Intuition

By John Tamiazzo, PhD
(November 9, 2018)

Intuition is one of your amazing psychic gifts often called the 6th sense. Intuition dramatically enhances your other five senses, significantly increasing your sensitivity to the world around you.

Intuitive experiences include mystical insights (a feeling of oneness with life), discovery and invention in science, inspiration in the arts, creative problem solving, ESP, precognition (future knowledge), telepathy (communication by inexplicable means), clairvoyance (seeing out of the natural range of human senses), feelings of attraction and aversion, hunches and strong feelings that something is going to happen.

It might be helpful to view the dynamic range of intuition on four levels: physical, emotional/heart, mental and spiritual. Developing the physical level of intuition requires that you learn to trust bodily responses, noticing what your body is trying to tell you about your health and well- being.

Michael Gershon, chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at New York–Presbyterian Hospital and author of The Second Brain, writes “There is an often-overlooked network of neurons lining our guts that is so extensive some scientists have nicknamed it our “second brain.” Technically known as the enteric nervous system, the second brain consists of sheaths of neurons embedded in the walls of the long tube of our gut. The second brain contains some 100 million neurons, more than in either the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system.”

The emotional level of intuition is the glow in your heart signifying being drawn to someone that you want to know better or an uncomfortable feeling as your heart closes down in the presence of someone you feel unsafe with. Emotional intuition can be an outpouring of love, an immediate like or dislike, and feeling close or pulling away. As Saint Exupery wrote so eloquently in his book, The Little Prince, “It is only with the heart that one can rightly see.”

Mental intuition is an ‘aha’ experience such as an unexpected breakthrough in thinking, creative problem solving, and inspiring thoughts that feed the higher mind. Mental intuition is the unearthing of new possibilities, options and choices. It is the sudden flash of understanding that turns out to be precisely and inexplicably correct. Physician Andrew Weil wrote, “The greatest scientific thinkers are those who rely on sudden intuitive flashes to solve problems.”

The spiritual/transpersonal level of intuition is a feeling of oneness, peacefulness and unity that transcends worldly problems and concerns. Spiritual intuition is feeling blissfully connected to nature or to some spiritual quest, or realizing that despite all the logical reasons why you should be angry or afraid, instead you feel a profound trust and serenity that everything is OK.

What can you do to increase intuition? Take time for solitude and quiet time; practice mindfulness which is observing your thoughts and feelings without judging them. Mindfulness means living in the moment, observing more and thinking less, paying attention to your dreams and letingt go of negative thinking. 

Physicist Albert Einstein wrote, “The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition, and the solution comes to you and you don’t know how or why.”

John Tamiazzo is the author of two self-help books: Love & be Loved: 8 Steps to Creating Intimacy and Finding the Love You Want; Returning to the Land of Oz: Finding Hope, Love, & Courage on Your Yellow Brick Road. Visit his website JohnTamiazzo.com to learn more about his Counseling and Non-Profit Consulting Services. He is the former Executive Director of the Sedona Community Center.