Building Intuition

We often hear the advice to listen to our intuition or your gut feeling, but rarely are we taught how to do it. When we are born we are so vulnerable and often times when our intuition signals we are not in a position to do much about it. I believe this is one of the reasons we lose connection to listening to it. We may even shut it down all together, feeling like it is better not to know. We forget how to listen to our intuition. I am listing six areas of practice that contribute to learning to listen to your intuition once again. The Pebble Finder section in the Mighty Pebble App has stones listed to help you in all of these areas under the Intuition topic.

1. Practice Staying in the Present 

It is easy to get sidetracked with thoughts of the past or the future. There are many things that pull our attention away from the here and now. Your intuition can be easily missed if you are distracted. There are a few things that help me come into the present. The first one is to pay attention to my breathe. Notice how the air feels coming into you body, fill your lungs completely and then notice how it feels as you exhale. The second one is noticing how the air around me feels on my skin. Then smell something you enjoy, like gum, chapstick, or a candle. And of course my favorite is holding a stone.

2. Connect to Your Higher Self

Taking the time to connect to your inner self helps you grow a strong connection to your intuition. Once you notice how your soul feels inside you, it becomes easy to recognize when you are not feeling right. Practice finding the natural rhythm within takes quiet time. You don't need to go into deep meditation to connect to yourself. One simple practice is to place your hand on your heart and begin to take deep breaths. Notice how your hands feel while resting there. You may begin to feel a warmth or a fluttering sensation. Picture a light that resides in the back of your heart start to grow bigger and bigger. You can stay there as long as time permits. Please be patient with yourself as it can take several tries to begin to notice how the connection inside feels.

3. Awareness

Often you can tell when you walk into a room and interrupted something. The room feels heavy. Paying attention to when you feel that is a good start to wake your body up to feeling the differences around you. When you walk into a room ask yourself what you notice within yourself. You may get a flutter in your stomach or just have a thought about someone before you receive their text or call. You may encounter an inner knowing about small things like the color of something before you see it. All your senses have a way of signaling your intuition. Bring awareness to the times when you visualize, smell, think, feel, or hear something before your physical body knows.  

4. Discern Your Intuition

Not every thought is your intuition. If you experience intrusive thoughts you will want to learn tools to help calm your thoughts down and can require professional help with a doctor or therapist. That being said, there are plenty of thoughts going through our minds that distract us from understanding what information is  important and what isn't. This part of your intuition starts with observation. Practice writing down the thoughts and track which ones pertained to your day. This will help you build trust in your thoughts. This may look like realizing you had the thought to bring a jacket and you didn't, but wish you had followed through. At first the thoughts that will stand out are the ones you didn't do, but in time you will start to see the times you follow through. 

5. Believe in the Unseen

Trusting in something greater than yourself enhances your ability to believe you have intuition. Intuition is a gift of inner knowing to assist you in navigating life. This belief begins to connect you to the possibility that you can understand things that can't be seen. You can't see your intuition, but you begin to trust it is there. Belief is essential in growing your gifts.

6. Trust Yourself

Unfortunately, self-doubt is normal. We all experience it at some point. As you begin to trust the things you feel, you will begin to receive even more messages. If you have a good thought, trust it. Stop listening to the negative voice in your mind as if it is truth. When you are doubting yourself and your intuitive messages, go back to bringing yourself to the present and connect to your spirit.

These six areas are not in any specific order. You can practice those that could use extra growth. There are stone helpers for each of these areas for the full list you can download the Mighty Pebble Rebel App and search in the Pebble Finder under Intuition.