7 Gut-Deep Ways To Let Your Intuition Guide You
You have to learn to trust yourself before you can truly hear your intuition.
MICROGEN IMAGES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, Suwaree Tangbovornpichet, Jonathan Borba | Canva Anyone can access their intuition, but not everyone knows how to learn to use it. We weren't offered "Learning How To Use Your Intuition" as an elective in high school — though it would be great if we were!
Many people end up ignoring their gut feelings completely, primarly because they feel they cannot trust themselves. They push their intuition aside because they don't understand how to receive or interpret the way these gut feelings communicate with us.
For others, the ability to understand and act on their intuition shows up out of nowhere to provide surprisingly accurate clues and information about their life.
You might find it challenging to start recognizing and trusting your intuition since there is no single defined way it can come into your life.
I know this step requires learning to trust yourself, which can seem daunting. So start with something simple.
Seven ways to trust yourself enough to use your intuition as a guide
1. Take the pressure off
When you want to use your intuition, start with low pressure situations. A super emotional situation is not a good place to start. Your emotions will cloud the connection to your inner wisdom and make it hard to access and trust.
If you are looking for vital answers about buying or selling a home, breaking up with someone, getting divorced, your health, or making investments, these high-pressured situations cause a lot of stress and make it hard to feel balanced emotionally or connected to higher levels of wisdom.
Using your intuition with clear and focused intention most often requires a peaceful state of mind. It helps to quiet your inner chatter with deep breathing or meditation. Then you might call in your angels, spirit guides, or ancestor and request their support in answering your question.
2. Be aware of the four clairs
People access information in several different ways, and it helps to know your natural inclination. Some people see images, which is called clairvoyance. Some hear words or someone speaking and this is clairaudience. There are those who just know, which is called claircognizance. Lastly, there are people who sense or feel the information, which is called clairsentience.
Most people have one primary way the intuition comes to them. Sometimes more than one is present and it’s rare to have all four on an equal basis, but it is possible. When working your intuition, pay attention to how the information presents itself to you.
3. Do trust exercises (with yourself)
Now, let’s talk about the trust-building exercise I mentioned earlier. I’m a huge fan of starting with something simple. For example, if you commute or need to drive for 30 minutes, think about the best way to go in the present moment. This is the perfect low-pressure example.
Next quiet your mind and allow the answer to come to you in whatever way works best for you. Then, before you start driving, check your GPS. There you have it – you will know instantly if your intuition was on target or not. Isn’t that simple? If you work from home, try this when you’re going to visit someone.
If the driving method isn’t for you, here’s another option. Start guessing what time it is before you look at your watch, phone, or computer screen. Time is another easy low pressure practice.
Once you get pretty good at choosing your driving routes or knowing the time without looking, you’ll have built up trust in your intuition. Awesome! Now you can work on something more important.
4. Try a more advanced method
In case you’ve already been using your intuition on a regular basis, and guessing the time or easiest driving routes has become too elementary. Another way to build trust is by keeping track of your intuitive hits.
Maybe you get insights all the time which is fabulous. Write them down! This gives you a visible record, so you can go back and see how accurate you’ve been. Tracking your accuracy is a powerful way to build trust in your intuition.
Once you start seeing how tuned in your answers are, you’ll be able to rely on your intuition when you are making important decisions, or trying to find a solution to a problem that is troubling you.
Practicing and recording your intuition are the top two ways to make it easy to build trust in yourself. This is very important because self-doubt crushes your intuition. It gets in the way and prevents you from having the clarity you need when something needs to be addressed.
5. Be consistent
If you are serious about honing your inner wisdom and learning to rely on your intuition, these two methods will be of tremendous help. They are easy, simple, and don’t take up a lot of your time. However, they do require consistency. That is one of the biggest builders of trust available.
When you work with your intuition on a consistent basis, practice and write things down, you’ll notice your trust will develop rather quickly. Consistency allows you to get comfortable with your efforts and learn what to expect from yourself. Your regular attempts to strengthen your intuition will definitely pay off!
6. Trust your gut's 500 million neurons
If you have a strong feeling in your gut about a particular situation – pay attention! Your gut has 500 million neurons which are connected directly to your brain through the vagus nerve. If your gut tells you that you are making the wrong move or headed in the right direction, give it credence.
Intuition is coded into human DNA and has worked to keep you safe for eons. Ancient humans relied on intuition to know where to hunt, stay safe in the wild, and decide where to set up a community to help the tribe thrive. On one level intuition is instinctive, so if you ever feel unsafe, LISTEN to your inner voice.
This is not about over thinking, being in your head about an issue, or feeling stuck about knowing what to do. Those are all completely different from a gut reaction.
7. Be playful about the process
Most of all, when it comes to trusting your intuition, play with it and have fun. Approach developing your intuition with a sense of lightness vs. getting intense or super serious, and it will be a lot easier and far more entertaining.
I know from practice it’s a lot easier to develop your intuition now than it’s ever been in the past. Now more than ever, the energy on the planet has risen in frequency so much, people are able to connect quickly to their intuition. So, give it a try!
Ronnie Ann Ryan is an Intuitive Coach and Past Life Reader. Her audio course, How to Ask the Universe for a Sign is available for anyone looking for answers.