New Beginnings

The heavens are aligning in a particularly inspirational way this weekend, as we celebrate the spring equinox – marking the birth of a new astrological year – and Easter, traditionally a period of rebirth, at the same time. If that’s not a clue, I don’t know what is …

To get with the programme, make sure you carve out some time for yourself over the Easter break to consider how to invite the energy of a new direction into your life. It’s a time of regeneration – letting go of the old and making room for the new to take shape. That spaciousness comes from introspection and opening up to intuitive inklings of what might be ready to be expressed in your life.

If you’re a regular reader, you already know that stillness is the key when you’re looking for inner guidance. What you might not know is that the author of Practical Intuition, Laura Day, considers that there are four main personality responses to crisis that affect how you receive and interpret intuition. They reflect the fundamental ways in which you respond to difficulty – through anger, denial, depression or anxiety.

According to Day, each of those approaches carries within it a specific gift. Anger has passion, denial contains effectiveness, depression bears wisdom and anxiety incorporates awareness. Each one deals with things differently when life doesn’t go well and therefore needs a different type of preparation for opening up to the intuition that will guide them out of difficult circumstances.

As she says, “Each type has a different way of meditating. An Anger type needs to discharge some of their energy. Instead of sitting and chanting, what they need to do is maybe run a quarter mile or do a hundred jumping jacks.

“A Denial type needs to release some of the fear. Once the denial type sees what’s wrong and has the courage to do that, they can solve anything. What they need to do is something that makes them feel, whether it’s a song that makes them cry a little, seeing a friend that warms their heart or looking at an old photo album to get them back into their feeling self. That gives them the peace that they need.

“A Depression type is afraid of action because they’re already exhausted just by the idea of life. The first thing a Depression type needs to do to intuit clearly is to find support. They should make their environment supportive – get a comfortable chair, have a beverage – making them feel like they’re taken care of first and then their intuition will flow accurately.

“Anxiety types’ nemesis is confusion. Anxiety types get so much information all the time intuitively and can do absolutely nothing with it. All it does is make them anxious about things they’re never going to encounter. What they need to do is to break their intuitive inquiries down – make a list of questions and do each one step-by-step. They need to order their experience.”
You can find short, guided ‘audio experiences’ for each of these response types at http://www.welcometoyourcrisis.com/experiences.html. They’ll help you to relax and tap into your intuition in a way that’s best suited to your personality.

That should get you geared up for a little seasonal inspiration and intuition. Have a heavenly Easter break!

For the Coach Fabulous archives, go to www.coachfabulous.blogspot.com and for the I Am Fabulous archives, go to www.fabcentral.blogspot.com. Email me at coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material ©2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 10 Mar 08)

The Sixth Sense


Last week I'd intended to write about the importance of following your intuition, but suddenly it seemed more valuable to place it in the context of confidence first. That way it’s clear that developing a stronger intuition is a byproduct of learning to attune to your self and your own wellbeing. Like any kind of meditative process, if you try to pursue it too aggressively, it becomes elusive – yet it’s a natural ability we all share.

Gavin de Becker, Hollywood security consultant and author of one of my favourite books, The Gift of Fear, talks about intuition as a form of survival instinct – one that we all need to value in times of increasing conflict and violence. As he says, “Perhaps the greatest false truth is that some people are not intuitive, as if this key survival element was left out of them”. Noting how intuitive impulses return us to our true self, De Becker adds “Intuition connects us to the natural world and to our nature. Freed from the bonds of judgement, married only to perception, it carries us to predictions we will later marvel at.”

The celebrated medium, John Holland, wrote in 101 Ways To Jump-Start Your Intuition, “We’re all equipped with a complex and highly-tuned inner guidance system, which we can access and use any time we wish. Receiving intuitive information is all about energy, and people, places and objects are all comprised of it. Since you too are energy, you can receive and read information via your intuitive senses. So trust …and give yourself permission to explore, play and develop your intuitive ability so that you can see yourself – and the world – in a way you never thought possible!”

Now you know you have the equipment, all you need do is work out how you’re wired. TV and movie portrayals of intuitives and psychics would have us believe that intuition comes in dramatic and graphic visions, but for most of us it’s more like a still, small voice than a technicolour extravaganza. We all perceive intuitive information via our own strongest perceptions – some of us are more adept at visualising, others at feeling, some at hearing and others at simply knowing. If you’re naturally clairvoyant, you will tend to get your intuitions via imagery, literally seeing something in your mind’s eye. If clairsentience is your skill, you’ll tend to feel things about people or events, both emotionally and physically. With the predisposition for clairaudience, you can receive intuition by hearing it and if you’re claircognisant, you’ll simply just know things without having any logical reason why you do.

