Why you lack confidence in your intuitive intelligence and how to grow it
What I see over and over again with clients and students repeatedly at the beginning of developing their intuitive skills, is not a lack of intuitive ability, but a lack of confidence in it. If this sounds like you, here's what might be blocking your path to increasing your intuitive awareness.
Over-riding it with logic
I used to pride myself on being incredibly logical. I would turn problems over in my mind and arrive at 50 different alternatives. I was desperate to be seen as intellectual and academic, as that was what was valued at school, and in the circles I thought I wanted to be in. That logical part of me still wishes, I could just be a psychologist and have a ‘recognised, respected, steady and sensible job’ - one that I can easily explain to the in-laws. However I would be desperately unhappy as that’s not who I am or how I am built - I am more shaman and mystic!
This pull to logic for me was also actually part of my trauma response, attempting to exit my body, because it was a scary and overwhelming place to be - intellect and reasoning become my solace. But this took me away from my body and away from my intuitive experience. This is what we are encouraged to do. We will talk to figure out problems within our ‘heads’, not develop our emotional literacy, or ask our heart intelligence or our intuitive awareness for answers.
The muscles we develop in school and within society are logical ones. Being intuitive is deemed woo woo, or pseudoscience or nonsense. We think it's safer to map things out with logic and reason, because it's visible, conscious and in a way therefore material. Intuition can feel unreliable or unknown because of its ‘invisibility’ and the fact it is based on a ‘feeling’ from a source unknown. Basing our decision-making on an intuitive feeling can seem irrational.
For example, I remember telling my husband, I had the strong intuitive, feeling that I needed to close my Shiatsu practice and develop a different type of work. He thought I was mad. I had clients, we needed the money, but I just knew to trust the strength of the feeling (even though I lacked any immediate answers as to what I was doing!) and asked him to trust me, so reluctantly he did. But it worked out for the better.
Intuitive pulls or messages are by nature mysterious at times. However it is only the conscious mind that tries to reduce reality into a rational, palatable and reasonable format to be able to cope. But when we open our minds, we discover a conscious universe that is completely responsive to our thoughts, feelings and intentions - which quantum physics is really opening up and proving (see lynn mctarget’s work). The language of intuition is the way to communicate with the conscious universe we live in and there by navigating decision making.
Willingness to be different
Conformists will find developing their intuition more difficult than nonconformists I have found. This also includes people pleasers. To follow your intuitive messages and listen to your intuitive voice can mean going against the grain. Receiving intuitive messages aren't enough, you have to take action on them. If we are too fickle to do this, because we're worried about what people think, nothing will happen.
We have to be willing to take a different path to others. We have to be willing to back intuitive, hunches with action. We have to be willing to say no, I'm going to do it differently. This takes confidence and courage, but also a willingness to not follow the crowd.
A good example of this is my career to date. I have always followed my interests and that ‘good feeling’. It was like I was trying to grab at an invisible thread in the dark for my sense of direction. Friends around me really seemed to have their shit together in comparison, moving up the career ladder with a clear sense of what they wanted or where they are going. I felt like a mess in comparison. I am 41 now and I only JUST feel that I have landed exactly where I meant to be doing the work I meant to be doing.
But I had faith. I couldn't just follow an ordinary path, it wasn't suited to me. I felt that I was moving towards something important and big, but I didn't know what (I still don’t exactly but it is closer now!). I was on a massive healing and learning journey, which was feeding into my work, serving my purpose, in a way that it wasn't for others. Therefore compromise would not serve me, neither would panic.
This is where developing our self-worth and self-confidence is incredibly important when going against the grain and listening to that intuitive voice. You have to be willing to listen to your inner knowing - even if you don’t know how you are going to ‘get there’ or even ‘where there is’. It’s like a voyage on a yacht across the sea, it’s a challenge and an adventure because it isn’t predictable, you might not even know where you will land but you follow that in a compass of your intuition, that guides you through the storms to the continent you’re meant to live on.
I remember when I left a 5 year relationship at 26 years old to my now ex boyfriend all I could say was ‘my gut says no, let go. It is telling me it’s over, we don’t have a future’. My head and heart were screaming the opposite. I remember after the break up he gave me this poem ‘The Journey’ by Mary Oliver and said that he thought I was brave to do what I felt was right.
At the time everyone was shocked by my decision as it was out of the blue and made no sense to them. I remember feeling so seen as I read the poem and I cried. Not all of our decisions will make sense to the outside world - but we have to be willing to do it anyway, do what we know is right. Happily, within just a couple of months, he had met his life partner who he is still with. Sometimes the decisions we make are not just for our benefit but may help others as well.
Don’t trust yourself
One of the most frustrating phrases I hear from clients when they have an intuitive hit or message is - ‘oh I felt that….. but I ignored it as I just thought I was just being silly’. Sometimes I want to scream with exasperation when they say it! They had the intuitive message, but they ignored it. This can happen for different reasons but the key one is a lack of trust in yourself and what you are sensing. A lack of confidence.
This is for different reasons. The first is intuition is not recognised and validated in society, it’s easy to dismiss it - think of it as nothing or random or silly therefore we invalidate the experience. Also because we don't have all the facts to hand in relation to why we feel or sense something, it's easier to ignore it or simply feel confused by it. Often it is not a lack of skill or ability it is a lack of trust in what is coming to you intuitively. We have to learn to listen, take it seriously, trust and take action.
If you are a highly sensitive person (HSP) - our relationship with our intuitive messages can get twisted up for different reasons. Firstly, if you are a people pleaser if you receive negative intuitive messages about someone, for example, our logical mind can instantly kick in to play ‘nice’ and reason away why we should stay clear of someone - flat out denying our instinctive knowing. Many HSP’s have experienced trauma in early childhood so this can be a way of avoiding conflict as well as avoiding negative or threatening sensations in the body.
HSP’s can also struggle with healthy boundaries and can have strong somatic empathy. It is therefore easy for us to experience the emotional landscape of others within our bodies. This can lead us to not trust the physical intuitive sensations we are receiving because we can unconsciously feel confused at points with what we are experiencing as it might not be ‘ours’, (our fear or threat) and so on. We can ‘absorb’ emotions and our boundaries are blurred.
It is also confusing and hard to trust the intuitive messages coming up if it is triggering old unresolved feelings or trauma. It is then hard to know if it's a clean response to what is happening in the immediate situation or whether it's echoing a memory from the past. This is where it's very important to do as much self clearing and development as possible to become clearer on the intuitive information you are receiving.
Intuitive decisions went wrong before
Sometimes, past failures or negative experiences can hold us back. If this was the case for you, I'd really encourage you to reframe the event and begin to see it as a learning experience. We never stop learning and just like a toddler transitioning to walking, when we start to learn to listen to our intuition, we're going to stumble and fall and make mistakes. That’s natural. Failure leads to success.
I remember once waiting for a man for a year, believing intuitively, he was going to show up, but he didn't, thank goodness! Not ‘getting what I wanted’ was 100% the best outcome in that situation. I got want I needed. I remember a friend asking did I feel humiliated and no longer trust my intuition. I said absolutely not. In fact it was the biggest and best learning experience I could have on the difference between ‘fear driven faith’ (desperation) and intuitive knowledge. I wouldn't be making a mistake on that scale again.
Sometimes we learn lessons the hard way - but they are powerful lessons. This was also a great example of the power of self denial. If we don’t want to address a relationship or a behaviour or create conflict by owning our truth then we deny the intuitive knowledge we already have. We blind ourselves to the truth and that’s what our intuitive intelligence has to offer.
Sometimes we simply have not had enough practice. Sometimes I have clients marching in and saying I have this really big decision to make about this partner, or my job or where I should live, and I can't get a clear answer from my intuition. When we do this, it's like trying to ride a motorbike before we have even taken the stabilisers off of a bicycle. It's not gonna work - it’s too much pressure.
Get acquainted with your intuitive intelligence, and build a relationship with it through low-pressure, day-to-day decisions. Choosing what you want to eat off of the menu, choosing which direction to walk down when you wander round town, choosing which day to book that trip to London in your diary, listening to that tug in your gut when it says ‘I don’t trust them’ and listening - and so on. Start small, get more and more successes under your belt so when the big decisions come round - you’re more experienced and open to trusting the guidance from your intuitive intelligence.
Fear psychic abilities and blocks
A common fear I see amongst clients with very natural intuitive abilities - is a fear of the ‘dark’ side of the unseen world which I understand because I had this fear too. Personally, I also felt a sense of ‘madness’, as I would have this influx of visions and sensations that took me away from my known reality.
I remember in the midst of trauma symptoms, a friend asking me why I didn't open up to my intuitive abilities because she'd love to. I said because I'm already in a state of constant panic with all my past memories trying to surface and have enough on my plate, it would be completely overwhelming with any more information!
Timing was important for me to go much deeper into my intuitive channelling abilities, for it to feel ‘safe’. The fear of seeing entities, figures of darkness, saboteur energies and ghosts was far worse before my trauma symptoms cleared as it tapped into a terror that was already alive within. Once this was cleared, I could then be aware of a darker energy that is present - I might feel uncomfortable, but I also have the confidence and knowledge to clear it. When we change our experience changes.
We can also have unconscious vows from other lifetimes to not trust psychics or psychic abilities - this was something that came up to clear in a session for me! We can have curses from other people, entities or ourselves from this life or other lifetimes that also block us from accessing intuitive information or fearing it by disempowering us for example. Or we can have other unconscious ‘blocking beliefs’ such as ‘I must give away my power’ or ‘I am powerless’ - that keeps us trapped and disconnected from this higher level of awareness or knowledge.
Empowering
What is powerful about realising what may be inhibiting your intuitive intelligence is that when we become aware of it - we can begin to work on it. When we are unaware of the problem, we are truly stuck. So if you resonate with some of the above, don't beat yourself up about it or think, oh no, something else to do! Know that, perhaps with support and/or time, it is information leading you to liberating yourself and beginning to live intuitively.
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