“What we know determines how we think, decide and act.” Harold H. Bloomfield M.D.
Most of us have been brought up to “think” logically, rationally and critically. Our society has valued reason and critical thinking over any innate feeling sense when it comes to making decisions or evaluating situations.
Animals have instincts to help them survive; to assist them in detecting danger and in sensing their immediate environment. Without this instinct they would be at a crucial disadvantage. The human animal, a sentient being possessing a number of heightened senses coupled with the ability to think logically, has however been traditionally relegated to developing the rational at the cost of the innate.
I am not talking about the psychic senses, although those can often have validity as well. Nor do I want to expound on the virtues of looking into the past or the future. I am referring to an extra sensory perception we all possess, that which goes beyond our ability to perceive via the normal 5 senses; I am talking about: INTUITION.
We have all heard the terms: “following a hunch”, “having a gut feeling”, or “feeling something in our bones” which refer to an innate knowing that seems to bypass logic. For example: a mother sensing that her child is in danger or having a gut feeling that something is about to take place, or knowing when the phone rings, who is on the other end before we pick up. Did you know that a large number of company C.E.O’s have verified that their decision making processes are often based on “gut feelings” about which way to go on major business decisions?
In our modern and often very complicated lives we are all faced with choices that can leave us confused because we cannot logically get a correct grasp on a situation and the options it presents: enter intuition!!.
As Shakti Gawain, personal growth and consciousness coach and author puts it:” Intuition is not some sort of mysterious force that comes to you through some transcendent mystical experience. In fact, our intuition is a very practical, down to earth tool that is always available to help us deal with the decisions, problems and challenges in our daily lives. We are all born with it; young children especially are very intuitive, although in our culture they are often trained out of it early in life”.
We have been programming our minds to doubt our intuition even though our intuitive knowing allows us a much broader spectrum of information intimately related to our personal growth, self expression, creativity and emotional focus. Learning to trust our intuition can, according to Dr. Bloomfield, cure us of “psychosclerosis, a hardening of the mind and spirit that stems from overdependence on rationality and analysis”.
Within the last twenty years or thereabouts there has been an over- all re-evaluation of conventional beliefs within a seizeable part of the scientific community. As we progress into the 21st century we are fast learning that intuition is not some form of magic. In actuality it draws on information that is not “consciously” available to us but rather works with information that is available to our” subconscious” minds which is by far more powerful. Albert Einstein said: “the really valuable thing is intuition”. Many scientific discoveries including some of Einstein’s have had their origins in dreams or intuitive flashes.
For all of us having the” intuitive edge” means making more thorough decisions, tapping into our creativity at a deeper level and having more comprehensive insights into situations we are presented with. The thing is that we need to learn, not only to trust our intuitive insights, but also to develop our abilities to use our intuition .In the next issue we will discuss various ways and exercises to develop this sense which can and should be such a valuable tool in our lives.
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