Listen To Your Heart: 10 Ways To Tune Up Your Intuition -- From The Inside, Out

It’s become more of the norm than not these days. We hear it wherever we go. Concentration levels are evaporating and memory sharpness, especially short term, is faltering. As a result, it’s splashed all over the internet these days. Boost your intuition and you’ll boost your mental powers!

Intuition, coming from the Latin word intueri meaning “to see within”, is what we also call our gut feeling or our sixth sense; It’s the whispering of our authentic self, or our soul, telling us what to do next to continue to be true to ourselves, keeping us on our path. When the whispers tell us that something good has crossed our path, it’s kinda like hearing children laughing in the distance. It catches our attention -- our curiosity -- making us want to check it out, anticipating that something good is about to happen. We might experience certain physical symptoms such as butterflies in our stomachs or an overall lightness. When the whispers are telling us to stop, make change, or take a different direction, it’s kinda like an alarm going off. The physical symptoms might include a heaviness or sickness in our stomachs; an apprehension and anxiety. The indicators are different for everyone.

Since many of us have had our intuition blurred as far back as childhood, its imperative to our own success and happiness in these present time to get re-acquainted with and fine tune that fundamental ability to listen to our hearts.

The easiest way to strengthen intuition is through attention.
By incorporating simple, creative activity into everyday life – 5 ways using inner tools and 5 ways using outer tools – we can improve our intuitive powers, providing guidance and reinforcement within every facet of our lives.

Understand that intuition is spontaneous and not programmed
Your instant response to something will be your intuitive response. It will feel automatic. Any thought or feeling that follows either comes from your conscious, logical brain, which will respond based on programming that started as far back as when you began to understand your environment around you, or it could come from your subconscious fears that trigger your defenses. Most of the time we will disregard the initial response or allow our logical brain to explain away that initial thought or feeling. If you take a couple seconds to pay attention to your immediate response and consider it, you will begin to strengthen that initial response system like a muscle.

Believe it is real and not irrational
Trust in that initial reaction to what is going on around you. Trusting your intuitive images and messages is paramount to this tune up.

Get rid of the hindering statements “It’s all in your head.” or “It’s just your imagination.”
At an early age, you may have been surrounded by outside influences such as your parents or your peers who said things to you in response to your expression of what your intuition was telling you. These statements to your expression, if they were negative and unsupportive, would be based on their own beliefs. These statements can learn to play a repeated recording in your head. Pay attention to any recordings that are playing in your head. Are they supportive or defeating to what your intuition is trying to tell you?

Take time to be calm
Notice any mental noise standing in the way and toss it out. If you take a few minutes to turn your attention inward, you might find that there are a few conversations going on that need to be either solved or put to rest. You will have to put yourself into an environment of little stimulus to take away distraction.

Judge your judgment
Take inventory of your core belief system. Take time to explore how you feel and think about life topics, issues and circumstances. Are they fair? Are they up-to-date or are they continued recordings of something established long ago? Try not to rationalize your findings by making excuses for beliefs that are not working in your best interest.

Strengthening your attention by focusing on an object
By relaxing and taking deep breaths, you can retrain your mind to let our intuition surface. When you concentrate on a single object, once a day, everyday, and block out our rational mind, you begin the journey to really get back in touch with your intuition. First of all, get comfortable, sit down, relax and take 3-4 deep cleansing breaths. Look at an object in the room, focus, concentrate, block everything else out. Do this as long as least 3-5 minutes.

Keep a daily journal
Include a date. Use free association, read it over and then attach your emotional response and experience. Record every image that comes to mind.

Brainstorm
Before making a decision about something, take out a piece of paper and pen and write down quickly all the possible solutions to a situation. Don’t think about the outcomes or consequences just yet. Don’t sensor your thoughts but again, use free association. Just write them down. Work with the list later. Creating a list of ideas that just come up is a good way to open doorways, letting your intuition emerge.

Do something basic, mindless and repetitive
Focusing on activity that is repetitive is meditative and even hypnotizing, whether it be activity coming from somewhere in your environment or something you are taking part in. Let your mind wander and draw in whatever is waiting to come in. Doing housework can work. Going for a walk works very well. Of course, basic meditation focusing on your breathing is the ultimate.

Validation
I’ve saved the best for last. Validation is like magic when it comes to learning how to trust your intuition. Validation assists greatly with much of what has been listed above. You can tune up as much as you want but nothing helps as much when working on opening your intuitive self up, in my belief, as hearing from another person that they had the same experience as you or that what you intuitively felt would happen, did happen. Having a positive support system is so beneficial. Hanging around with like minds and sharing experiences regularly is the essential inspiration to the grand entrance of your intuitive mind.

Many of us get a tune up for our vehicles in the spring. I’m thinking, it’s just as essential for us to take the time to participate in a spring tune up of the mind.