Where is it hidden?

Inside you.

It is usually the last place you look.

There is an ancient Hindu story about the gods arguing over where they should keep the secret of happiness, something only entrusted to the most worthy of souls.

The gods debated whether to hide it at the top of a high mountain, but reasoned that humans would eventually find it. They thought perhaps at the bottom of the ocean or maybe in the deepest depths of the darkest forest, but it was still possible they would discover it.

Finally they concluded the best place would be to hide it deep within the humans themselves: It’s the perfect place because they will never bother to look there.

The moral of the story is often what we seek lies within us AND it is the last place we look. How’s that for irony?

We, humans are amazing creatures only limited by our own selves. We rarely look within ourselves for awareness and answers.

I would suspect most of us are listening to the world around us as our everyday input channel (what we should eat, buy, love, hate, wear, date).

Happiness requires developing your intuition!

I’m full of stories it seems, but intuition is like the Goldilocks and The Three Bears story we’re all familiar with: Dear Goldilocks had to find the seat that was just right for her, because not everything that’s right for others is right for you.

It would make sense that meditation turned out to be the ONE thing that helped me in multiple areas of my life. Meditation encourages (that’s a nice word for “forces’) people to look within themselves.

Most of us think taking that journey within would be akin to opening Pandora’s box. Yes and no!

We stuff all sorts of things inside us- good, bad, and ugly. But you can’t access the really good stuff unless you access it all.

What if the good was better than you imagined and the bad wasn’t as bad as you thought? Totally possible with meditation.

Meditation is the perfect tour guide to your mind, body, and soul with the added bonus of awakening your intuition.

Intuition is your guiding inner voice- it can spot opportunities, steer you away from the wrong people, and help you make decisions with more clarity. Intuition is not worry, anxiety, or senseless thoughts that seem real.

The ability is already inside you, but the external world replaces intuition with attention; whatever grabs your attention.

How do you become more intuitive by meditating?

1. Don’t take it personally. Meditation is a process of de-personalizing your thoughts- simply witnessing them, paying less attention to the constant chatter or story lines that rule your internal world. Most of us feel like we are governed by our thoughts, almost as if we have no control over them. In meditation you are essentially training your mind to stop taking your thoughts personally.

2. Checking in. Simple meditation can be like checking in with yourself. Before meditation I would often forget to practice self-care. This was a big piece of my health conundrum. I rushed and rushed around dealing with everything thrown at me in a frantic reactive state of mind. Intuition requires time. It may seem counterintuitive to spend some time in meditation, quieting your mind, then summoning up intuitive or gut feelings, but it saves time in the long run. Time in meditation adds up, enabling you to develop intuition about yourself, events and experiences, and other people, giving pause before reacting to everything outside of you.

3. Develop your other senses . Intuition is know as the “6th sense”. There is a story (here I go again) about Helen Keller who was taking a walk with an aid. After their walk, she asked whether the aid enjoyed the birds chirping, the trees rustling, and the way the earth felt underfoot. The aid replied, ‘I hadn’t noticed.’ As our environment gets faster and more demanding, we can expect to miss a lot of crucial info taken away with our senses. Not that the business of birds and trees are crucial to most of us, but when we lose other senses, we lose the deepest one of all- the one inside us (intuition). Stay mindful of your environment whenever possible (Listen to a mindful meditation here).

4. Learn to meditate anywhere. Perhaps you’ve heard of walking meditations? People can take mindful walks that are called walking meditations. It’s proof the meditative state can be achieved in more places than merely a comfy spot at our convenience. The more places you can practice a calming breath or two and a meditative state of mind or deep relaxation, the more you pick up on intuitive feelings in various scenarios, which can be quite useful.

5. Loving-kindness meditation. Loving-kindness meditation can be used to cultivate good will to others, but more importantly to ourselves. The reason I say it’s important to practice loving-kindness toward ourselves is because we lose intuition when we lose trust in ourselves. We lose trust in ourselves when we fail to see our value, and as I say ‘We fall out of like with ourselves.’

The following is a great beginning loving-kindness meditation:

Sit with your eyes closed and after a few slow and deep, deliberate breaths, imagine the last time you were disappointed in yourself. Or a time when you know you could’ve done better- you got really down on yourself.

Clearly define the situation for you that brought on those feelings.

Notice the initial uncomfortable feeling doesn’t last- it changes- it could come and go, perhaps not bothering you as much as it did when you first experienced it. It could get worse before it gets better, but never the same.

Now imagine something like this happened to someone else that caused them disappointment and anguish; someone you care about.

Notice it’s a little more difficult to be harder on someone else in their time of suffering than ourselves. Ponder that for a moment if you like…

Next, mentally say to the other person: May you be at ease and free from suffering.

Repeat the same phrase to yourself: May I be at easy and free from suffering.

Let this be your anchor to come back to each time your mind wanders.

“May I be at ease and free from suffering.”

Repeat as often as necessary.

Loving-kindness is essentially not wishing harm unto others or yourself.

As you experience the relaxing sensations of meditation, you may notice how your body feels- how your gut literally feels or your breathing rhythm. Intuition speaks to us from within and often through body language.

Where is intuition? It is not emotions nor logic- it is beyond these or between these- however you would like to look at it.

As you practice meditation and listening to your intuition, you can distinctly identify it. It becomes a sensation separate from general worry, wishful thinking, fear and feelings, or anxious thoughts.

Intuitive messages are quiet so you must take time for meditation, mindfulness, and stillness

Peace and Be Well,

Laura