I is for Intuition

Something surreal happened to me recently.

I was deep into editing a video when a friend suddenly came to mind—someone I hadn’t thought of in a while. I found myself wondering how they were doing.

After finishing my work, I checked my phone and, to my surprise, saw a text from that very friend—sent around the same time I had thought of them.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me, which got me thinking: Could my brain be picking up on some electromagnetic signal? A strange idea, I know, but it made me wonder if that’s how intuition works—by sensing invisible waves, frequencies, or energies. (forewarning this article is a little woo woo, but it’s about intuition so…🙂)

Intuition is knowing without deliberate thought. It can come as a gut feeling, a sense, or even a premonition. More often than not, it feels like receiving insight rather than figuring something out—a form of unconscious awareness.

Intuition is one of our most powerful human abilities, especially when it comes to understanding people and connecting with them. If we think of intuition as an internal antenna picking up signals from the world around us, we might start to understand how we can sharpen and refine this skill.

Troubleshooting Your Internal Antenna

Here are the top things to look out for in a faulty antenna or intuition:

1. Poor Alignment and Positioning

Remember the days of adjusting TV antennas to get a clearer picture? Just as we had to move the TV or point the antenna in different directions, our internal alignment affects our intuitive clarity. If we are not aligned emotionally, mentally, or spiritually, our intuition falters.

Consider unresolved traumas or limiting beliefs as examples. These internal conflicts can unsettle your mind and significantly distort how you perceive the world and interpret social cues. Conversely, a study shows that being in a relaxed state can help the brain connect ideas more effortlessly, enhancing the speed and effectiveness of intuitive decisions in various tasks.

If we do not have proper alignment within ourselves, how can we expect to pick up cues from the world?

2. Obstructions and Interferences

Imagine a concrete wall blocking a TV antenna's signal or household electronics like microwaves interfering with the reception. Similarly, our intuition can be blocked by both external pressures, such as societal expectations, and internal blocks, like the need for approval or excessive rational thinking.

Negative emotions can cloud our intuitive abilities, much like physical obstructions disrupt signal reception. Research suggests that negative moods can impair our intuition, reducing our decision-making abilities to random guesses, as these emotions hinder our ability to form clear intuitive connections.

Additionally, individuals experiencing depression often find it difficult to make quick, intuitive decisions due to a tendency to overthink and harbor doubts, which impairs their reliance on gut feelings. It’s crucial to recognize and address these interferences to maintain clear and effective intuitive channels.

3. Outdated or Broken Equipment

Intuition also relies heavily on our lived experiences. Growing, maturing, and gaining wisdom all contribute to a sharper intuitive sense. Just as elders often seem to have an uncanny ability to know what we're up to before we do it, our intuition grows stronger with age and experience.

Some intuition is innate, but much of it is developed over time through experience. To sharpen your intuition, you need to act on those gut feelings, testing them to see if they truly stem from intuition or something else, like fear, expectations, or attachment. This trial-and-error process creates a feedback loop that gradually strengthens your intuition over time.

Putting It into Practice

Here’s how to practice intuition in a conversation with another person:

1. Keep yourself open and present.

2. Lean more towards observing and feeling, rather than thinking.

3. Look at their eyes, their body language, and the micro-expressions on their face.

You should start receiving intuitive pings—things the other person isn’t saying but you can feel.

Hold these pings as assumptions, not judgments, and test them out by saying things like “it seems like you are feeling…” or “is it possible that you’re experiencing…”

Give it a shot and let me know how it goes!

With curiosity,

Eric

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