We’ll all usually have a particular type of intuitive perception that’s stronger, but will get flashes of the other types as well. What’s important is that you trust that how you receive the information is fine and don't struggle to control how it comes to you. That will lead you to discount a lot of important information if you don’t respect the package it comes in. Sometimes, for example, guidance may come as the most fleeting of thoughts, with none of the bells and whistles of a technicolour vision, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. Or you might just get a really strong hunch about a person or an issue, for no logical reason. That’s where trust and discernment come in – when you know yourself and your abilities, you can take the leap of faith and follow the clues being made available to you.

Your inner guidance system is like a whisper from your soul – it’s always leading you on towards greater fulfilment, as well as being a very effective form of self-protection. It works most effectively when you give it some space to do its job. That means calming down on the busy-ness and making sure that you’re taking good care of yourself – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

On the physical level, you’ll already know that if you’re working on something and can’t seem to solve a problem, even a short walk around the block can give you enough space to find some more inspiration. Or you'll have found how restorative it can be to get some peace of mind by doing some exercise or getting out in nature. Getting into your body gets you out of your head, and over-thinking is one of the biggest blocks to intuition.

At an emotional level, it’s almost impossible to hear your intuition if you’re all stirred up – or to make good choices from the information you receive, as you’re more likely to mistake wishful thinking for intuitive guidance. Having some kind of regular meditative practice is an excellent way of learning detachment from your emotions, so that you become less reactive to the outside world and more sensitive to your own inner perceptions.

When it comes to the mental level, worrying is the absolute enemy of intuition, swiftly followed by second-guessing the perceptions we receive. Again, meditation is hugely useful in learning to calm the mind and separate ourselves from the myriad thoughts that rattle around in our heads each day. Mantras and affirmations can be very helpful in taming an unquiet mind, by giving it something positive to focus upon. Making the decision to act on the intuitive guidance you receive, without second guessing it, is an important step in developing your intuitive prowess.

Finally, any kind of spiritual practice – prayer, meditation, gratitude, service – will bear its own fruits on an intuitive level. The more power you give to your inner world, the more clearly you’ll perceive intuitive guidance. The sensitivities you develop in spiritual practice will open you up to a whole new world of perception, whether or not this is a direct intention.

To give you an idea of how intuitive guidance can work, I’m reminded of a friend’s recent experience of finding a new school for her son, mid-term. She lives in Ibiza, where there’s not a tremendous amount of choice and the places are hotly-contested, so although she wasn’t happy with his current school, she wasn’t optimistic about finding anywhere else. A couple of weeks ago, with the issue very strongly on her mind, she was driving through town with a friend when they passed one of the local schools. She suddenly had the impulse to get out at the lights and go to talk to the head teacher. They were very helpful and – although there were no places available there – they suggested trying a sister school, where there just happened to be a single place left because someone had just dropped out. Her son started at the school the very next day.

What’s illuminating about this story is that my friend not only listened to her intuition, but she acted on it. How many times have you had an impulse, but second-guessed it because it didn’t seem logical? This week, let’s work on the assumption that you’re receiving intuitive information all the time, but that it’s a radio station you don’t usually bother to tune into – now you’re going to turn the dial and start paying attention.

As an experiment, try sitting peacefully in the morning or late evening – the times when your mind is most likely to be naturally quiet – and asking for guidance. Ask what you need to know about people, work, events, opportunities – whatever takes your fancy and then expect an answer. Sit patiently until you get one and pay attention to how you receive it – is it a feeling, a knowing, a flash of a vision or something you seem to hear? As you become more practised in knowing what your own natural intuitive strength is, you can start asking questions on the run, learning to stop for a few moments during the day to pay attention to what’s coming through for you. Make a note of what you’re receiving, so that you can look back later and see how your hit-rate’s doing. The more you can see the evidence that your guidance is on the money, the more likely you will be to trust it in the future.

Bottom line, though, the best advice I can give you is to remember to act on what you get. That’s what will prove to you once and for all that your intuitive guidance system is all hooked up and ready to go, whenever you want to call upon it. All you need to do is tune in and pay attention!

Click through to the Coach Fabulous advice column by using the link inthe Favourite Sites section on the right or by going to http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. For alert emails on new postings, email subscribe@iamfabulous.co.uk. To contact me, email coachfabulous@iamfabulous.co.uk. All material © 2008 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 28 Jan 08)

78 Degrees Of Wisdom

A weekend in the West Country is always a good way to blow off a few cobwebs, but this weekend held an added bonus – learning a new, empowering skill for working with your intuition. That’s probably not most people’s first thought about the tarot, but then they obviously haven’t met Kate Tomas. She’s a talented crystal healer who also happens to be a whizz with the tarot deck and has a gift for teaching others to access their own inner wisdom with the cards. In only two days, something that had been pretty much impenetrable to me suddenly made complete sense and I had a total blast learning it. That, as they say, is a result!

