Do you know you have an inner guidance system?
I ask because I’ve been one of those people who insisted I didn’t have intuition/inner guidance. Not that long ago, I was convinced that being intuitive was reserved for only a select few, the massage therapists, reiki masters, and therapists of the world. Not an analytical engineer like me!
Ha, well, we all have access to it, and it can show up in several different ways. The main differentiator when it comes to intuition is the question: “Are you a knower or a feeler?”
- A knower tends to be a thinking person and just knows things without being able to explain them. For example, if you are grounded in thinking, using your head, and tend to be analytical, you’re likely a knower.
- A feeler tends to be a feeling person and they feel things in their body, often referred to as a gut reaction.
Now, it doesn’t mean if you’re one type, you’re not another, it just means you have a preference to use one, and as you practice you will start to discern how intuition comes to you. As a thinking person, when I started working with intuition, I didn’t trust the knowing. My brain works non-stop processing information and I can fall down thought-holes with the best of them, so it took practice using the feeling types before I was able to trust it.
6 Types of Intuition
1. Claircognizance – Clear knowing
This is when you just “know” something and have no idea how or why you know it. Often it’s not logical, you can’t back up in your mind and figure out how it got there, it just did. It can also show up in dreams, or when you wake up in the middle of the night with a great idea. For example, I knew when it was time to leave my job. It took over a year of trying to make part-time work, and at one point, the knowledge dropped in months before I thought I’d leave. Time to go.
2. Clairvoyant – Clear seeing.
This is when you have visions or see something that may happen. Note: not will happen, there are always many variables, but you may be seeing what’s possible. It may come in a flash through your mind as you’re talking to someone, or working on a project. You may be able to see a whole project, and all it’s possible derailments. You may be able to see someone’s purpose and path. I spent months saying I’m not clairvoyant all the while saying “I can see the whole vision and all the possibilities!” Finally, my coach snarked, “Yeah, but you’re not clairvoyant are you?” Touché.
3. Clairsentience – Clear physical feeling
When you sense what other people are feeling, but you don’t take it on as your own is known as clairsentience. You may be able to feel the emotions in your body, or even when someone has stubbed their toe, you may feel that in your body too! You may be able to walk into a room and sense the energy. Sometimes you may leave the room because, gah, who wants to be in that field? Often people with clairsentience say they use their “gut” as their guide.
4. Clairempathy – Clear emotional feeling
Very similar to clairsentience, clairempathy is when you can sense the emotions coming from around you and tend to take it on as your own. You still feel it in your body but have trouble discerning what’s yours and what’s someone else’s. Developing the skill to discern what’s your emotion vs. someone else’s tends to develop clairsentience. People with strong clairempathy are often described as textbook empaths. I fall here and have a strong empathic response to people around me. Learning to discern what’s my emotion vs. others is an ongoing practice.
5. Clairaudient – Clear hearing
You may hear something and you have an answer. Or, you may hear voices, footsteps, or experience ringing in your ears.
6. Clairsalience – Clear smelling
Like clairaudient, this involves another sense, your smell. You may smell the perfume of someone who has passed away, you may smell cigarette smoke and no one is smoking. This type of intuition can be seen as receiving messages from spirits. The first time I noticed this, I was shocked!
Intuition as Energetic Information
Even if you’re the most concrete-grounded analytical person on the planet, things may have happened that you can’t explain. Ever been thinking about a friend and they call you? Ever say something out loud and your partner says, “I was just thinking that!” That’s an energetic connection.
Intuition is energetic information. You can’t touch it, prove it, or otherwise know exactly how it got to you. The beauty of learning to follow your intuition means you can begin to let go of the thought-holes and ifs of every decision you make. Once you learn to tune into your own inner guidance system, every decision becomes easier from the question of “What do I eat today?” to “Is it time to find another place to live?”
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash
