What do we mean by intuition?
Some of the words that try to corral the meaning and experience of intuition are: instinct, perception, insight, clairvoyance, sixth sense. Intuition shows itself in various ways. While driving, suddenly choosing to go right instead of left, and later hearing of the traffic jam you avoided. Thinking about a friend you haven’t seen for years, and soon after getting a phone call from them. Trying to think through a problem to no avail only to have the perfect solution come, like a bolt out of the blue, while you are taking a shower. Or knowing that there is more to a situation than “meets the eye” not because of anything that is said or done, but because you can feel there is something off or something more to know.
Another way to think of intuition may be the ability to connect with energy and information that is not bound by time, space, physicality, or our other five senses. In her book, "The Field", Lynne McTaggart reports that some of the scientists she interviewed thought that all of our higher cognitive processes are interacting with the Zero Point Field – the vast, fluctuating field of information and possibility that interconnects us, and that permeates the cosmos.
Scientists have been researching intuition, or extra sensory perception (ESP), since the mid-nineteenth century in the United States, Russia and England. Later research in quantum physics deepened the understanding about the interconnected and energetic nature of all of life, and scientists began to discern an energetic framework that helped make sense as to how intuition or ESP worked.
German physicist Fritz-Albert Popp, founder of the International Institute of Biophysics, was among the first to theorize that The Field is the medium that enables molecules to communicate with each other – nonlocally and instantaneously.[1] Sending and receiving information through The Field, which is not limited to spatial or linear time constraints, appears to be a natural phenomenon that we are now coming to better understand. Which helps to explain why we can receive sudden “downloads” of information, or how just thinking about putting in that phone call to our old friend results in her answering the phone saying, “You have been on my mind recently, how funny that you should call!
"This kind of constant interaction might account for intuition or creativity – and how ideas come to us in bursts of insight, sometimes in fragments but often as a miraculous whole. An intuitive leap might simply be a sudden coalescence of coherence in The Field."
– Lynne McTaggart, "The Field"
So, how do we know that it’s our intuition affording us that helpful information and not just another “bone-headed” idea? Research at the Institute of HeartMath shows that the energetic state of coherence increases our access to intuition and heightens creativity, because coherence makes us available to intersect with the information and guidance at an energetic level. Coherence, in relation to any system, including the human body, denotes harmonious, orderly connections between parts. The “system” is performing optimally.[2] When we are in coherence we feel grounded and calm within our self. We have good energy levels, clear thinking, creative ideas, and we are healthy. The bright ideas we have from this state can be trusted as coming from the intuition pipeline.
If our bright idea comes during a time when we are feeling incoherent the outcome of that particular choice will reflect the energetic state from which it came. We may experience incoherence as stress, anxiety, anger, fear or feeling confused, jumbled, or lacking clarity.[3] When we are in a state of incoherence we are not as available to our intuitive information channel.
The good news is that we can consciously choose to be in coherence and we can develop our connection and understanding of our own intuitive pipeline, which has a language all its own. The advantages of becoming more fluent with this energetic level of information is the ability to make more prudent, if not inspired choices, to gain insights into our self and others, to enhance and expand creativity – and it results in a spiritual connectedness to our self and all that is.
"At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself."
– Alan Alda
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Workshops available for your group or organization exploring this theme.
Contact: deborahjones13@comcast.net
[1] Lynne McTaggart, "The Field – The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe"
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[2] https://www.heartmath.org/research/
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[3] https://www.heartmath.org/research/
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