in your unconscious mind or subconscious mind. And because emotions also come from the unconscious or subconscious part of the brain, often intuition arises as feelings. Those intuition feelings can either be internal, not unlike that “gut feeling” sensation or actual physiological sensations like “hairs standing up on your neck or arms” or “feeling twitches” in a part of your body.

Different people will perceive or receive intuition in different ways. For some people, intuition may even be in the form of images, smells or sounds they get.

One simple way to develop intuition is simply to not judge or justify or rationalize every single thought or feeling that you have about something or someone. Just observe, or feel whatever whatever that intuition is, just as it comes to you.

How to Use Intuition in Self Improvement and Personal Growth

We all experience and have intuition, it’s just that some people completely disregard their intuition when it arises, by rationalizing whatever thought or feeling of intuition they had with their conscious mind. How many times in your life have you had experiences of someone calling you or showing up in your life in some way just as you were thinking about them? Well, that’s intuition right there. The problem is, a lot of people, would place a label on experiences of intuition like those a call them a “coincidence” or luck.

One way of looking at intuition is, it’s neither right nor wrong. Instead intuition is more like a nudge or tap that you receive whenever you ask a question or need answers or need guidance for a decision. So we receive a nudge of intuition and in order to express our intuition in words, we make an interpretation of the intuition feeling, thought, image etc. It’s not that our intuition (the nudge) is wrong or right, but maybe sometimes our interpretation our intuition is off the mark or off target. But the intuition itself was neither wrong nor right.

Every moment of your life you are making a decision. No matter how small and seemingly insignificant the decision (for example, the decision to stay sitting on the sofa for one minute longer) we make is, we are always making decisions. Even deciding to be still and do nothing is still a decision.

There are times, when you will be faced with tough decisions or situations and don’t know what to do, which path to take or how to interpret the “nudge” that life has given you. There will lots of situations like those and all they are, are opportunities to have more personal growth and self improvement. There will be situations to make tough decisions with which there will be more personal growth and self improvement, but only if you choose to see them as opportunities to create more personal growth. Here’s one thing you can do in order to access your intuition and bring calm and stillness back into your mind in those situations:

• Stop thinking! Close your eyes and breathe slowly and evenly in and out. Place your hand on the area of your heart. Now as you inhale, feel and imagine yourself inhaling right into your heart, filling it up. And when you exhale, you exhale from your heart. Do this for a couple of minutes and you will feel things slow and quiet down. This simple process, literally, synchronizes your brain waves and your heart waves.

• Then, once you’ve established that rhythm of breathing in and out of your heart and your mind is quiet, ask yourself a question about what is the best and highest action to take regarding the situation. Listen, feel, watch, be aware of the first impulse, the first answer, voice, image, sound, feeling that comes. Whatever that is, trust it, and take it for the truth of what’s best for you and all concerned. Then go out into your day, and take action in that direction of your interpretation of your intuition. It’s that simple. Intuition and living by intuition is that simple and easy, but we often complicate life and matters by thinking too much.

As you learn to do this more and more, you will begin to develop your intuition more and more. Trust your intuition and act. As you act more and more with courage and trust in your intuition, you will have personal growth and self improvement because the exercise of courage and trust themselves are huge building blocks in personal growth. Either way you act, you have to act. Either way you go, there will be a consequence. And instead of looking at consequences as right or wrong, look at every experience as what is needed for this moment, that’s all.

I can’t even begin to count the countless times I chose to act in a certain way only to be met by what I perceived as “negative consequences”. Then, later on, sometimes even years later, I met a person, or helped a person, or was able to do something really wonderful and I knew without a doubt that, it was only because of my previous “wrong action” and “negative consequence” that I was able to have the wonderful experience. We often judge ourselves, others and experiences to harshly. If we let go of judgement, then intuition will begin to flow naturally and easily and we will be able to hear, see and feel it more distinctly and accurately.

Some of the greatest discoveries and inventions (like those of Einstein) were based at first on intuition, a thought or dream they had. So it’s no surprise that I rely heavily on my own intuition when I am coaching and helping people towards the results they want in their life. The only way that I am able to rely on my intuition to help and coach others though, is because I constantly practice non-judgement and non-attachment of the interpretations of my intuition.

Perhaps you will do the same with your intuition from now. I guarantee you if you do, your journey and process of personal growth and self improvement and discovery will be filled with even more joy, happiness, lightness and serenity.