Trusting your intuition: how to tune into Self
What is Intuition?
Intuition is the instinctive understanding of something without conscious reasoning. I like to think of it as our spidey sense, or that prickly, tingly feeling we get when something either feels off, or right.
It’s a kind of gut feeling or subtle insight into a situation or person we meet. And is often influenced by past experiences and emotions, enabling quick decision-making. In mind-body healing, intuition serves as an inner guide, enhancing self-awareness and emotional self-connection by helping us connect with our deeper needs.
When we tune into our intuition, we are attuning directly to Self.
To cultivate intuition, practices like mindfulness, body awareness, and reflective journaling can be helpful in making that connection with the inner Self. This quietens the logical, linguistic, talky side of the brain, allowing intuitive signals to emerge.
Intuition and the Connection to Self Energy
Intuition serves as a powerful guide to understanding the Self, often revealing deeper layers of our psyche that remain obscured by the noise of everyday life and our very chatty brains. It is that instinctive knowledge, an inner voice or sense, that can lead us towards choices that resonate with our true essence.
Clients often get quite worried when we start exploring the Self. What we all believe to be our Self, our voice in our head narrating our day, or the emotions we experience, aren’t really Self at all. Our true Self is a sense of being. Of something expansive and wider than our physical body and brain. It is natural to ask ourselves ‘Who are we then?’ if we aren’t our anxieties, or stresses, or emotions, or thoughts.
In the context of somatic therapy, harnessing intuition allows us to connect more deeply with our bodies and sensations and less into our thoughts and emotions. This process involves tuning in to bodily sensations, recognising how they interplay with thoughts and feelings. When we listen to our intuition, we begin to differentiate between external expectations and our own inner truths.
In this beautiful kind of exploration, the Self becomes a mosaic of experiences, emotions, and insights which can be unveiled through attentive listening to our instincts. When we honour this intuitive wisdom, we can dismantle the barriers that trauma and chronic anxiety have created. By integrating somatic awareness into our daily lives, we create a space where intuition can flourish, guiding us toward healing and self-acceptance.
Intuition in Healing
Nurturing our intuition brings resilience, encouraging a sense of agency in how we respond to life's challenges. Embracing this inner guidance can illuminate pathways to understanding our needs, desires, and fears, ultimately allowing us to create a profound relationship with the Self.
Recognising intuition as a vital part of healing can empower women to reclaim our stories. We only have to learn how to listen, truly listen to what our intuition and wisdom is telling us. Through this journey, the intricate relationship between intuition and the Self becomes a source of strength, enabling us to navigate our inner landscape with clarity and compassion.
It takes practice of course, like anything worthwhile. But it is worth it. That sense of empowerment that flows through us when we become attuned to our gifts and our unique offering for the world is incredible.
The Science of Intuition
If you’ve read my articles before you’ll know that I love the science behind the healing practices. These are just nice to do things that feel relaxing for our body and brain, somatic work is rooted in neuroscience and psychological processes.
When it comes to intuition, we are talking about neuroception. Neuroception is a hidden sense, like smell, touch, vision, but more akin to proprioception. Neuroception is how our body interacts and interprets the world around us.
Intuition and neuroception are interconnected processes that play a vital role in how we navigate our experiences and respond to our environment.
Intuition involves the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning. It is often described as a gut feeling or an immediate sense about a situation or person, transcending analytical thought.
Neuroception is a term coined by Stephen Porges, referring to the brain's ability to detect safety or danger in the environment without our conscious awareness. This process is crucial for survival, as it informs our nervous system's responses, whether we go into freeze, fight, flight, or shutdown mode, ultimately influencing our behaviours, emotions, and overall wellbeing.
Neuroception operates beneath the threshold of conscious awareness, meaning that we react based on these instinctual signals before we even fully understand what is happening.
The relationship between intuition and neuroception lies in their shared foundation in the body’s physiological states. What the neuroception detects from our environment and the people around us informs our intuition. That sense that someone doesn’t feel safe but you don’t know why? That’s neuroception at work.
We can also use neuroception to enhance our intuitive capabilities. So while neuroception usually works on a level that is below our conscious thinking, we can tune into it and influence it.
When our nervous system perceives safety, we are more able to tap into our intuitive knowledge, allowing us to make decisions that align with our true self. Conversely, when our neuroception detects threat, it can override our intuition, leading to heightened anxiety, avoidance, or impulsive reactions that may not serve us well.
If we have awareness of how our nervous system and neuroception are perceiving our environment, we can use that information to help us. And we can become more attuned to our intuitive sense by calming ourselves deliberately with somatic practices like meditation, box breathing, yoga, and visualisations.
Tune In to Self
In somatic therapy, enhancing awareness of neuroceptive cues can support healing from trauma and chronic anxiety. By integrating practices that attune the mind to the body's responses, we can develop tools to differentiate between genuine intuitive insights and reactions driven by anxiety or fear. This harmonious relationship between intuition and neuroception ultimately aids in promoting emotional resilience and overall mental health. Which is pretty blooming awesome, right!
Becoming attuned to our intuition involves cultivating awareness and creating space for inner guidance. Here are some steps to help you connect with your intuition and Self energy:
Create Quiet Moments: Set aside time for stillness, away from distractions. Find a comfortable space where you can relax and breathe deeply. Even a few minutes of silence can help you attune to your inner voice.
Practice Mindfulness: Engage in mindfulness exercises like meditation or deep breathing. Focus on the sensations in your body and observe your thoughts without judgement. This practice enhances your ability to recognise intuitive feelings.
Listen to Your Body: Pay attention to bodily sensations and feelings and where they occur in the body - is it in your heart, solar plexus or throat? Where the sensations occur can give us insight into what the body is trying to tell us. Notice when you feel tense or at ease, as these physical responses can indicate intuitive knowledge. Journaling your experiences can help you identify patterns.
Trust Your Gut / Listen To Your Heart: When faced with a decision, notice your initial thoughts or feelings. Often, your first reaction is rooted in intuition. Reflect on these impulses and assess their validity over time. Keep checking back in to your sensation to see how it changes over time.
Engage in Creative Activities: Creativity can help bypass overthinking and help tune into intuitive insights. Try activities like drawing, writing, or dancing, allowing your mind to wander freely.
Connect with Nature: Spending time outdoors can enhance your sense of connection and clarity. Nature provides a calming backdrop that can heighten intuitive awareness, allowing your thoughts to settle. And can be an incredibly powerful environment for intuitive knowledge to arise and provide solutions to problems or ideas for growth.
Seek Alignment with Values: Understand your core values and beliefs. When your decisions align with these, your intuition is more likely to resonate positively. It’s a lovely practice to spend time getting to know what is important to you, and is something I like to do with all of my clients at some point.
Engage in Somatic Practices: Explore somatic therapies like movement, breathwork, or yoga. These practices help you become more open to your intuition, allowing you to sense feelings before they manifest as thoughts.
Be Patient and Compassionate: Developing your intuition takes time. Be kind to yourself during this process and allow room for growth and discovery. Try to keep an open mind, as allow for awareness of where you get a bit judgemental to yourself or others. There’s a lot of value and wisdom to be gained by observing where we get judgemental.
There’s so much to be gained by integrating a few gentle practices into your daily life that enhance our connection to Self. Over time, it is possible for anyone to make a deeper and more trusting relationship with their intuition. Leading to a more fulfilling and values aligned life.
If you’re interested in working with me to develop a deeper sense of Self, take a look at my therapy pages or sign up for The Weekly Healing Drop, an email to support your wellbeing.
Or you can join my Women’s Group or Somatic Movement Classes.
