In this post, I present 5 ways to tap into your intuition and how to use them to discern between thoughts or feelings. Don’t think you’re intuitive? Check out this post to discover your intuitive gifts.
Intuition vs. Thoughts or Feelings
It can be difficult to know if the hits are intuition or a jumble of thoughts and/or feelings. When the thing drops into your awareness, it may be followed by emotion, or a flood of thoughts, so what’s the intuitive hit and when does your mind take over?
It takes discernment and practice to be able to separate intuition from thoughts and feelings. Often using tools to get yes/no answers can help in being able to discern whether it’s intuition or not. Once you begin practicing the tools and being able to slow down enough to understand how your intuition works, you’ll become faster at identifying what’s what.
Beginning with low stakes, low emotional questions is always good practice. It can be as simple as asking what your body wants to eat, or what time of the day will best serve you to take a walk, work out, etc. Once you’ve established trust in your answers, it’s easier to move on to the bigger, higher-stakes questions.
Practice These 5 Ways to Access Your Intuitive Gifts
1. Body as a Pendulum or Use a Pendulum
Photo by Ralph (Ravi) Kayden on Unsplash
Stand up straight and ask two questions to start: “Show me yes” and notice which direction you move. “Show me no”, and again notice which direction you move. Every time you use this technique it’s a good idea to start with these two questions in case your directions change (it can happen!). Typically, people lean forward on a yes and backward on a no, but it’s not 100% of the time. Once you’ve established your directions start asking yes/no questions.
You can also use a pendulum, found in every metaphysical book shop around, instead of using the body as a pendulum. There are a couple of different ways to hold it, but what’s important is that you are able to hold it and stay relatively still so that the movement of the pendulum isn’t unduly influenced by your body movements. Again, always ask it to show you yes and no. Sometimes the pendulum will spin clockwise or counterclockwise, and sometimes it will swing in a straight line.
2. Muscle Testing
There are a few techniques for muscle testing. One of the easiest and most discrete is to make a loop with your left forefinger and thumb, then interlock those fingers with the forefinger and thumb of your right hand. Again, ask “Show me yes” and “Show me no” while trying to pull your fingers apart. Once you’ve established your yes and no, start asking questions.
3. Psychic Multiple Choice
This is a good one for people who are primarily knowers, although everyone can use it. On 3 cards write the words “yes” “no” and “something else”, one per card. Turn the cards so you can’t see the words and shuffle them while asking a yes/no question. You can hold each card to feel which one is heavy or light (and choose the light-feeling one), or you can simply go with the card that your holding when you stop asking the question. If you get a series of “something else” answers, it’s usually an indication that your question isn’t clear or you may be trying to force an outcome.
4. Automatic writing
Clear your head and start journaling on a subject you want answers about. Having a calm, quiet place where you can do this (or your favorite music playing) can help you drop into your intuitive gifts vs. thinking about what you’re going to write. Writing with a pen and paper is often a great way to connect vs. using a computer, but whatever works for you. The point of automatic writing is to write long enough that words start to flow without the interruption of thoughts.
You can also use journaling prompts to help you get started.
5. Meditate
If you’re clairaudient (clear hearing), getting still so that you can hear what your intuition is telling you can help you discern what’s intuition and what’s just a gaggle of thoughts/feelings rolling through. Practice meditating in stillness and quiet to be able to hear.
Even if you receive intuition in ways other than clairaudience, learning to meditate is immensely helpful in getting centered and still so that you can pick up on the ways intuition comes to you.
And Lastly…
Have fun and experiment with all of the techniques to see which ones work best for you. Even if you’re still convinced you don’t have intuitive gifts, I invite you to start experimenting. You never know what may be illuminated for you!
