Awakening your intuition is important. There’s an inner voice inside all of us. For some it is loud enough to listen and act accordingly, and for others, not so. We call a person intuitive who trusts the inner voice and take actions based on that inner instinct. Intuition is our gut feeling that stays there always to guide and protect us. Since childhood, we have this inner instinct, but as we grow into adulthood, we push this inner voice to the back just to fit in the societal norms. Sometimes, our intuition tells us to do that one thing which is highly unconventional, and which does not abide by society rules. But if we trust it and go along with it, we get the chance to stand out in the crowd.
Our society has certain specific rules to do things, and when we go outside the box just because we feel like so, it is our intuition at play. The little voice inside our head is never wrong if you know the difference between thoughts and intuition. Thoughts are very much unlike intuition. We develop thoughts based on outer resources. We see things and force ourselves to believe and do things imitating the previously available way. But intuition does not rely on previously available resources. It comes from inside without any outer provocation.
We all have this intuition in us. But over time, when we do not use it often, we lose the connection with our inner voice. To follow and trust your intuition, you must be very careful of the subtle signs that surround you. If you can pick up those synchronicities of the universe, your intuition then gets stronger. Certain exercises need to be done in order to hear your inner voice louder, more clearly and quickly.
What goes wrong when we don’t listen to our intuition?
When we ignore our intuition, we often regret it along with learning a very harsh lesson in life. When we repetitively ignore our gut feelings, try to be intellectual and just want to push our way through everything, as we are conditioned to believe that’s the right way to do things, then things just don’t seem to work. It’s beyond our logical mind because then it’s our spirit guides and fates that are placing obstacles after obstacles on our paths so that we’d notice where we are mistaken.
As per quantum physics, mass and energy are interchangeable. Mass is just a manifestation of an energy form. This exclusively means that everything, including humans or any other living beings, is simply energy stored in mass particle form. As per Einstein’s theory of relativity equation, E=mc2 which precisely means “Energy equals mass times square of the speed of light”. Basically, everything we see are vibrations or waves as a structure of space. Everything vibrates as a form of energy, and even our thoughts are a form of cosmic waves filled with potent energy. So, we cannot even deny that there’s a higher energy at play behind everything, i.e., the cosmic energy and what we call as divine. When we do not pay attention to it, it is then when we find ourselves caught into chaos as it hampers the balance between the energy frequency of our consciousness to that of cosmos.
Human consciousness, human soul and human body- everything is a kind of energy with different forms.
How do we unlock and develop our intuition?
When we start learning the process of unlocking our intuition, we need to be more accepting rather than going with a rational approach. There should be a basic understanding that there is much more than escaping our logical sense and our analytical ability. Not everything that happens is in our control. When you are developing your intuitive abilities, you need to turn inwards rather than going out looking for answers. The answer is within you. If you are conscious of self, you are then connected with the universe. To be present, within self is being aligned with your consciousness, and thus developing the sense of peace within self and the sense of being protected by the universe or the higher energy.
There are several options to enhance your inner voice, and these below mentioned 9 ways are highly practiced to unlock and develop your intuition.
A. Mindfulness
Being mindful of course is beneficial if you are willing to broaden your five senses. Through mindfulness, we become more conscious of our emotions, inner needs, beliefs, our habitual responses, and thought patterns. This awareness actually helps us to be more responding rather than reacting. Mindfulness empowers us to have a choice more consciously about the life’s happenings.
When you are incorporate mindfulness in your life, you can reconnect with your inner child. Amongst the daily hustling and bustling, we almost neglect our internal self and ‘forget ourself’. Our inner self has an inbuilt wisdom and which it directs at our conscious self as inner voice or intuition. Sometimes we get so caught up in daily schedule we rarely give time to ourselves and our inner child gets deprived of our attention. That is the reason, over time, our inner voice gets silenced, and we start to believe we don’t possess the ability of intuition.
By simply being present within our minds, we can reopen the communication with our inner voice and be aware of our intuition and what it wants to say.
B. Meditation
That’s a given. Meditation is helpful for almost everything in life, including linking to your intuition. Meditation helps us in calming our minds. If our mind stays busy all the time (which it does most of the time anyway), it is impossible to tap into our intuition. Our intuition initially has all the answers to our doubts. When meditation calms our minds, it actually activates our gut instincts to a deeper level which can truly astonish you.
Whether you believe in gut instinct or not, meditation certainly change your brain to make better decisions. Meditation can actually be a factor for your success because meditation helps you clear and calm your mind. When your mind is relaxed and calm, it is easier to access information more clearly. Because of the fast-paced life nowadays, we often find ourselves falling into frustration and stress. Meditation can help rewire your life in tune. The more you meditate, the more you are in tune with your intuition.
Go through the guided chakra meditation process listed at the end of this article.
