Tag Archives: Intuition

Don’t Keep Your Intuition On Ice

False Feedback Loop

The other day I was waiting in line at the ice cream shop down the street from my apartment. I don’t usually buy ice cream, especially during winter, but something told me that buying ice cream might be a good idea today. I can’t exactly put my finger on what it was, or what caused me to think of ice cream, let alone evaluate whether it would be a good choice or not, but there I was.

I noticed the girl standing in line behind me was wearing a shirt that said
“San Diego,” on it, and nothing else. San Diego is popular for a couple of tourist attractions, the San Diego Zoo, and Sea World, to name a couple, but her shirt only said “San Diego,” and nothing else. Since the ice cream shop we were standing in line in was a long way from San Diego, I was curious.

I asked her if she was from San Diego, and she said no, that she got the shirt from a friend. The friend had gone there on a trip and had brought it back as a souvenir. She kind of gave off vibe that she wanted me to follow up on the conversation, despite not giving any obvious openings, so I pressed on.

I asked her what her friend did it San Diego, and she told me that it’s actual her husband, but at he time they hadn’t started dating yet. He was involved in the Navy and some secret nuclear submarine program down there. I asked her if her husband was in the navy, and she said that she couldn’t say. So much for my intuition about her desire for further conversation. I tried one last time, and asked her where she was originally from, and what she told me next was completely unexpected.

I remember once I was taking this seminar on intuition. Or rather it was on hypnosis, but there was on section that was specific to intuition. A good hypnotist can develop an intuition about his client, as many times the session will depend on feedback given by the client that isn’t altogether obvious or blatant. Hypnotists that can develop a good sense of intuition can have much more success with their clients.

There are a few different schools of thought on intuition. One is highly esoteric and metaphysical, and says that there is some higher “super conscious organism” that everybody is connected into. All dreams, psychic abilities, and intuitions depend on being able to “tap into” this superconscious realm of knowledge. It is widely believed that this is a huge storehouse of information, of everything that has happened, and everything that will happen. And it is completely accessible to anyone, so long as they know how to open themselves up to it.

Another school of thought is purely based on biology and evolution. Intuition is a highly developed aspect of communication that is just as unique to humans as spoken language. Most people are aware that human communication goes way beyond the verbal. Studies have shown that as much as 90 percent of communication is non-verbal. This is where intuition kicks in. Because the amount of voice tone, facial expression and subtle cues given off by body language extremely numerous and complex, being able to process them all consciously would be impossible. So the brain developed a way, over thousands of generations of evolution, to interpret them all subconsciously, and then deliver a final “feeling” to the conscious mind. Since feelings can only give us a directional “push,” and not any specific guidance, they can be difficult to interpret.

Hunger, fear, lust, nervousness are all general feelings that generally point us in the right direction, but don’t give us specifics on how to get there. That is left to our conscious, thinking brains. The same goes with intuition. Our subconscious reads the vast amount of information about any particular situation, and then presents a vague “feeling” to our conscious brains. This can be difficult to interpret, especially if you are someone who has been brought up to believe that “feelings” are too wishy washy to be paid any attention to.

But taken in light of the massive computational abilities of the subconscious mind, these feelings can be very valuable, when interpreted correctly. Sometimes it really is a good idea to “trust your gut.”

She told me that she was originally from Jordan, and that she had a PhD in nuclear engineering, which is where she met her husband. She had come to the United States on a student visa, and had met her husband in school, where they both studied nuclear engineering.

She then apologized, and told me that she mad mistakenly took me for one of her classmates. But when she started speaking to me, she realized I wasn’t him, because I spoke with the wrong accent.

So it turns out that her intuition about me was completely incorrect, which in turn gave me an incorrect intuition about her. Kind of a false intuition feedback loop. But the good thing was our false intuition feed back loop had self corrected by the time it was our turn to order our ice cream cone. Actually, I got an ice cream cone, and she got a sundae, but that’s another story.

Tap The Power of Feelings For Incredible Success

If you’ve ever felt a strange sensation, and weren’t exactly sure what it was or where it was coming from, or even if it existed at all outside of your imagination, then this article is for you.

The human mind/body system is a fantastically complex organism that defies and will continue to defy understanding of anything other than it’s basic operation. On the scale of human history, successful surgery, of even the basic kind, is still in its infancy.

Many mistakenly believe that simply because there is not any direct hard evidence of unexplainable phenomenon, then it can’t exist. The easies retreat of people who dare not face the idea of something beyond comprehension is the easy question “Is there any documented proof?”

The human system has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in unending and changing environments. And we have prevailed. We have grown to be the dominant species on the planet. No other animal uses language or tools, or planning or abstract thought like humans do. And that is just scratching the surface.

The thrust of necessity behind the size and intellect of the human brain may never be fully understood. That there even exists a “subconscious” mind is still debated, even today among psychologists. Those that don’t like the idea that part of their brain is operating outside of their conscious awareness will ask for “proof” or “case studies” that show conclusively of it’s existence.

