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A Quick Guide To Enhanced Intuition and Body
Wisdom
by Judith K. Acosta, LCSW, CHT, ph:
505-771-2282
“The Truth Shall Set You
Free.”
Jn
8:32
The single most common denominator in the trouble people have is
that they don’t know what they know, they do not trust their own
senses, ignore their better judgment and try to silence that
too-small inner voice.
It is more typical than most of us
imagine for people to shrug and say, “I dunno,” when asked how they
feel about something or someone. Patients look at their therapists
cross-eyed when they’re asked to “track a feeling through their
body.”
Intuition is our shortcut to truth.
But it depends greatly on body sensations—gut feelings, not
reasoning. Unfortunately, our culture relies heavily on linear
thought processes, relegating intuitive leaps to something the
“little woman” does, something more often associated with fringe
elements of society. Western society demands logical thinking,
backed-up by hard evidence provable in court. That is well and good,
leading to one level of truth. But there is another route that, on
the surface, often appears illogical and eludes formal analysis.
Intuitively, we will know that something is right, good, bad, etc…It
wouldn’t hold up in court, because we do not know how we know. We’ll
just “know.”
There have been changes, though.
Starting with the Think Tanks at IBM in the Sixties, Intuition has
been re-written with a capital “I” and has become a dear friend of
big business, especially over the last decade or so. The WSJ has
reported that intuition training at DuPont has generated 100%
increases in productivity and new product development time has
dropped from three years to three months.
Leslie H. Wexner, CEO of The
Limited, has said, “I never conduct formal research. I trust my
intuition. It’s like taste. I can’t describe it.” People with the
most to lose—and win—depend on their intuitive capacities for their
final tallies, often over-riding opinion polls, statistics and
standard protocols to do what they know, deep down, is the right
thing to do.
INTUITIVE GOOD SENSE
In studies done with businessmen, it
was revealed that the most successful ones used a combination of
logic and free intuition. Being intuitively wise involves more than
just “a feeling.” It blends creative leaps with good judgment and
basic common sense. There are times we may have to ignore what
ordinary experience and other people tell us we “should” or “ought”
to do/think because the intuitive sense of a situation is so
strongly in opposition. However, a rapturous reliance on feeling or
any one sense alone can lead us terribly astray.
A story is told about a psychologist
who trains a flea to jump when it hears the word “jump.” The
psychologist pulls off one of the flea’s legs and he still obeys the
command. This continues with the psychologist removing one leg after
the other and the flea following orders, until, one day, the insect,
legless, doesn’t jump. So, the psychologist induces, “When a flea
loses its legs, it can no longer hear.”
Almost any therapist working in this
area will stress the need for balance. Intuition is based on
feeling, but comprised of more. We need to be thoughtful at the same
time that we need to learn to listen to ourselves. Not knowing what
we know is essentially denial of one form or another. And when we
don’t see, won’t hear, can’t acknowledge something that’s right in
front of us, we get into trouble—or worse. We show exquisitely bad
timing, enter into hopeless relationships, take the wrong
assignments, run up enormous charges, make terrible investments.
HOW DO WE KNOW?
1. Use Your Head.
“Wisdom,” it has been said, “is a
firm grasp of the obvious.” Don’t be afraid to judge, discriminate,
use past experience, get reality checks from trusted friends or
associates.
2. Use Your Senses.
If you smell smoke, there’s a fire.
Somewhere. If the handle is hot, what’s in the pot, no doubt, is
hot, too. If you hear a scream, something hurts someone. If it
tastes bad, spit it out. If you see a bus coming at you, move. If
your stomach erupts, something doesn’t agree with you.
People ignore their senses all the
time. They double-guess themselves, saying, “nah, can’t be.” But,
it can. One woman ignored the distension and discomfort in her
abdomen for three months. Those were a critical three months with a
building ovarian cancer. One young person walked down a dark street
talking himself out of the fear that crept along the back of his
neck. He was mugged.
Most of the time, we have an
investment in our denial. We want to believe we’re fine, because
we’re scared of finding out we’re sick or that something is wrong.
We want to believe a partner when he or she says, it’s fine, even
though we know it’s not fine. We want to think of ourselves as
courageous and unstoppable (especially when we’re young and male),
but we put ourselves in danger.
There are millions of ways to
acquire information. Sometimes it’s pheromonal (hormones, scents),
sometimes it’s subtle visual cues. Sometimes it’s the almost
imperceptible shift in tone or color of a person’s face or his vocal
pattern that alerts us to a potential problem. At times it’s the
things we can’t consciously pinpoint that tell us something is “up.”
Dogs, cats and other animals seem to be able to sense a coming
earthquake. We still haven’t figured out how they do that. Could it
be shifting electro-magnetic fields?
3. Trust Your Heart.
The “heart” confuses everyone
sometimes and some of us all the time. But it is our leader, our
guide, when all the other wires get crossed. The heart, for it to
lead successfully, requires care and practice. It produces the kind
of intuition that is the “non-sequential” knowing underived from
established fact or observable time-space events. It is the kind of
knowing that will guide us towards the buying (or not) of a
particular home, the right time to call someone, or when to invest
and for how long.
