True progress on your path can only happen when you find the courage to listen to your intuition and make the choices that resonate deeply with you, regardless of how well they match up to what other people/society/logic say you should do.
Each of us has our own unique path, and therefore our own unique value system. What works for me may not work for you and vice versa. What matters is making the most expansive choices for ourselves–these are the choices that we make intuitively and that naturally align with our paths and our values.
But how do you actually make those intuitive decisions?
Intuition vs. Logic
Most of us run into trouble with following our intuition because our logical minds are powerful, and we’ve been raised to value our logic above all else. You may recall that it was easier to make decisions when you were a child, which is because children are naturally more in touch with their intuition. Their logic is less well-developed, they’re more sensitive to their feelings, and they’re more open to intuitive guidance. As we grow up, we’re influenced by society’s values, our logic becomes more advanced, and we fall out of touch with our intuition.
The good news is that by simply setting the intention to redevelop our latent intuitive abilities we can start to reawaken our dormant internal guidance systems. There are also specific techniques that can help you use your intuition to make decisions, with the added bonus that using these techniques will improve your overall intuitive abilities and make you better able to receive intuitive guidance.
Are You Indecisive?
Indecisiveness is common in people who are highly intuitive and who have well-developed logic. In most people, intuition is the faintest little whisper, so it’s very easy to ignore it and just follow the logical mind without question. In highly intuitive people intuition comes through much stronger and competes with logic for attention.
If you’re highly intuitive and have a very sharp logical mind then every decision can become an intense battle between your intuition and logic! I see this all the time with clients, friends, and, even though I know how to avoid it, I still experience it myself. Awareness of this phenomenon will help you to feel more confident in acting on intuitive information even when it contradicts logic.
Mistakes Create Alignment
One of the most common reasons that people end up stuck in the midst of a decision, unable to trust their intuition, is because of fear of making a mistake. The logic-based mentality of preventing future pain drives so many choices, and in a lot of cases those “choices” manifest as lack of choice and lack of action, leading to stagnation. This is how we end up feeling out of alignment with ourselves, off-track, unsettled and dissatisfied.
It’s important to understand a couple of things about mistakes:
- Our choices aren’t final–we can always course-correct if we stray from our paths.
- Mistakes bring us into greater alignment with our higher selves and our divine paths. In fact, so many things that seem like mistakes according to our conscious minds are actually important steps on our path–necessary experiences that teach us about ourselves and about life. Most of these “mistakes” function to help us see more clearly the direction we want to move in, what our values are, and how we want to live.
Our intuition provides the foundation that allows us to instinctively trust that our path is unfolding in the most aligned way. Regardless of how the outcome may appear, our intuitive choices are always bringing us into deeper alignment with ourselves and our paths. This is why the fear of making a mistake naturally dissolves when decisions are made intuitively.
How to Tune in to Your Intuition
The ability to tune in to and trust your intuition is developed with practice over time. In my experience, once I started really listening to and acting on the intuitive information I received, my ability to tap in and get guidance on demand increased rapidly. The more I listened, and especially the more I took action, the more readily available and clearer my intuitive guidance became. My clients and students have also found this to be the case when they begin consciously developing their intuition.
The single most effective way to improve your intuition is to create space for it in your life. You need less input, more quiet time (alone!), more space to tune in and feel/hear/see what your intuition is telling you. Setting aside time to sit quietly daily is ideal, even if it’s just 5 minutes! Breathe deeply and pay attention to where your mind wanders. I recommend keeping a journal and pen nearby to jot down anything that comes through.
Remember that intuitive information isn’t always literal, and that it can come through via a variety of modalities. Metaphors are very common. You may also see things in your minds eye, hear words or phrases in your head, have emotional or physical feelings, smell things that aren’t present–these are all typical and valid ways to receive intuitive information.
Using Intuition to Make Decisions
Here are my favorite techniques to help you use your intuition to make decisions:
Feel it Out
Intuition is about feeling, not thinking. When considering your options, allow yourself to perceive how they feel. This means both how you feel when you think about each option, but also how the options themselves feel. Sometimes it’s about how they feel in relation to each other, sometimes it’s about how each one feels individually. Often, one will feel more expansive and one will feel more constrictive. Or one will feel lighter and one heavier. One may feel more warm and loving, one may feel cold and isolating. You may also receive images or phrases that have specific feelings associated with them.
