Self

How To Listen To Your Intuition And Use It To Find 'The One'

Photo: Bogdan Sonjachnyj / Shutterstock
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Wouldn’t it be great if you had a voice in your head that told you who you should date and why or whether you should talk to a certain person or not?

Well, you do!

It comes from out of nowhere, fast and immediate. Besides harnessing it for great dating and relationship advice, the greatest of men have used it and trusted it more than their analytical, rational part of the brain. That inner voice is intuition, and it’s been labeled a superpower. It’s what gives men great ideas and suggestions, warnings, and solutions.

“I believe in intuitions and inspirations…I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.” ― Albert Einstein

What is intuition?

According to the most basic definition, "Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without proof, evidence, or conscious reasoning, or without understanding how the knowledge was acquired. Different writers give the word 'intuition' a great variety of different meanings, ranging from direct access to unconscious knowledge, unconscious cognition, inner sensing, inner insight to unconscious pattern-recognition and the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning."

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Intuition gives us the ability to understand something or acquire knowledge quickly without proof or conscious reasoning, and without understanding how the information is acquired. You just have to learn to hear what your inner voice is saying.

Intuition can be useful in all aspects of your life from buying your next house or upgrading your car to getting your next fulfilling job or relationship. Businessmen, entrepreneurs, and inventors use intuition all the time when making major decisions. One inventor said that intuition is as important as rationality.

You can substantially increase your intuition quickly with the following simple steps (I’ll also let you know what happened when I heard it but didn’t follow it).

How can you access, develop, and intensify your intuition?

Cultivating intuition isn’t limited to clairvoyants, mystics, and witches. There’s more science to it than you’d guess, and more concrete ways to build up your intuition than you’d think.

“Intuition is always right in at least two important ways: (1) It is always in response to something; and (2) It always has your best interest at heart” ― Gavin De Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Here are 6 pieces of the best advice on how to make decisions about dating and relationships more intuitively by listening to your inner voice.

1. Ask questions as often as you can.

Be curious. Then listen for the answers.

2. Practice listening.

So this by spending time alone in the quiet, which means no music, no television or any screens, no phone, no noise. That’s what quiet means. Listening, “sensing,” and following your intuition takes practice.

There’s a game I play while driving which helps me increase my intuition. I practice intuiting what other drivers will do. I ask questions such as, “Is that person going to change lanes without signaling. Is that driver going to exit? Is that person on their phone or distracted in some way?” This helps me practice using my intuition and immediately tells me if I’m right.

3. Meditate.

Meditating can also help you “hear” your intuition. Any activity when you can be still and silent can allow you to hear your intuition more.

Schedule time in your daily planner to meditate (once in the morning and once in the evening), to enjoy quiet time, to pray, and to listen.

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4. Write down information as it comes to you.

Record these and your intuitive experiences, whether you followed intuition or not, and what the consequences were. Write about them in a journal daily. This will help you observe your progress and keep you connected to your intuition practice.

5. Tune out external opinions and advice.

One of the best ways to develop your intuition is to stop listening to other people’s opinions and advice.

Humans project their own personal experiences, beliefs, and feelings in what they tell other people. Rarely trust what another person says.

6. Listen to your “gut feelings” more.

Science has proven that your gut is the mechanism that tells you if something or someone is good or bad, wrong or right for you. So listen to your body when it comes to making decisions like who to date next.

How I used my intuition when I started dating again:

When I got back into dating, I used my intuition to help me make decisions on who to see for how long.

I dated someone who was late for the three dates we made, not ten to fifteen minutes late, more like 45 to 60 minutes late. My intuition told me that this person was dating other people. On our last date, I casually steered the conversation to dating habits. My intuition was right. We had different ideas about dating, so I moved on.

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Some people are just interested in having a superficial connection that leads to a physical relationship and nothing more. I, on the other hand, prefer a deeper connection and believe in spending time getting to know a person to find out if they share common values and beliefs, experiences, and opinions or if they sincerely are interested in me as a person.

You can easily use your intuition to discover if the person you’re pursuing is interested in you for the same kind of relationship.

The more I put myself out there, the more chances I got to practice using my intuition to determine if it was a good idea to keep in contact with a person or to end it.

My streak of dead-ends led me to a realization that I hadn’t listened to my intuition from the start. I remembered what my intuition had told me about this idea of getting back into dating: focus on your career path first and foremost.

I let someone else convince me that I should be seeing people. Instead of following my intuition, I listened to the friend who suggested that I start dating again since I had been separated for a couple of years. Because I didn’t follow my intuition, I used my time and energy on something that didn’t go anywhere when I could’ve been focused on something more important.

Learn from my experiences by starting to apply the practices mentioned here. Look and listen to what your inner voice is saying. Stop asking anyone for advice and start trusting yourself, your heart, your body, and your own mind. Trust your intuition.

RELATED: 4 Things Smart, Intuitive Women Do Every Day

Acela Baladad is a writer specializing in personal narratives and poetry. She has been featured in Medium, The Good Men Project, and more. 

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This article was originally published at Good Men Project. Reprinted with permission from the author.