Ah, intuition, that pesky little skill which, when mastered, can seemingly transform your life for the better. We all have intuition, it’s like a muscle. A weak muscle can still be used, felt, or even seen from time to time, but when you need to help your friend move a couch, weak muscles are surely going to make the process a lot harder (and hurt you for a few days afterwards).
So how do we build muscles? We work out, go for runs, lift weights, do yoga, go swimming, you get it! Muscles grow stronger the more we use them in our day to day life, and the exact same principle can be applied to your intuition muscle: the more you use it the stronger yours will be.
I am going to share with you the three ways you can start strengthening your intuition today. You should add these activities to your weekly or daily life for the best results, because just like doing 5 push ups once a year isn’t going to give you beefy biceps, only doing these activities once or twice won’t give you the infallible intuition you’re looking for.
Intuitive Walk
I love going for walks, it’s my favorite way to spend time with my neighborhood while also getting some much needed endorphins and serotonin (who doesn’t need more of those chemicals in their life, am I right?). Did you know that you can turn a simple walk into an intuition strengthener? Let me explain how.
I’m lucky to live on a grid, so every block I walk I am presented with a few options: go right, left or forward. So when I’m going on an intuitive walk I wait until the last possible minute to make that decision. If a little voice says “turn right,” that’s what I’ll do. Maybe there’s a house I love coming up ahead if I go forward, so another voice says “no, go straight so we can look at all the calla lilies in bloom!” If I’m not on an intuitive walk perhaps I’ll take the second little voice's advice (calla lilies are my favorite), but when we are working to strengthen our intuition we have to listen to the first nudge we get, so to the right it is.
That’s my golden rule when it comes to intuition, simply make a decision and do it fast. More often than not your intuition will be the first to speak up, anxiety and other cerebral things pop into our head afterwards. If you’re like me you have spent most, if not all, of your life struggling against a heavy mind filled with fluttering thoughts. Anxiety is the biggest hurdle to conquer when it comes to building intuition. It’s like the force of gravity pulling against us as we lift weights, working against the force builds the muscle.
This is why an intuitive walk is so helpful, because there isn’t anything to lose when you choose to listen to your intuition so the level of anxious thoughts should be lower (it’s like lifting 3 pound weights instead of 30 pounds).
As I’ve mentioned, we all have intuition, meaning that you can probably think of a few specific times in your life when you didn’t listen to your intuition but in the end your intuition was 100% right. So when you’re going on an intuitive walk (or bike ride, or skate or drive even) you don’t have to worry about getting it just right, your only job is to listen for your intuition and trust it.
Your intuition probably isn’t going to save you from an accident or alert you of something majorly life changing when you're going for a walk around your neighborhood. It might guide you towards a tree with a fairy door on it, an open house to view, a purple car parked at the grocery store, a box with some free books in it, or a church that is ringing its bells. Our intuition doesn’t exist solely to guide us through huge decision making, it’s also there for the small glorious moments that surprise us and color our lives. So go on an intuitive walk today and see where your intuition leads you.
Doodle
There is a reason that spiritual people tend to be creative people as well; intuition is a creative force. So for this next exercise you’ll want to tap into your creative energy. Don’t worry if you haven’t created any art since you were in elementary school, it’s not about the final product, it’s about the process.
I suggest starting with a simple doodle because there’s less to artistically worry about when you’re doodling some hearts and circles on a piece of paper. So once you’ve got your pen and paper take a deep breath and then draw the first doodle that comes to your head. Maybe it’s a flower or a sun or some squiggly lines (all great options).
Now here’s the kicker, as you're drawing this first doodle, only concentrate on what you’re drawing right then and there. As soon as that first doodle feels done, the first thing that pops into your head next is what you will draw. We are working with the same basic principle as we did in the intuitive walk here, only now we have a world or options instead of a few. Just like with the walking exercise, you cannot plan out what you are going to do next, instead you wait until the moment you have to decide and you trust that first instinct.
If your mind wanders and starts to plan out the next doodle before you’ve finished the last one, close your eyes and take a few calming breaths. Still your mind and when you’re ready, ask for what you should doodle next. Of course, you have to go with whatever image your intuition sends to you, no second guessing!
To really get the most out of this exercise you should fill up the whole page with doodles. For those of you out there who don’t believe you have an artistic streak in you, you’ll be surprised by how nice your doodles look when you’ve completed a whole page of them. There is no technical skill required, just your intuition and, who knows, before long you might come to realize that maybe you’ve been an artist all along (that’s what happened to me)!
Intuition Decision Day
Ok, so after you’ve worked with the first two exercises a few times it will be time for you to pump up your intuition work out routine. You can do this by choosing one day a week to make all your decisions with your intuition.
Humans make a huge amount of decisions in a day (we’re talking tens of thousands) from which clothes to wear, which coffee cup to use, what to watch on TV, the list goes on and on and on and on and on. We have so many different tools and biases at our disposal when we’re making decisions, but intuition is definitely one of them.
Our intuition pops up when we are making decisions, big or small, so committing one day a week to make all of your decisions with your intuition can be a hugely impactful way to beef up that intuition muscle. When you debate whether or not to take a morning shower, or whether or not to go out for coffee, if you should reply to your ex who texted you, let your intuition decide!
Now, all of these three exercises are going to help you to better discern between your mind, your anxiety and your intuition. After some practice it will get a lot easier to be able to tell when intuition is speaking, but that takes time and practice to master, so what do you do when you’re not sure if that thought was intuition or anxiety? It’s simple, just go with the first thought and trust yourself.
A huge part of building up your intuition muscle is learning that you can trust yourself. If your first thought was to text your ex back but you found yourself second guessing that choice because you have an internal bias that secretly really wants that person to be back in your life (even if your rational mind knows it’s not what’s best for you), trust that you can properly handle whatever comes next.
Maybe your intuition led you there because whatever your ex was going to say or do next would be a good reminder of why this person is no longer in your life. Maybe your intuition said to text them back because they were actually just getting in touch to let you know that you left something at their house, something you’d been searching all over your house for.
Here’s the kicker though, that first thought might have actually been your internal bias!
Yes, folks, your intuition doesn’t pop up every single time you have a decision to make. I know, I know, it sounds counterintuitive to what I’ve been saying, but it’s not. Every time you make a decision your intuition has an opportunity to speak to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to speak every time. The thing is, the better you get at listening to your first thought when making a decision, the better you will get at trusting yourself, and the better you get at trusting yourself the stronger your ability to listen and utilize your intuition will become.
Eventually you will get really good at being able to discern what is your anxiety or mind and what is your intuition, but before you can get there you have to simply practice listening to yourself, making the decision, and dealing with the outcome, whatever it may be. Too often we get stuck in the limbo of decision making, feeling as though our life hangs precariously on this very choice, but the truth is that your strength comes from how you handle the outcome of the decision.
Life is not black and white, but many shades of gray. These decisions that weigh heavy on us aren’t about choosing the good option from the bad one, it is about making a choice and moving on.
And that’s the thing, we have this belief that intuition can guide us towards a safe, cushy, lovely little life and, while yes that is the end game that intuition can guide us towards, but the places it takes you along the way can be challenging. Intuition can help us realize that we need to leave our job or relationship, both of which can feel really scary while it’s happening but can also open us up to new, more aligned opportunities for the future.
Intuition doesn’t save you from the hard stuff in life, it helps keep you honest and true to who you are, so the stronger your intuition muscle becomes the more you your life will become.