Connecting to Your Intuition

*NOTE: You are invited to journal throughout this exercise.

Have you ever wanted to connect with your intuition to deepen your self-awareness, improve your emotional balance and mental clarity, solve problems, improve the quality of your relationships, and/or make more effective decisions?  This Inner Wisdom Journey will walk you step-by-step through an exercise to help you connect with your intuition. We hope you find it helpful.

So, what is intuition?

Commonly referred to as insight, gut feelings, hunches, or an inner voice, intuition describes the sense of knowing something without fully understanding how you know it. You might feel intuition in your body, maybe as a gut feeling, to follow your heart when considering a particular choice. Learning to connect with – and to trust – your intuition can help you gain confidence and clarity, make decisions more often and more quickly, creatively solve problems, and feel more inspired, fulfilled, and uplifted. The more you trust and use your intuition, the more quickly and consistently you will be able to connect with it.

Intuition is like a muscle; the more you exercise it, the stronger it will be. Making time to check in with your intuition regularly will allow you to focus on your physical experiences from moment to moment and facilitate an improved connection between the heart and the mind. This exercise will help you connect with the feelings and sensations you experience while intuiting and help you recognize the vital information those signals contain. When you develop a habit of present-moment awareness, you also create space for your intuition to be heard, and, with practice, connecting with your intuition can become a regular and readily accessible part of your daily life.

This 5-minute exercise, several times per day, will help you build your intuition muscle!

Step 1: Formulate a question

Think about a decision or problem you are currently faced with and formulate a question in your mind. Ask yourself this question and consider your possible responses to this issue. Write down two potential choices you have regarding this issue and label them Option A and Option B.

Step 2: Practice Heart-Focused Breathing

This step focuses your attention on the heart area. To begin, stand or sit comfortably with your spine straight, relax your body completely, and close your eyes. With your hand placed over your heart, take three deep breaths and think of your breath as flowing in and out through this area.

Keeping your hand placed over your heart, inhale slowly through your nose [five seconds], and imagine your breath is coming in through your heart area. As you breathe in, expand your abdomen outward as your lungs fill with air. Exhale slowly [five seconds] through your mouth and imagine the breath is flowing out through the heart. Contract your abdomen inwardly towards your spine as your lungs empty of air. Continue breathing in this way until you find a natural rhythm that feels good to you.

Step 3: Connecting to your intuition with choice A

Now imagine yourself making choice A. Keep your attention focused on the area of the heart. If you feel your mind begins to wander, simply bring your attention back to the heart.

Observe the sensations you feel in your heart without trying to change them or make them go away.

How does your heart feel in response to making this particular choice? Perhaps it feels warm, light, and open? Or tight and tense? Is your chest expanding quickly in and out with the flow of your breath? Or is it shallow and constricted? Write down all the sensations you feel in your heart.

What do these sensations tell you about this decision? Do you feel optimistic and energized? Or do they alert you to something that should be given extra attention?

Step 4: Connecting to your intuition with choice B

Now imagine yourself making choice B. Keep your attention focused on the area of the heart. If you feel your mind begins to wander, simply bring your attention back to the heart. Remain quiet as you allow yourself to imagine making choice B.

Observe the sensations you feel in your heart without trying to change them or make them go away.

How does your heart feel in response to making this particular choice? Perhaps it feels warm, light, and open? Or tight and tense? Is your chest expanding quickly in and out with the flow of your breath? Or is it shallow and constricted? Write down all the sensations you feel in your heart.

What do these sensations tell you about this decision? Do you feel optimistic and energized? Or do they alert you to something that should be given extra attention?

Step 5: Reflection

Were you able to notice a difference between the sensations around your heart that emerged after concentrating on choice A versus choice B? If so, how would you describe the differences?

Were you able to discern a definite “yes” or a definite “no” to the question you asked? Which of the options felt right?

What made this choice seem better than the other?

Did you notice any physical sensations that you might not normally have noticed? If so, what? 

Would you recognize these sensations as a sign of intuition in the future?

 We often “know” but are unwilling to trust what we know. Can you identify times in the past when you listened to what your heart was telling you?

 Can you identify times in your life when you ignored what your heart was telling you? How might these situations have turned out differently if you had paid attention to your intuition?

 What has this exercise taught you about the connection you have with your intuition?

 CREDIT: A special thank you to Elaine Houston for creating this exercise.