How to hone your gut feelings

        Learning how to hone your gut feelings to the level of reliably using them to guide your decision-making process just might be the best thing I could ever recommend that you do.  In my eyes, there is no skill with greater practical application.  Not only will it allow you to assess the truth and usefulness of any external advice, but it will also enable you to energetically see around corners, detect future pitfalls before they arrive, and steer the ship of your life along the smoothest possible course.  

         Honing your gut feelings will allow you to create the best possible life with the least amount of suffering.  If that sales pitch doesn't do it for you, I don't know what to tell you, because that's all I got.  Now, let's get down to brass tacks and see how to develop this truly priceless tool and add it to your toolkit.  

What does a gut feeling feel like to you?

         All human beings are unique, everyone is wonderfully different and blessed with a specialness that cannot be replicated.  As such, no one can tell you exactly what it will feel like for you to have a gut feeling that is an indicator of an intuitive awareness.  For me, I feel a persistent, strong sensation that is generally lower and deeper than when I experience fear in the pit of my stomach.  My intuitive gut feelings feel a little softer and calmer than fear, less hectic, less pulsating with nervous energy.

         Starting out, I could barely sense or feel anything at all.  There seems to be a process of shaking off the rust when developing this intuitive sense.  The signal can start off very weak or fuzzy and almost seem imperceptible.  As you focus more attention and awareness on your gut feelings, the signal will begin to strengthen and clarify.  It's sort of like developing your palate as a wine connoisseur or developing your ear as a musician.  When you focus on anything consistently over time, your brain devotes more neural networks to mapping the intricacies of the task at hand.

         Try spending 10 minutes a day tuning into your gut feelings.  I promise you that practicing this skill will enhance your capability to utilize your intuitive compass to full effect.  And then the fun really begins, as there are no limits to what you can tune into, no limits to what you can sense.

Practice with small things first

         As you develop and begin to finely tune your gut intuitions, I recommend starting out small in your practice regimen.  Perhaps when you are choosing the next show to watch, take a few moments and tune into a few different options you are considering.  What you are essentially doing is projecting yourself into the future to see how you will feel if you choose option A, verse option B, verse option C.  You're creating an energetic link between you and a potential future and sensing if the future you likes this outcome.

         You could also try it when selecting the next book to read or recipe to make.  It's good to start small as a beginner developing your confidence in your intuitive instincts.  Maybe stay away from practicing on the big, important life decisions like if you should quit your job and move to a new city.  Give yourself a chance to fail without significant consequences while you learn.  Eventually, you may find that you tune in, access, and trust your intuition to guide even life's most important decisions. 

Map out your interfering triggers  

         Being human, I can pretty much guarantee you're going to have at least a few triggers that will disrupt your intuitive process.  For me, when I get scared enough about a situation, it tends to short circuit my intuitive awareness.  All of a sudden, the reliability of the information being conveyed by my gut takes a nosedive and I'm left feeling confused and uncertain.

         For you, it might be a different intense emotion that has a powerful interfering effect.  The way to discover your interfering triggers is to practice your intuition during intense emotional states.  This will help you unveil your particular vulnerabilities when it comes to maintaining accurate intuitive insights.  It may take some time, but eventually you'll discover which emotions sabotage your ability to receive accurate intuitive information.  My recommendation from personal experience is to not push through and blindly trust your intuition during these triggering times, but to wait until you've calmed down and consult your intuition again from your baseline emotional state.

         I'm not going to lie, this can be particularly frustrating.  I've discovered that in addition to fear, another one of my interfering triggers is anger.  When I stumble into a heated argument with my wife, I would very much like my intuition to guide me quickly towards resolution - alas, this never seems to work, the anger is like a fog that descends creating temporary intuitive blindness.  Once cooler heads have prevailed, all of a sudden I'm able to intuit accurately again, it's like a switch flips and I'm back.  So my advice to you is find your interfering triggers, make note of them, and remember to be careful trusting your intuitive insights while in one of these intense emotional states. 

Build your evidence

         The human mind benefits from stacking experiences that provide evidence for the feasibility of intuition as a practical tool.  The only way to build such a stack yourself is to lay one brick at a time.  Each positive experience you have utilizing your own intuition will help your mind believe in its merits.  The more experiences you can stack, the easier it will be to rely on your intuitive instincts to guide the larger, more important life decisions.  

         When I started out with zero experience and a skeptical mindset, it felt like I was looking up the side of a mountain, figuring out how I was supposed to climb it.  At the beginning, you may be filled with doubt.  This is ok.  You may laugh at yourself, feeling stupid at actually attempting to engage with such a bunch of malarkey.  I've felt this way myself too many times to count.  

         The key is to collect enough evidence where your mind can no longer easily deny the value and veracity of gut feelings.  This is a process, so try to be patient.  Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.  Your confidence and competence in demonstrating intuitive acumen will come with practice.  

Strengthen your faith

         Anytime we attempt to do something we haven't before, there is a level of faith required that it is possible and doable for us to achieve this new goal.  We have to believe in possibility, believe in our own capabilities, and dive in and try.  Developing your gut feelings and learning to interpret them is no different.  I believe in you one hundred thousand percent.  I know you can do this.  I started out as a beginner too, feeling doubtful and uncertain.  

         I once heard someone say that building faith is like going to the gym and building muscle.  If you work at it every day, your faith muscles will grow.  Eventually, they will become so strong that you will feel like anything is possible.  The universe gives us anything we ask for, if we believe it will happen.  Cultivating faith is building that inner certainty that before we have even finished asking, the universe has already answered.  

         I would like to congratulate you for taking the time to invest in developing a skill that will improve your life so much.  My life has entirely transformed since I started incorporating intuitive gut feelings into my decision-making process. I've saved myself a boatload of time not going down paths that didn't align with my greatest joy and most expansive freedom.  My logical mind thought it might be a good idea to head down some of these paths, but I could intuitively sense that it just wouldn't work out as I had hoped.  I am so grateful to be able to work with this gift in my daily life and spread the word of what's possible for all human beings.