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They're not the same!
By Valerie Varan — Written on Aug 21, 2017
Trusting your intuition isn’t the same thing as trusting your gut.
With intuition, you just KNOW. Fear is absent, and you feel absolutely clear in your heart about some path ahead, like following up with some new person you met, or a fresh career direction that recently came to mind.
You may or may not choose to move forward immediately, but there is for sure no confusion about the message you just received.
On the other hand, the gut tells you A LOT. It’s just not your intuition.
Your gut offers feedback about how you feel about something, based on your past experiences and fears.
It does tell you by that swirling tension in your stomach when something isn’t quite right about your surroundings. Or when some person close to you may mean some harm.
You see, your gut reaction comes from the same source that allows you to drive on autopilot for miles without remembering the in-between.
Your gut reaction comes from YOU, but that very human part of you, made up of over 37 trillion cells. Cells that have their own radar and form of consciousness that allows them to perform all the amazing feats that they do moment-by-moment without you having to micromanage the whole job.
Which is a great thing, because most of us have plenty to attend to without having to regulate the beat of our heart or the ins and outs of our breathing. (Whew, because most of us can hardly manage anything until we’ve had our coffee!)
The gut sense is your basic human instinct. It is the collective intelligence of your cells all working synchronously to keep your body safe and in proper working order.
And while you need your gut instinct, you may not ALWAYS want to listen to it.
It concerns your fears and fights for survival. It does reflect your past. But maybe not your future.
Your intuition is the voice of your soul, that highest part of you that exists before birth and continues beyond the death of this body (as plenty of near-death experiencers will tell you).
And if you doubt that, you’re not alone.
You’ll even be among the majority of scientists who haven’t caught on to the decades-old findings from quantum physics that tell us that, in the whole chicken-or-the-egg debate, consciousness exists first.
And…through the mind-blowing process of creation…patterns of energy-carrying-information, as consciousness, become embryonic heart and brain, and embodied soul.
YOU are a soul, living THROUGH a body. And your intuition is the mind of this higher aspect of your consciousness.
Clear. Calm. Collective (yep, really is like a telepathic radar).
As such, you have a choice to make in each and every moment of this earth-bound life. You can follow the gut, and stay safely within the confines of what has worked for you in the past. A long and varied past.
OR, you can follow your intuition, and move forward beyond the reaches of where you’ve been and into the unknown ahead of you. The ones perhaps you intended to venture into before you came into this current abode. The ones that every so often beckon in your dreams.
Such are among the deeper reasons you should follow your intuition, the voice of your soul.
As the consciousness of your soul, your intuition will ALWAYS lead you into your highest calling.
So why on earth might we avoid that?!
Hello…a trillion reasons. “Who am I (e.g. to be an international speaker)? What if I fail? I don’t want to feel the fool and get ridiculed by the others.” Oh, and let’s not forget, “I have to fit in (e.g. and this isn’t how most people believe or live)!”
That is our typical human self-talk. It’s a wonder we humans ever evolve!
It’s sad that we don’t believe in ourselves. (No wonder, with what we’ve been taught about being just a body, programmed to behave in accordance with a bunch of chemical reactions. So much for free will!)
We see our humanness, know too well our vulnerabilities, but really have difficulty perceiving our potential greatness.
We don’t realize there is a higher part of us there to guide us if we only let it.
So how do we tune into this aspect of ourselves and learn to trust it more? How do we get past the eye-rolls, judgments, rejections, and obstacles we imagine to come? And, how can it be of practical help in our daily lives?
Here are three things you can do right now, whether you believe in what I'm saying or not, in order to tap into your intuition, for a deeper connection with yourself:
1. Cleanse your mind.
First, as we learn to quiet our human mental chatter, the subtle voice of soul — the intuition — is naturally there. We simply have to listen to hear it.
The fastest meditation I know to quiet the mind is listening. Notice when you listen…REALLY listen…your mind automatically is still.
Practice listening, and with practice, you will start to hear the intuition. Practice following it, and you will soon learn to trust it.
2. Focus on the positive and the future.
To get past the negative around you, focus on the potential greatness that could unfold…and on how that way-cooler-than-you-ever-imagined future could beneficially affect your friends and family, let alone the world!
As you do, enjoy your astonishment as Law of Attraction begins to whirl synchronicities in your direction.
3. Work on trusting your intuition every single day.
Furthermore, remember that the intuition is intended as practical, daily guidance. If you had someone who could foresee possible futures tell you step-by-step how to fulfill your highest purpose and most profound joy, would that be practical enough reason to follow it?
It is for me!
The soul is trying to guide you from a higher vantage point than human vision can see, than the mind can grasp, and that body can sense. It is your higher mind, your connection beyond.
And it is waiting…for YOU!
Valerie Varan, MS, LPC, NCC is a CO-licensed professional counselor, life & spiritual coach, speaker, and author of Living in a Quantum Reality: Using Quantum Physics and Psychology to Embrace Your Higher Consciousness. Follow her on Facebook, and call her today for help discovering YOUR higher self!