4.Know Your Own Defenses.
In order to know what we know, to
become more wisely intuitive, we need to be aware of our own defense
mechanisms and the obstacles we unwittingly set up.
To not know is to fear ourselves. To
fear ourselves is to fear everything and everyone else. It is to
live without grounding.
We all need—and all have—defense
mechanisms in place. Without them, we’d all be crazy. But, they’re
like coats in the winter. They’re wonderful when it’s cold outside,
but we don’t need to leave them on all summer.
The most prominent defense is
denial, which essentially denies reality. “No, it’s not dangerous.”
“No, I’m not sick. I’m fine.” “No, I’m not addicted to gambling. I
can stop any time.” Temporary denial can be necessary when we need
it to survive, e.g., denying pain to finish a critical mission,
denying grief long enough to function at work, denying catastrophic
loss until coping mechanisms are back in place. But we don’t want to
deny the truth to the extent that it makes us physically ill,
ruptures my relationships, or prevents honest communication.
Other common defenses are numbness
(not feeling), repression (burying it below conscious awareness),
amnesia (forgetting), minimizing (making it less than it is),
disavowal (obvious meanings are not what they are), and
rationalizing or justifying (inventing a reason for a behavior or
event so that it becomes palatable).
Everyone uses defenses. The task is
to become familiar with your own defenses and the reasons you use
them. Many people are afraid of the truth, thinking mistakenly that
they will lose love, respect, or position. That is not the case.
Having seen the truth, they may indeed decide to let something go or
change something about themselves or their behavior, but they will,
perhaps for the first time, be able to really choose instead of
being a prisoner to unconscious needs and fears.
A COUPLE OF
TECHNIQUES
1. The Rose Meditation
Imagine something you know without
doubt you love. Choose something simple. Feel it. Sense it. Where do
you feel the love in your body? Now, tell yourself you love it.
What does telling yourself you love
it feel like as you hold the image in your mind?
Now, imagine something you hate or
fear. Sense it. Feel it. Where does it sit in your body? Tell
yourself you hate it. What does that feel like?
Next, you want to switch the
process.
Imagine something you love. Feel it.
Sense it in your body. Now, tell yourself you hate it. How does the
lie feel? Where in your body do you sense the distortion of it being
untrue?
Imagine something you hate. Feel it.
Sense it in your body. Now, tell yourself you love it. How does that
feel?
Notice the difference between the
truth and the lie.
2. Taking Your Emotional Pulse.
Every now and then as you go about
your day, take a deep breath and ask yourself what you’re feeling.
Be specific…go through your body as well as your thoughts and
emotions. When you’re in conversation with others or at a meeting,
stop yourself and try to determine what it is that other people are
feeling, thinking, sensing.
NOTES FOR THE
REFRIGERATOR
1. Notice! Notice! Notice! Be aware
of everything around you.
2. Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Get
curious. Ask questions. You don’t have to know everything right
away. Not knowing is the beginning of wisdom.
3. Wait for Answers. Don’t assume
too much. Sometimes, there’s nothing you need to do but wait.
4. Listen Well! Both to yourself and
to others.
5. Tell the Truth! Be honest with
yourself, above all.
6. Slow Down! If we’re running too
fast, we miss the most important details.
7. Honor your Feelings. Practice the
exercises and become acquainted with your own body.
8. Use your heart. Use
your senses. And use your head. All together.
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Judith
K. Acosta, LCSW, CHT is a licensed psychotherapist,
hypnotherapist and crisis counselor with a private practice
in Placitas, New Mexico. Her areas of specialization include Ericksonian hypnosis, and mind/body therapy in the treatment
of trauma, women’s fertility issues, anxiety disorders, and
depression.
Ms.
Acosta is a Phi Beta Kappa, Summa Cum Laude from CUNY and
Fordham University. For 10 years, she was a writer with
major advertising agencies and periodicals. She created the
Somamente Group with Tullie Ruderman, CSW and Dorothy
Larkin, RN in 1994 to train health care professionals and
first responders in neurolinguistic strategies to increase
compliance and promote healing.
She is
trained in Critical Incident Stress Management, a member of
the Hudson Valley CISM Team, of the International Critical
Incident Stress Foundation and of the clinical panel of
POPPA—Police Organization Providing Peer Assistance with New
York City police offices. She has had her work published in
Women’s News, Omni, Inner Realm, Listen Magazine, and the
International Journal of Emergency Mental Health.
She has
appeared on television and radio and is a regular lecturer
in the tri-state area, having presented the Verbal First Aid
concept to peer support officers of the New York City Police
Department, the Hudson Valley EAP Association, law
enforcement and EMS agencies, hospitals, and school
districts.
She is
the co-author of
The Worst is Over: What to Say When Every
Moment Counts.
(Jodere Group, 2002)
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