How to listen to your intuition: trust
In this ‘How to listen to your intuition’ series, we’ve looked at the role of the head versus the heart and how to also pay attention to what your body is telling you. In this article, we will explore the idea of trust, specifically trusting your instinct or intuition.
Learning to trust your intuition is like trust in any other relationship; it is built up over time. You need to become familiar with your intuition, the subtle ways it communicates with you (that may be different from how intuition communicates with someone else).
In order to trust your intuition, you need to spend some time to get to know it, to understand it. By dipping your toe into the experience of acting on the guidance you intuitively receive, you can also build up trust in time, each and every time you follow where it leads you.
How to trust your intuition
Based on my own experiences with intuitively living, and from see countless students and clients apply their own trial and error, I’ve concluded there are three key steps in building trust in your intuition.
Write it all down. This is the single piece of advice I always offer people when they starting learning how to harness their intuition. It’s quick and easy to do – and the written record becomes ‘proof’, which often helps build confidence because you can tangibly see what you felt was right.
Simply grab yourself a journal (or check out my purpose-built Head & Heart Digital Journal and Planner) and begin dating and even timing all your intuitive observations as you note them down. No matter how small, jot everything down. Notice how you received the information (visions, ‘just knew’ or a feeling in your stomach or was it in a sign or dream?) and what your interpretation of the information is at this time. Don’t second guess it, just jot it down.
In time, you will be able to come back to check on the notes you made. You’ll begin to not only build a ‘dictionary’ of your symbols and what they mean, but you will also have notes in front of you to help you better interpret your feelings and hunches too.
Head & Heart Digital Planner and Journal
Plan your day with your head and heart
2. Give it time. Whether you write down your observations or not (and I really hope you do!), be sure to give yourself enough time for your intuition to come to fruition.
That is, sometimes you may see an immediate validation for your efforts, sometimes it’s not until days, weeks, months or even years later. And if you’re like me and struggle with patience, then waiting years can be painful – but often the work you’ve done in between makes the wait worthwhile.
3. Practice with someone else. If you’re building up to giving readings, practice on someone else – preferably someone you don’t know. That way, you can’t put down your psychic information simply as something you already knew. Practicing with someone who is happy to give you feedback can also help, as they can help you build up your repertoire of symbols and your interpretation of them. Again, even better if you’re recording all of this practice!
Even if you’re not building up to reading for someone else, it can be invaluable to share your insights and impressions with others. I’ve loved seeing my students share and compare their experiences in my events and courses —it can magnify your own progress.
4. Try different techniques. I started out largely with automatic writing, but there is a whole range of psychic tools and techniques you can use to receive guidance. There is psychometry, tarot or oracle card readings, guided meditation and many more.
Try whatever you’re drawn to (there will be a reason why you are drawn to some things and not others) and don’t feel like you can only then stick to that one technique. These tools are really just designed to help you get started – I don’t really need the tools anymore, but they were prompts for me in the beginning. I will return to them when I need a little more objectively, though!
Trusting your intuition is also linked to trusting the process of life. A faith, if you will, that there is something bigger than you which is taking care of all the details. This can be an incredibly difficult point for some people to reach, especially when we are always taught to be in control.
With time and practice, you can learn to flow with the process of life and trust not only your intuition but that you are exactly where you need to be now. This is a process, not a quick fix.