One of the theories behind the development of the subconscious brain is the idea of saving conscious bandwidth. Of course, on a parallel universe, humans may evolve to always be consciously monitoring their heart rate, breathing rate, skin temperature, and keeping all of their memories and imaginations of the possible future in their conscious awareness at all times, but it is not likely.

A much more likely explanation was that only a small bandwidth of mental processing power was given to the conscious mind, and the vast remainder is given over to the unconscious mind. Eating, breathing, fear, love, excitement all of these are the results of massive computations by the unconscious, and delivered to the conscious in the form of feelings.

Sadly, we are taught in the west, especially the males among us, to disregard our feelings and use only our logical, or conscious computing power to make decisions that can affect our livelihoods for a lifetime.

Imagine this scenario. You have a desire to buy a car. You go to a car dealership. The salesperson is setting of alarm bells in your system, danger, danger, danger. But you really want a car, so you ignore them. You allow him to dazzle you with colorful brochures, and statistics about safety and miles per gallon, and how many hundreds of thousands of people have already bought this car. By the time he is done with his sales pitch, you have effectively shut down your initial warning system that has been fine tuned over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.

The result? Maybe you get lucky and the car works out for you. Maybe you don’t, and the car is a lemon that quickly depreciates in value, and you are stuck with it for three or four years. The salesman knew this, and tried his best to cover it up. Had you paid attention to your subconscious processor warning system (AKA your intuition) you could have avoided the whole scenario and gone someplace else.

The more you learn to listen to your feelings, and understand that they are natures best and most effective design that is the result of hundreds of thousand of years of testing and improvement (AKA evolution), the sooner you will able to cut through all the crap that surrounds us in our daily lives, and go straight to the truth. The truth that is there, but elusive if you rely on logic to find it.

This is not metaphysics, or supernatural phenomenon, only misunderstood science. And when you use your feelings and intuition the way nature intended, you will be incredibly surprised how much personal power and choice you will gain in life.

Intuition and Congruence – Two Powerful Gifts From Evolution

I was reading this really interesting book the other day, The Red Queen, by Matt Ridley. A fascinating study of human sexuality through the lens of evolution. One of the various topics was the reasons behind the growth of the human brain. When compared to all other mammals, humans have the largest brain. The question is why? What was the driving force behind the massive growth of the human thinking machine?

Many arguments that are usually given can also be used for other primates, and their brains are nowhere near the size of ours. Most scientists believe it is a combination of many factors to say the least. One of the most prominent is sexual selection within a species.

Imagine a group of cave people, fifty girls, and fifty guys. For the guys, they want to have sex with as many girls as possible. (Obviously). For the girls, they need to be extremely selective with who they choose to have sex with, because the consequences could be disastrous if they choose the wrong guy. Their offspring will not only carry his DNA, but his cooperation will have a direct impact on that offspring to survive.

So how do they manage this? The men try their hardest to convince the women that they are upstanding men capable of providing for the family. One way to do this is to simply pretend to be. They only need to pretend long enough and good enough to get into her cave-panties for the couple minutes it will take to get his cave-men rocks off. Then off to the next cave girl.

So an arm’s race of sorts developed over time. In men, the ability to deceive. In women, the ability to detect deception. Of course, men would pass on their skills of deception to their offspring, be they girls or boys. And women would also pass on their skills of deception detection onto their offspring, be they boys or girls.

So as man evolved, there was a contest, in both men and women, between skills of deception, and skills to detect deception. As mankind grew, this required a bigger and bigger brain.

The reason for this is congruity. In order to detect deception, you must be able to detect incongruity. This requires massive attention to subtle clues of body language, facial expression, and voice tone. Too much for the conscious mind to handle. Many believe the unconscious mind was developed to detect deception without having to spend too much conscious bandwidth, so to speak.

So we developed an “intuition” to tell when somebody is lying or not. Our subconscious minds developed the ability to quickly scan somebody’s body language, facial expressions, and voice tone, and then deliver a gut reaction, or a “feeling” to our conscious minds. And those that have learned to pay attention to this “feeling” or “gut reaction” can spot a liar a mile away.

Conversely, those that can present a very congruent image can be some of the best salespeople and manipulators around. Of course, the best way to be a great salesperson is to really believe in what you are selling. There’s a reason that many companies require their salespeople to actually own and use the product they are selling.

Of course, when you are presenting yourself, either to a potential lover or to a potential boss, it is essential that you believe in yourself. If you have any self-doubts, you will be dead before you even open your mouth.

The moral of this essay is twofold. One, take some time to get in tune with your intuition. It can serve you well against making bad decisions. It is the product of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, and is there for a reason. Use it, respect it, and listen to it.

Secondly, in order to present a believable image to the world, you must believe in yourself. Self-confidence and self-esteem stem from a belief that you are a good and worthy person with something of real value to offer the world. Don’t sell yourself short.

Believe in yourself, and trust your intuition, and you will go a long way.

Tap Your Intuition

Some have called it universal intelligence. Others have referred to it as the super conscious mind, a powerful storehouse of all the information in the universe accessible to all who know it’s secret.  A few have called it intuition. Edison used it. Einstein used it. You can use it.