C. Healing the third-eye chakra
Third-eye chakra or the sixth chakra is located between the brows, on the forehead. It is represented by the indigo color. Third-eye chakra is associated with intuition, creativity, higher knowledge, and what we often call as sixth sense. Third eye chakra helps in having a better perspective about a cosmic vision beyond the materialistic world that your eyes normally see.
When our third-eye chakra is opened, we find ourselves more in tune with life. As our creativity and perception enhances, the communication channel between our conscious mind and our intuition become clearer, and we start to pick up the subtle vibrations more often. We start hearing our inner voice more often.
In Sanatan philosophies, third-eye chakra is the spiritual centre. Since, it is associated with intuition it interacts with our rational mind in order to deepen our intuitive insight, so that we can raise our vibrations with higher energy frequencies to see beyond the veil of ‘maya’ or illusion.
Related read: Breathing Meditation vs. Mantra Meditation: Which Is Better?
D. Connecting with the higher self
Your higher self is you in 5D. Your soul consciousness is so different from your physical form, yet this is ‘You’ nonetheless. Your higher self or your soul consciousness is nothing but the eternal part and parcels of the supreme personality of Godhead. (BG 4.35) So, your higher self knows things your conscious mind is unaware of. If you have enough trust in your higher self, it will guide you, inspire you and teach you through insight. All your intentions and desires are already known to your higher self. But since, you don’t communicate with your higher self, you don’t pick up the instructions your higher self directs towards you.
If you find yourself relaxed, calm and understanding, instead of chronically anxious, worried and indecisive, then you’re in tune with your higher self. Otherwise, your connection is broken. When you are in tune with your higher self, you are spiritually healthy and your intuition is stronger than others. You pick up the signs of synchronicities from the universe (symbols, numbers, etc.)
E. Learning from the past
You cannot neglect the lessons learned from your past. Whatever mistakes you’ve done, it has taught you a lesson. When you went with your conditioned mind instead of listening to your instinct, it must have taught you a lesson. Instead of forgetting the incident altogether, if you keep it in mind and work accordingly in the future, it will guide you through. Because your intuition is never wrong.
F. Learning to pick up people’s energy vibration
Everyone has different kinds of aura and energy vibrations. Some has low frequencies while the others vibrate with higher frequencies. It certainly can be deduced by a person’s aura whether they are living their life purposefully, whether they are happy living their life or whether there are any kinds of blockages in their energy field. People who dwell more on grief or shame fields have the lowest vibrational frequencies than the people who keep their energies around gratitude or awareness. You’ll always find judgmental people at a low frequency. Once you start to read people’s energy frequency, and if they don’t match with yours, then you need to listen to your intuition whether you want them in your life or not. The more you’re aware of energy frequencies around you, the more intuitive you’ll become.
G. Dreams
Your higher self often contacts to you through dreams. It is a good practice to have a dream journal with you. Because, often our intuition shows us signs and communicates with us through symbols, instead of just hunches and the little voices behind your back. Symbolic meanings of dreams are a way to connect with your intuition.
H. Trust in yourself
The most important of all the above is trusting in self. Your intuition is you in a nutshell. If you do not trust in yourself, you can not establish the connection with your inner self, and thus cannot listen to those subtle voices of guidance. Once you learn to trust yourself, be grateful to the universe and change the pattern from negative to positive, your intuition will become stronger with every passing moment.
Chakra meditation to heal Third-eye chakra
Sometimes our third-eye chakra is blocked and thus we suffer from the blockages on our intuition, creativity, wisdom, peace, and higher knowledge.
In order to open your third-eye chakra you need to work on all 7 chakras. All 7 chakras need to be aligned in order to heal your energy blockages. The third-eye chakra is additionally known as the ‘Ajna chakra’ in Sanskrit.
The best meditation to open your third-eye chakra is through visualization of the chakras as a ball of energy.
Since all respective chakras has a certain color representing them, all you need to do is:
- Sit cross-legged in a calm, peaceful environment.
- Your spine must be erect, and eyes closed.
- Put your hands in basic meditation pose, as in touching the tip of your thumb with the tip of your index finger.
- Then slowly and steadily breath in.
- Hold your breath for a couple of seconds.
- Relax and exhale.
- Now comes the important part. While breathing in and out, you need to visualize a ball of energy of that particular color that represent the specific chakra. Channelize your concentration on that specific area of your unhealed chakra and let the breathing move through your inside.
- Slowly you’ll be able to recognize the aura of energy around that specific body part of yours.
- And move your breath all the way to your base to the crown.
- Visualize the chakras in alignment.
- Let go all the negative energies around and inside you, and call in the transcendental healing energy to heal your blocked chakras.
- For guidance you can listen to relaxing meditation music. For better result, listening to the chants of chakra beej mantra or simple the chanting of Aum can make you concentrate further.
- Once you have calmed your mind (for 10-20 mins), you can slowly rub your palms together and cover your face with them. (Do it thrice.)
- Then slowly open your eyes.
Doing this meditation regularly will slowly heal your third-eye chakra (along with other 6) and you’ll realize your intuition has come more in tune with your rational mind.