INTUITION

Intuition is a person's capacity to obtain or have direct knowledge and/or immediate insight, without observation or reason. It's the "gut feeling" you get. People often place an enormous amount of faith on their intuition, even making decisions that seem to go against all available evidence. For example, a coach might play a second string player instead of a start player just because they had a "hunch" the second string player would do well. This would be a case of using intuition to make a decision.

Instinct and Intuition, as I define it, is this:

• Instinct is our innate inclination toward a particular behavior (as opposed to a learned response).

• A gut feeling—or a hunch—is a sensation that appears quickly in consciousness (noticeable enough to be acted on if one chooses to) without us being fully aware of the underlying reasons for its occurrence.

• Intuition is a process that gives us the ability to know something directly without analytic reasoning, bridging the gap between the conscious and non conscious parts of our mind, and also between instinct and reason.

In essence, we need both instinct and reason to make the best possible decisions for ourselves, our businesses, and our families. Unfortunately, many of us—even when we experience success using this lesser acknowledged part of us-are uncomfortable with the idea of using our instincts as a guidance tool. We are embarrassed to say that we follow hunches, we mistrust the sometimes-cryptic messages that our instincts send to us, and consequently we diminish our capacity to leverage the power of our own instincts when we need them most. Our discomfort with the idea of relying on our instincts is based on millennia of cultural prejudice.

Here are three ways to listen to that internal voice and allow its guidance into your everyday life:

1 - Keep a journal. Writing your thoughts and feelings down on paper—even if you "think" you have little to say—helps the non conscious mind open up. You may find you're writing words and phrases that don't make sense to you, or stir emotional responses rather than intellectual responses. When this happens, it leads to:

2 - Turn off Your Inner Critic. Often times we rationalize away those voices within. This time, listen without judgment. Allow the inner dialogues to happen without fear

 or ridicule.

3 - Find a Solitary Place. A place where you can allow emotions to flow freely is an imperative part of finding and retaining the building blocks of intuition. Here you may also want to create an emotional connection to an object, a color, a piece of music or literature - anything that will allow feelings to stir that are solely from within and do not carry intellectual or rational reasoning.

These three exercises will aid you in creating a new, deeper relationship with the self, help clarify that inner voice, and allow you to bring your true instinctual awareness back into your rational everyday life.