Your Expanding Intuition: Getting Comfortable With Difficult Messages

Let’s get right down to a big reason why people have trouble with their intuition: they don’t like what they’re hearing. That’s one of the core issues. Wherever people have the idea that their intuition will always tell them that their lives will be perpetually rainbows and gummy bears, that idea is getting in the way of the truth. Intuition simply tells you what is, and for some of you, you may even see a little bit of what is coming. That can be a scary thing because some of the lessons that come our way are challenging and painful. If we sense that there will be death in the family, that’s not exactly a fun fact to have in our noggins. Yet, the clearer we are, the clearer it is to see a lot of things about ourselves and others, and one of the key pieces to all of that is learning to simply accept messages without reacting to them.

Love Is a Relentless Taskmaster

I often remind you that love is just as much a wonderful pleasing part of our lives as well as a hard taskmaster with saws and hammers. But those saw and hammers are meant to free us, not pulverize us. I wrote about that in a recent spiritual allegory to illustrate the point. The truth of the matter is that we’ve got a lot of stuff in the way of ourselves, and that stuff has to be broken and stripped away so we can be in the full power of our own love. In this way, love is trying to get to love. You are locked in a case of armor, and you don’t even know it. And then, if you’re fortunate, you get out, and it’s damned cold out there without all that armor. And you have no idea where to go because suddenly you can go anywhere. Congratulations on getting free. Now more than ever will you need your inner knowing to guide you along to where you truly want to go.

Intuition Grows in Intensity

On the spiritual path, the more you strip away this old armor, the more clearly you feel and see. It can take a little bit of time to acclimate at each level. You have to get used to the freedom and mobility. You have to figure out what boundaries are appropriate for you after stripping out the ones that you thought you needed. Your inner knowing will grow through these practices. It will be the only rational way to understand what’s happening because our rational minds haven’t been programmed for these things. In truth, that’s all the rational mind really is in this culture; it’s a set of programmed behaviors. Going through awakening is a massive deletion of most programs, but some still manage to hang on. Those will likely need to be re-programmed for the most part, and your intuitive knowing will be the way to do it (BTW, I use inner knowing and intuition pretty much synonymously).

The more you trust and practice with your inner knowing, the more you can sense and see. That brings with it additional responsibility to use the information you are gaining with integrity. There will be a lot that comes to you that you won’t necessarily want to hear. You will see difficulties. You will see pain. You will also see joy. You may see where others hide their inner beauty, but you must never forget that unless someone is acting from that space, you still need to honor the unconscious life that they prefer to live in. That’s part of accepting the whole of people as well. Just because you can now clearly see someone could become an amazing concert pianist doesn’t mean you should denigrate their path as a computer scientist. The one may still be leading to the other, and we always honor that we can’t fully see the whole picture of life. While we do become able to “see” and sense a lot, we don’t become omniscient with our intuition.

Appreciating Your Intuitive Limitations

Everyone seems to have a different range with their intuitive abilities. As many of you know, I tend to use this term more than the term psychic. The more you can see about others and not just yourself, the more I use the term psychic awareness. But the two really are essentially the same. They are about having awareness of that which is not knowable through the five senses or simply through your usual logical cognitive processes. I’m sure there are interesting cognitive processes still involved with intuition, which is why I said “usual.” Anyway, you will start to see a lot, but you may still have blindspots.

Depending on your natural abilities, you may have a lot of limitations. It just depends on the person. In regards to blindspots, this becomes a key part of your own work. You have to learn to find your blindspots, find tools to address them, and find friends to help you look at those parts of you. For me, I can see a lot of things clearly, but if desire or attachment gets in the way, my vision goes to zero pretty fast.

Moving to Neutrality When You Are Upset

There’s a lot you can do for yourself to simply go to a place of inner neutrality when you don’t like something. This is a practice you can do with anything, not just intuition. In the context of intuition, when you start to get upset by an intuition (like you’re going to have to get a divorce), then see if you can take a deep breath. See what aspect of yourself is getting upset. What is it’s story? Why is it upset? You haven’t done anything yet. This is just a thought right now. Spend some time relaxing, and then ask your intuition again if you have to get a divorce. See how it feels this time around. Keep doing that until you can be absolutely neutral about the intuition.

When intuition is clearest, there is no emotional charge, and intuitive knowing comes first. The thought patterns that you are programmed with and the emotional response come second. Intuition is never trying to control you or make you do anything. It’s more like your on-board GPS navigator that says there will be no bridge in a half a mile. You can freak out. You can argue with the GPS. You can turn the GPS off. You can ignore it, but the bridge will still be out in a half a mile. When you are calm and clear, you take this information and find a detour or pull off the road to re-evaluate your path in life.

Taking action on intuitions is always the critical next step to embodying your spiritual knowing and to clearing out the inaccurate fears that cloud it.

Acting on the Messages You Don’t Like

Ultimately, when you act on the messages you don’t like, you’re going to find some intense and amazing stuff. It may not be to your initial liking, but it may also be the easiest and ironically (or not ironically) most pain-free way to truly embrace love in your life. If you’ve spent your whole life living under lies (you have to be good-looking to be loved, you have to have a family because it is expected, you have to make a lot of money, etc.), your intuition is going to be helping you tear down a lot of your life. This is a horrifying thing to the unconscious ego, which is why there is so much internal resistance for a lot of you. You have to find your courage to destroy many aspects of your life so that you can rebuild things with love. Your intuitive awareness is showing you that way. It is showing you the way back to love. Even if it isn’t what you wanted to hear, your intuition is telling you what you need to hear. And you know it.