Or maybe you've had the experience of wanting to get in touch with a friend or family member - without being quite sure why - and then later found out the timing was important for some reason. Some people have great hunches about investments. Others instinctively know which way to turn at the fork on the road.
How did they know? How did you know? We are all born with a powerfully intuitive nature, but it often gets buried or lost along the way. It starts in childhood, when we're told, "What do you know? You're just a little kid." And so you began not to trust your own feelings. It continues into adulthood with our fast-paced lifestyles, where many of us have simply forgotten how to listen to our inner wisdom.
At times in our lives when making choices may feel cloudy or overwhelming, a real opportunity lies in learning to open ourselves to what is already present and available within us: our own natural homing device - our intuition - that we have trained ourselves to push down or reason away.
There's a famous business story about intuition involving Conrad Hilton of the Hilton Hotels. He wanted to buy a company which was going to go to the highest bidder in a closed auction.
He submitted a sealed bid for $165,000. And he awakened the next morning with the number $180,000 in his head, which wouldn't go away. So he changed his bid at the very last moment. He secured the property, which eventually brought him $2 million in profit. The next highest bid was $179,800. If he hadn't raised his bid, he would have lost.
What are you missing, by not listening to yourself?
If you've forgotten how, the way to get back in touch with your intuition is to have quiet time. Take time to walk on the beach, be with yourself, meditate or write. You might be surprised at the insights and ideas that come to you in silence.
While there's no substitute for gathering information about a task or situation before making decisions, you shouldn't be afraid of not knowing every reason why you feel the way you do. Sometimes you just know... that you know.
Do the Try It Out exercises below to help you get in touch with your intuition:
- Pick an area of indecision you’re struggling with right now. After listing all options, pros and cons, take some quiet time and listen to your intuition.
- Make a physical and mental note of the information that comes with your intuition. The idea is to create an association between the memory of the physical sensation and the data that came with your "intuitive feeling".
- Use your intuition often. You will turn out to be right most of the time.
"It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner." - Jonas Salk
