Every week I channel intuitive guidance and send it out to my email newsletter subscribers. For several weeks in a row the guidance was all about releasing the things that hold us back, whether physical, mental, emotional, etc.
And for several weeks in a row I’d been avoiding doing the work myself. Even professionals have their issues! I knew I didn’t have to clean out my closet or get rid of unhealthy relationships (already did that, thank you very much). I had to focus on getting rid of limiting beliefs and habits, and frankly, I just didn’t want to deal with it because I knew it was going to be a J-O-B.
But I also knew that if I didn’t do it I was going to continue to feel stuck and frustrated about not making progress towards my goals. So I finally took the time to start identifying and releasing the beliefs and habits that have been preventing me from being who I want to be and doing what I’m here to do.
I want to share my experience with you to help you understand how a professional intuitive uses her intuition, so that you can better understand how to use your own. It may be helpful to read last week’s practical step-by-step guide for using your intuition before you read the rest of this post. (But if you’re just here out of voyeurism then by all means, read on!)
First things first, I set aside time to do this work every morning for about 10 days. Working on the same thing every day this intensively is pretty unusual for me, but intuitively I knew I needed to focus to achieve the results I wanted. The timing was right energetically and more importantly, I finally felt ready to strip away everything that didn’t resonate with who I truly am or who I want to be.
So let’s get into the nitty gritty of what using my intuition to do this type of work looked like for me.
Every morning when I finished my meditation, I stated my intention to release the beliefs and habits that were holding me back and asked the universe and my guides to help me identify and release them.
After I set the intention and asked for help I sat quietly and allowed the guidance to come through. I had my journal open so I could write down everything I received. (You should do this, too, because you never know when you’ll get some seriously life-altering miraculous insight! Also, sometimes the guidance makes no sense or seems irrelevant but then you go back and read it a few days later and have a major lightbulb moment. So, write it all down!)
The first day I wrote a heading at the top of the page that read, “Beliefs & habits I’m ready to let go of.” (Be specific like this, it will help you get clearer guidance!) Under that heading I wrote down all the guidance I received.
After about 10 minutes of transcribing what was coming through I stopped and read through the list. Many of the beliefs and habits I’d written down were painful to acknowledge. Some of them I’d been aware of previously, but not necessarily as things that were holding me back. Some of them were things that–even though I’d experienced their effects–I’d been completely oblivious to. And underlying most of them was fear.
(Embarrassing example: one of the beliefs I wrote down was, “People think what I do is weird.” As soon as I wrote it down I realized it was true and ugh, how embarrassing to be a spiritual teacher and mentor who is afraid that people will think what I do is weird. Aren’t I supposed to be a shining example of living my truth no matter what? And how can I do that when I live with an undercurrent of fear? We’ll get to the answers to these questions, but just know that spiritual growth is often not easy!)
I wrote down things that I’ve struggled with that I had never taken responsibility for, things that I felt like needed to change but that I also felt like I couldn’t change. The way this information came through to me made it 100% clear that I am the creator of those things and that I have total control over whether or not they’re part of my life.
After I wrote everything down and read through it, I asked, “why do I feel this way? Where are these beliefs and habits coming from?” Then I wrote down the answers I received: a combination of some crazy-ass past life stuff AND me creating issues in my present life to distract me from having to really face my fears and live my purpose.
Then I took it one step further and asked how to release these things. The answer I got was that I first had to accept reality and acknowledge the truth of everything I’d written down, and then turn these problems over to the universe. Then I channeled a prayer to help me release the beliefs, habits, and fears.
Every morning I went back and read through the list I initially wrote, asked if there were additions (luckily there were only a couple!), and asked again why I was having those experiences and how I could let them go. Then I read through the prayer, tweaked it if I felt called to, and spent a few minutes holding it in my consciousness so that it could transform me.
Although this work was difficult and unsettling, especially at first, it was also freeing, encouraging, and revelatory. As I stuck with it and did the work every day, I felt lighter, more positive, more motivated, more loved and more compassionate.
A couple days in, I noticed that in the 99% of my life that doesn’t happen in my quiet little sacred space, things were shifting. Since starting this process, I’ve been able to share myself more authentically. I feel less overwhelmed. I’ve been less of an insane perfectionist without having to consciously try to override what I always identified as my perfectionist tendencies (note the ownership there–this has been a big shift for me, because now it’s just me considering various options or ways of doing things and not me trying to force myself to behave in a way that feels “out of character”). Those old habits are falling away.
Consistently doing the necessary inner work has meant big changes in my outer world. It’s all coming together.
You may think it’s easy for me because I’m a professional and I know that when I ask a question I’ll get an answer, and I’m able to trust and interpret the answers I get. Yes, this is true. But I got where I am by consciously deciding to develop my intuition and by practicing asking for and receiving guidance. You can do this, too.
And just so we’re clear, I’m still working on this stuff. In my experience it takes consistent effort over time to make real progress with deep issues like changing your beliefs or long-held habits. The willingness to question everything opens you up to the possibility for a lot of radical changes to happen in your life, but the process of questioning everything is ongoing.
I go through phases when I’m doing a lot of questioning, turning over all the things in my life to see if they fit with who I am, who I want to be, and my goals. And then I go through phases where I’m just living without thinking (or worrying) too much about examining everything because honestly all that deep consideration can be tiring. And in my experience, if you never give yourself a chance to integrate the changes you make you will just feel unsettled and unhappy.
So, make the time to listen to your intuition, be intentional, pay attention to what you receive, and act on it. And give yourself a break when you need it (if you’re listening to your intuition you’ll know when you need it!).
I want to leave you with the last couple sentences of the prayer that I channeled for myself because I think they’ll resonate with many of you as well:
“I am ready to shine my light. I trust that the universe will support me in releasing fear so that I may uplift and empower others. Let’s do the work.”