Kate uses the Mythic Tarot, which uses images from the Greek myths to tell the archetypal stories that the tarot represents. All human experience is depicted in the cards and the interpretations are psychological, not fatalistic. To get clarity on your own inner guidance and the circumstances surrounding you, this method of reading is a tool par excellence. You don’t have to have any grounding in myth to use this deck, as the illustrations are very clear, light and accessible – unlike most traditional tarot decks.

What surprised me most was how much fun it was to learn. OK, there is a lot to pack into your head in a short space of time, but the images speak to a deeper part of yourself so it is quite a simple process to intuit the meaning of a card even if you’ve never clapped eyes on it before. What I particularly like is that this is a kind of fast-track way to turn up the volume on your intuition.

The voice of inner guidance speaks in very soft tones, so it is often difficult to distinguish between what is intuition and what is simply a passing thought. Sometimes it comes with more intensity, but generally it is a quiet inner prompting, rather than a booming flash of insight. The beauty of working with a pictorial deck of tarot cards is that you can not only begin to make clearer sense of the insights you’re getting, but that you can also find clues as to how to work with them. As the mythologist, Joseph Campbell, has said ““It is the function of art to carry us beyond speech to experience.” The images allow us to access feelings that words cannot fully express.

The watchword for intuition is subtlety. It won’t shout at you, so you have to develop your sensitivity. To access strong inner wisdom, you need to become like the fairytale Princess and the Pea – able to detect even the most minor and subtle of feelings. That comes with stillness, self-awareness and practice. Equally you can use a tool like the tarot, but less for divination than self-knowledge. Real empowerment comes not from knowing what is coming, but from knowing how to deal with it.

If you want to develop your own intuition, start by making the very real assumption that you are always receiving information intuitively – every time you have a gut reaction to a person, a place or a circumstance, that is your own inner knowing trying to get your attention. How many times have you continued to do something you had a bad feeling about, which of course ended badly? Or how often have you instinctively felt something was right and followed your hunch to a positive conclusion? You’re already doing this naturally, so now it’s just about offering nature a little help.

Pay attention this week to the coincidences that show up in your life, noticing patterns wherever they occur. Sometimes you’ll find that a particular symbol keeps cropping up or that you keep hearing different people tell the same kind of story about what’s happening in their lives. Then notice how that might be relevant to you and your life. Guidance can come in the most bizarre of ways – through things people tell you, something you randomly see in a book or hear on television or radio and occasionally things just fall into your lap. A friend of mine recently had a strong intuition to call me, so she used the number programmed into her phone, but somehow got connected with a television producer she’d lost touch with, who only that day had been discussing using her on a future programme. That’s a little spooky, but a good illustration of how ignoring your intuition could cost you opportunities.

One great daily practice is to write a few notes in a guidance journal each morning. Get quiet, do some slow, deep breaths and feel yourself connecting with your inner wisdom, the part of you that knows what is best for you and holds all the information that you need. Ask it what you need to know for today and write down everything that pops into your head. Do not censor it and above all do not judge it. You may get images or symbols and perhaps a phrase or two, or even just a strong sense that you need to pursue something.

You’ll feel like you’re making it up, but that doesn’t matter at all. Just persevere and you’ll strengthen your ability to distinguish between random thoughts and inspiration. At the end of the week, read the notes and see how many of the images or impulses were significant or related to things that occurred during the week. Avoid the temptation to re-read the material any earlier, as you will only discourage yourself if nothing is making too much sense straight away. Like any other mental muscle, intuition takes practice to keep it in tune, so don’t give up at the first hurdle.

Of course, you could always hot-foot it down to Glastonbury and do a tarot course with Kate to get your intuition fired up and ready to rumble. Get your skates on, though, as she does have a waiting list for both her crystal healing and tarot courses. Also, as she’s due to be featured in the October issue of Vogue, I’d suggest signing up for it sooner rather than later if you want to beat the Christmas rush. You can contact her via www.katetomashealing.com.

Coach Fabulous is updated every Thursday at http://coachfabulous.blogspot.com. You can also use the link in the Favourite Sites section on the right. For alert emails on new postings, send a blank email to IAmFabulousCo@aol.com with 'Subscribe' in the title field. All material © 2006 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 13 Jun 06)