Your Intuition Is Calling
You know that gut feeling, the one you have ignored on more than one occasion only to find yourself trying to figure out a way to get your foot to reach behind you and kick yourself in the ass for not listening.
The thing about intuition is that it’s rarely loud. It quietly nudges you to get you to pay attention and listen. You may hear that tiny voice in your head whispering guidance, there could be that sick or anxious feeling in your stomach, a sort of compressed feeling in your chest, or just that ‘gut’ feeling that people are most familiar with.
Some people catch on to listening to this early in life. Most of us don’t. Once we look back over the timeline of our journey up to this point, we often recall those little voices and gut instincts that we didn’t listen to, because we definitely remember the outcomes.
I’ve been trying my damndest to be aware of my intuition over the past several years. I’m no expert at this by any means. But I try and that’s what counts. What I’ve learned during the past few years of educating myself and practicing energy work such as Reiki and Crystal Therapy is to slow down and listen.
Slowing down is not always easy especially if you are used to the rat race. But I’m going to tell you this, it is critical to your well-being. And this is not woo-woo stuff here. This is a regular, normal good thing to do and a gift for your soul.
When you slow down, quiet yourself and take time to breathe and really experience a present moment, you will be amazed at what that feels like. And trust me, your brain will be saying, “Hey! What the fuck are you doing? We have stuff to get done! There’s laundry, errands, cleaning, that book you are supposed to be writing, that project you are helping with, emails to reply to…” and the list goes on. I know, it happens to me all the time. Tell your brain to shut the fuck up. YOU are the boss not your brain.
Here’s what happens when you don’t slow down. First of all, you can’t hear your intuition. This lovely and extraordinarily patient friend of yours is ALWAYS there. Always. Your patient friend Intuition is also a bit of a smart ass sometimes. Because when you aren’t listening and you think your brain runs the show not-so-good things may pop up in your life to make you slow down. But its ok, your good friend Intuition will be there to say, “I told you so!” What just popped in my mind was it saying, “Don’t make me come in there and force you to take it easy. Because I will and you won’t like it.”
When you let your brain run the show and you push aside intuition you can get frustrated when things aren’t working out, when you can’t figure out why, when you are mega-stressed, when it finally all catches up with you and you find yourself sick in bed for days. Has this happened to you?
TAKE TIME FOR YOU. I’ve said this over and over in posts, to friends and to clients. When you slow down answers come, inspiration strikes, you figure out why something hasn’t been working out. Listen to your intuition. It really does have your best interest at heart.
If this is something you really aren’t used to but you find yourself in a constant cycle of
stress
worry
frustration
bad relationships
misunderstandings
stagnation (never seeming to get where you want to go or want to be.)
illness
victim-mode
I strongly encourage you to give slowing down the old college try. Change doesn’t happen overnight but the benefits of making new and positive habits like this are crazy awesome! Wouldn’t you rather experience things like this?
Better health
Positive outlook
Improved relationships
Forward movement toward your life and business goals
Choices that are better for you
Ownership in the direction you are taking
Less stress
Better coping skills
Slowing down doesn’t mean you have to take a week-long vacation, though if you want to totally do it! AND LEAVE WORK BEHIND!! A working vacation is NOT slowing down. Just putting that out there before your brain jumps in and says, “Yes! Let’s go on a vacation! You can totally take your computer with you and do work via your smart phone! A vacation sounds amazing! Let’s do the same shit but somewhere else and totally relax. A change of scenery is just what you need.” You won’t relax and slow down if you take work with you. So commit to a real vacation if you are going to take one.
Here are do-able things that you can fit into your schedule right now. Train your brain to be quiet while you are doing them. Allow intuition to give you answers and inspire you. Slow down and pay attention to things that excite you and that you are passionate about because often the answers for things you have been looking for are right in front of your face.
Take a walk in nature. This is an absolute favorite of mine. Nature bathing on a beautiful trail in the woods is one of the best things for every level of your being.
Read. And not just self-help, self-improvement, educational types of books. Read something that takes you away. This is something I do every night before I go to sleep. It clears my mind of to-do lists and allows my brain to get into rest mode. I fall asleep super-fast too!
Take a long hot bath or shower. Inspiration flows in water. Keep a notebook handy because you’ll probably want to jot down some ideas that come to you. I’ve been told there is a whiteboard type of thing that you can actually put in the shower! How cool is that?
Yoga. I’ll be honest, this is not part of my practice but I have taken some beginner yoga classes and loved them. Actually this would totally be the level that I would stay at. I’m not into sweating it out or doing some crazy ‘flow’ that I have to keep looking at everyone else around me to figure out. So yes to slow and relaxing yoga for me. If you are super into yoga and find it relaxing and a great way to connect with yourself (intuition) then absolutely go for it.
Meditation. You don’t need to sit for an hour in an uncomfortable position without moving. The benefits of mediation are wonderful. There are tons of real-life stories of miraculous healings as a result of meditating. Take some quiet time to sit or lay comfortably and listen to guided meditations, binaural beat music, or isochronic tones. You can find hundreds if not thousands of these on YouTube. A 12-minute meditation that I’ve purchased and really like is Zen12. It uses brainwave entrainment (binaural beats and tones) to give you the benefit of an hour’s worth of meditation in only 12 minutes. This program also has 4 different styles to choose from; guided, music, white noise, nature sounds. I have an affiliate link for it if you would like to check that out. http://zen12.com/homepage/a/cherriseboucher
Simply sitting outside. There is nothing like feeling the warm sun or a refreshing breeze while being present and doing nothing else but sitting outdoors.
Affirmations. These can go along with any of the above suggestions. Repeat affirmations to work with your subconscious mind in training your viewpoints and perceptions. I’ve created two decks of affirmation cards that I often share daily on my Facebook page. The Crystal Chakra Affirmation Deck has 28 affirmations paired with crystals to support and enhance them. The Essential Oil Chakra Affirmation Deck combines 49 different affirmations with essential oils suggested for each chakra. You by no means need to associate the affirmations, crystals, or essential oils with chakras if you choose not to. The affirmations are amazing all on their own. Simply choose an affirmation (or card) and repeat it in your mind or aloud. You can do this while sitting with your eyes closed, while taking a walk, while in the shower, while practicing yoga, while doing dishes, folding laundry or any number of other activities. Except reading obviously. If you would like to purchase a deck of these either message me on Facebook or send me an email at Cherrise@CherriseBoucher.com.
The message here is that you can and should slow down and pay attention to the messages your inner guidance system is sending you. You may need to hear this message over and over and over again before you pay attention to it. But believe me it’s so worth it to start this practice. It doesn’t have to be time-consuming either because once you begin to pay attention and notice the symptoms (which are usually unpleasant) you will also begin to recognize that you need to slow down and listen.
I would love to hear how your slowing down practice has increased your intuition and what results you have seen because of it! Send me an email: Cherrise@CherriseBoucher.com