Intuition

Have you ever had one of those experiences where you were looking for a solution, then out of no-where an idea pops into your head that is the perfect solution? That is your intuition speaking to you.

Your intuition is shy, it's been (possibly) ignored for a long time and doesn't think that you will listen to it's sage advice. It is like a child that is always told "Shut up" or "Nobody cares", it is afraid that if it speaks up you won't acknowledge it. Like any child, it needs encouragement to learn to speak up again. So any time you hear it, follow it's advice and do what it says and eventually it'll start to speak to you more.

I still remember the first time my intuition spoke to me, I was 17. It was in the middle of a particularly hot day, and I wanted to go swimming for two reasons. (Because it was hot, and I love to swim!) However, when I suggested it to my mom, she said she didn't want to go get cooled off and then come back and get hot again by cooking over the stove, nor did she want to eat sandwiches either. It was too early in the day to cook, then go.

So, with the thought in mind that swimming was out of the question, I quit chasing the thought. The only thought I remember having is wishing that we could go swimming, and I was sitting on the back steps of the house we were renting watching our dogs play. Out of the blue my mind whispered to me "What about hot-dogs? They aren't cold like sandwiches and they cook so quickly that she wouldn't get hot standing over the stove. For that matter you could cook them, and she wouldn't have to." I was excited, here was a perfect solution!

I raced through the house to my mom and submitted the thought to her, with the offer to cook them myself if she still didn't want to stand over the stove. She thought about it for only a moment then agreed. I was able to go swimming!

Intuition comes from a combination of your own experiences and knowledge, both remembered and forgotten. So the advice is coming from within yourself, and ignoring your own advice... probably isn't the best of ideas, especially when you're smarter than you give yourself credit for. If you can't trust yourself, then who can you trust?

A more recent incident of my intuition talking to me (for anyone curious), was when I was making pancakes just yesterday. I make them from scratch and from time-to-time I like to throw in something extra like chocolate chips, fruit, recess pieces, M&Ms, etc. However we didn't have anything that I could add to the pancakes in the fridge. Then out of the blue my mind said "Cinnamon and Vanilla!" so without a moment's hesitation I said "Sounds great!" and went for it. The pancakes turned out pretty good.