Top Six Basic Intuition Questions

As an intuition teacher and professional intuitive, I am asked a lot of questions about intuition. Here are the top six basic questions on intuition and their answers.

What is intuition?

Intuition is a form of deep perceiving, of tuning into information that is not accessible to regular consciousness. Intuition is also called “gut feeling,” or “instinct” or “just knowing.” It may be a quick assessment like Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book Blink, or it may be a deeper intuition like real-life Medium Allison Dubois, or a more trained intuition such as a medical intuitive, a detective, or a successful entrepreneur. Since The Secret, there has been much talk about manifestation principles, about putting our messages out to the universe. Intuition is about receiving messages back from the universe.

How can I know for sure if I have intuition?

When people say, “I don’t have any intuition,” what they really mean is, “I don’t have what I recognize to be intuition.” There are many different types of intuition. There is everyday intuition, such as the “phone psychic” who knows who it is before answering, and the “parking space diviner,” who can always find that perfect spot. Then there’s profound intuition, which people who assist police on a murder case possess. Everyone has some intuition or you wouldn’t survive everyday circumstances such as crossing a busy street, shopping for a used car or even going out on a date.

Can I develop my intuition? And if so, how long does it take to perfect my intuition?

Yes! You can develop your intuition. Intuition training is a lifelong journey. The more you use your intuition the stronger it gets – like a muscle. Also, the more you pay attention to your intuition, the more discerning you’ll become. Many people initially think they’re confusing intuition with other sensations, such as hunger, pain, fear, restlessness, their own feelings, etc. With practice, you will know when an experience is intuitive and when it’s not.

What’s the difference between being psychic and being intuitive?

Psychics represent the extreme cultivation of intuition. Although most people will not choose to develop their instincts to this level or purpose, intuition training is beneficial for everyone. Clairvoyance, or the ability to psychically see, is the most developed form of a mild visual intuition, such as seeing in your mind’s eye someone’s response to an intended gift. You can see their face light up when they receive the unusual gift you are considering buying. Or, when someone who gets a hunch that the antique wall sconce they have been looking for is around the corner, even though they don’t know whether or not there is a shop around the corner. They just feel a physical tug in that direction. That would be a mild version of a clairsentience – the ability to psychically sense in a kinesthetic way.

Sometimes a person who survived a dangerous situation will report that on the surface the situation did not appear to be dangerous, but a voice inside their head told them to be careful or run away. These people don’t usually hear voices, but in that instance it saved their life. That is an example of situation-induced clairaudience, or the ability to hear psychically. So you can see that psychic is the same as everyday intuition, just more developed.

How can I tell my intuition apart from my agenda? How do I know when I am perceiving something or when I just think something because I want it to be that way?

This may be the most important and tricky question about intuition. With practice you can learn to recognize the energy of desire, longing or agenda, and how to tell it apart from the energy of intuition. Let’s say that someone asks intuitively if they will get the promotion at work. They really want it. Their desire has a grasping, urgent, maybe even panicky or pushy feeling to it. Intuition, by contrast, feels like a neutral, calm, almost cool energy. Another aspect of distinguishing our agenda from intuition is that we will understand the vision that comes from our own agenda, but we may not understand right away the intuitive information. For example, if the person really wants the promotion, their agenda is making that information very clear and easy to recognize: “I will get the promotion.”

By contrast, intuition may give very different information that although more accurate and objective than personal agenda, may not be easily understood, for example: “Will I get the job? Yes and no. I see another person getting the job but also am being told that I will get it. How is that possible?” With further training, you become better at interpreting the intuitive data to make sense of it. “Bob will be offered the job first but he will turn it down. Then I will be offered the job. Oh, that makes sense now.” You can see that our personal agenda would never throw us a plot twist like that. Ego always wants what it wants right now, without any obstacles. Although, sometimes we will actually get what we want and our intuition will simply be a confirmation of that.

Open Your Mind

Lastly, people’s endless curiosity about intuition is an implied question: What can it do for me? What are intuition’s benefits? Everyone can benefit from learning to develop and fine-tune their intuition: stockbrokers, engineers, teachers, lawyers, filmmakers, stay-at-home-parents, academics, healers, and more. Benefits include experiencing deeper relationships with loved ones, manifesting unseen opportunities in life, career and love, and the general sense of operating from a state of flow. Many people also report how effective intuition is at helping them with daily situations and how natural it feels, like regaining a lost talent.