I once had to make a decision with three seemingly similar options. When I sat down to feel it out, the image of three hot air balloons appeared in my mind’s eye. The first balloon was tethered and couldn’t take off, the tethers just couldn’t be cut for some reason. As soon as the tethers on the second ballon were released it shot off rapidly into the air, totally out of control, and then sputtered out–just like a regular balloon that is blown up but never tied off. The last balloon was slow to lift off and headed in a different direction than expected but ended up flying over the most beautiful uncharted wilderness.
Each of these balloon scenarios came with its own specific set of feelings, too. The first made me feel confined and antsy, the second made me feel anxious and afraid, and the third, while initially also making me feel antsy (just get going already!), ended up bringing forth feelings of wonder, excitement, and illumination. Obviously I chose the third option, and because of the information I’d received intuitively, I was able to have patience and faith when things didn’t start out as well or as fast as had been promised. As a side note, people around me thought I was crazy to stick with this choice, especially when things weren’t going as planned at the beginning, but ultimately it did prove to be the best choice for me. Remember: your decisions are unique to you and don’t need to work for others!
Hold the Options in Your Hands
Sit quietly, take a few deep breaths to center yourself, and hold out both of your hands in front of you with your palms open. Think about the decision you need to make and the two best options you’re considering. Imagine that you’re holding each option in one of your open palms. Option A in one hand, Option B in the other. Now pay very close attention to how they feel, what they look like, and any other qualities they may possess. One may feel heavier than the other. They may seem to radiate light, vibrate, feel like they’re slipping through your fingers, feel cold or hot–the qualities they could possess are truly infinite. Your intuition will use a variety of means to communicate which decision is the better choice, so be open to information about these choices presenting itself in any way.
I recently had a client try this exercise during a session to help her choose between two jobs she’d been offered. She visualized holding each job in one of her hands and what happened was that one of the options she was holding caused that hand and arm to suddenly feel extremely cold. When she looked at that hand and arm in her mind’s eye, they appeared to be a robotic hand and arm! The intuitive message was that the job she was “holding” in that hand was one that ultimately would’ve left her unfulfilled and functioning as a anonymous, replaceable cog in the machine of that company.
This is what I mean by being open to information coming through in any possible way. Metaphors are a very common way to receive information, and if you get one that’s confusing, simply ask for clarification. Remember that you’re in a conversation with the universe and you can always continue to ask questions to clarify the information that’s coming through. Sometimes it just takes a little bit of a perspective shift to understand the full meaning of the guidance you receive.
Ask for a Sign
This is as simple as saying, “Please show me a sign that Choice X is the right choice for me.” Or, even better, ask for a specific sign: “If Choice Y is the best choice, please send me a bluebird as a sign.” Of course, the bluebird may show up as part of a logo on a delivery truck, a song about bluebirds on the radio, or an actual bluebird flying past you. Keep in mind that the sign may come through immediately or may take a couple of days or even weeks.
If you continue to feel unsettled about the decision and haven’t gotten your sign, keep looking, or ask for a different sign. I’ve never not had a sign show up, and usually when people think they haven’t gotten their sign it’s simply that the sign showed up differently than they thought it would so they missed it. Set the intention to be open to any divine information that shows up for you. It can also be helpful to visualize yourself taking off your blinders and increasing your awareness so that you’re better able to perceive anything that comes through.
Not long ago I had a client who was trying to decide whether to stay in her relationship. She’d asked the universe for a sign to help her make the decision. When we got on the phone for her session she mentioned that, multiple times in the previous week, a bird had flown into her windshield while she was driving. Talk about a clear sign! She’s highly intuitive and deep down, knew the relationship had run its course even though her conscious mind was still coming up with reasons to keep it going. This sign gave her the confirmation she needed to move on confidently.
Next Steps
Trust that with practice and time, it will become so much easier for you to intuitively make decisions. Your logical mind will always be loud and distracting, but if you make the space to tune in to your intuition, you’ll find that it becomes clearer and easier to access on demand. When weighing your choices, lean towards light, love, and expansion–these are the feelings that are aligned with your higher self and your divine path.
And remember that things don’t have to be they way you think (or other people/society/logic say) they do! There’s always room to move, to shift, to expand. Things can always be different and feel better, but the path to get there is different for each of us.
If you’d like help with the decisions you’re facing, or personalized coaching to help you develop your intuition, I’d love to work with you!