You can not only easily learn now to tap this incredible power, but if you do so on a consistent basis you will develop your skill of intuition to levels unheard of in common men. What happens when you imagine the insight you’ll gain when you learn to listen to what Rumi, the 13th century Sufi Poet referred to as “your friend” when he said:

“Listen to your friend. When you are obedient to that one, you will be free.”

I’ve written a few articles about the power of this source of information on my blog, but I’ve never given such clear steps to access it as I’m about to give. You will be surprised how simple they are. How easy they are to harness to give you answers to life’s most complicated questions. And one of the most strangest things, is the more you practice this simple technique, the stronger your “intuition” muscle will get, so you will notice that you will just “know” things, without really knowing how you know.

The magic in this technique lies in the persistence you will use to get through the critical, logical part of your brain in order to uncover the wisdom within. It may take a while, but once you get there, you’ll know. Here’s how you do it.

Think of a problem that you are having. Its’ good to start of with a minor problem, so it will be easy to do. This way, you’ll not only prove to your deeper self that it really works, but you will begin to get the hang of it rather quickly.

Phrase the problem as specifically as you can. Let’s say you want to lose five pounds. So your problem would be losing five pounds. So you create a question that begins with either “How” or “What.”  The following questions would be a good start for this particular problem:

How can I lose five pounds easily and without effort?
What is the easiest way to lose five pounds without changing my lifestyle?
How can I easily lose five pounds without extra willpower?

Once you get the question set up that feels right, here’s what you do next.

Get a blank piece of paper, and write, in long hand, as typing isn’t nearly as effective, your question at the top of the sheet.
Then ask yourself the question, and as quickly as you can, write the first thing that comes to your mind as soon as you ask the question. Many of the response you get will be obvious, like “eat less.” Duh. Many will not make any sense, like “green plants need water.” The important thing is to write everything thing down as soon as it pops into your brain. Once you get down past ten or twenty answers, you’ll start to get to the good stuff. You’ll want to keep writing until you get a few “aha” answers that you really “feel” are the right answers. It’s as simple as that. Of course, it’s up to you to carry out with the solution. Usually the ‘right’ answer has such a powerful impact that the knowledge alone will cause you to automatically follow through. Once you begin to use your inner intuitive voice as the guiding force in your life, you will, as Rumi predicted, be free.

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The Monkeys’ Discovery

Once upon a time there was a large group of circus monkeys. They had previously worked for a circus. Not really a circus, more like a traveling carnival. And the owner of the carnival wasn’t a very nice person. He was always treating the monkeys and the other employees rather unkindly. Because he had purchased the monkeys at a very young age from a monkey farm, they didn’t really realize how bad they had it. One thing about monkeys is they adapt very well to their environment. If they grow up in the snow, for example, they will get really good at building igloos, and not be aware that they may have cousins on another island that may be writing Shakespeare to disprove a popular theory of social randomness. But these monkeys didn’t live in the snow, nor did they know anything about Shakespeare or any other social theories. They did know, however, that their life in the traveling carnival wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. They kind of had a feeling.

Feelings are interesting. I was reading a book the other day that was talking about feelings. The book was saying that feelings are really the brains’ way of communicating with us in a simple format. Because they are so many millions of calculations going on inside our heads at all times, it would be impossible for our brains to make sense of it all. So the job of the unconscious mind, according to this book, is to sort through all the data, and compare it to what we’ve decided is what is important to us, and then present us with a feeling. Some call this feeling intuition, some call it a gut instinct, others ignore it altogether, and claim to be enlightened, rational thinking beings. I don’t know how logical you can be if you ignore over 99% of your brains extensively thought out calculations. Of course, in our society, claiming that you base your decisions on your feelings probably won’t get you very far.

Which is interesting in and of itself. If you really think about it, people have feelings, and then later come up with a rational, plausible reason. They explain those reasons to us, which we accept or reject based on our own feelings, which we immediately cover up with rational plausible logical reasons. It’s interesting that as advanced as humans are, we tend to let our logic get in the way sometimes. If you can just trust your feelings, you’ll be amazed how well you can communicate with others. Some argue that because the whole purpose for the evolution of the unconscious is for high-level communications with others on an emotional level, which is the true measure of our humanness. Your ability to communicate with others on congruent emotional level. When you can do this, you really are able to realize your potential. When you can just let go, and fully trust your unconscious, you will be amazed at how much the world opens up for you. Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe you won’t be amazed.

Many scientists have used this instinct to help them in their discoveries. Edison, Einstein, and Kekule among many others knew the true power of being able to tap your creative genius that lives in everybody. Logic can be helpful, but sometimes it just gets in the way.

After they’d wandered for a few days, the monkeys got another feeling. They saw a forest, or what they thought was a forest. They had been walking for a while, and then just out of nowhere, it appeared. And as it turns out, they forest had many other monkeys of the same kind living in it, so it was like a big homecoming for them. It feels good to finally come back to where you belong, where everything is familiar for the first time, isn’t it?

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