How much does intuition affect our decisions?
Unsplash Content Pixie @contentpixie
Back in the early 1970s in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when I was in eighth grade, my parents gave me a choice of where I wanted to go to high school. As with many teenager/adult negotiations, there were unspoken caveats. In my case, the school had to be Catholic with an expectation of being within a reasonable distance from home.
As the eldest of six daughters and the first to go to high school, there were no older siblings to rely on. My sisters would most likely follow in my footsteps, although I don’t remember feeling pressure or being lobbied by any of them.
During the process, my father and mother taught me lifelong skills I didn’t realize at the time.
In a rare one-on-one moment, Dad invited me into his den to show me how to build a decision matrix. He sat in a captain’s chair at his built-in desk. Once seated next to him on the other captain’s chair, he pulled out an estimator’s pad of paper. His pen mapped out a matrix: school and categories with good and bad columns to add my notes and ratings. He handed me the sample and glanced at the open door. My cue to figure out the rest by myself.
Upstairs in my bedroom, probably listening to the AM/FM radio Santa Claus gave to me years before, I sat at my small desk staring at Dad’s template. As a teenager I preferred my pad of paper showcasing three turtles decorating the top of each page.
Unlike Dad’s analytical process, Mom’s coaching was anything but methodical. Mom and I stood around the kitchen island after my sisters were all in bed. Mom asked a single question I would often use for myself and future daughters when we couldn’t decide between multiple options.
“Which will you regret not picking more?
We make decisions every day. What to eat for breakfast? What to wear? How to get to work or school? Who are we going to interact with today? With all these decisions, do we use analytical thought or intuition or both?
What is intuition? How can we access it? Does listening to our intuition help us make better decisions?
Unsplash Edz Norton @edznorton
what is intuition?
According to Dr. Thomas Verny, “Intuition is the ability to understand something instinctively, without any need for conscious reasoning or an explanation. The use of intuition is sometimes referred to as responding to a ‘gut feeling’ or ‘trusting your gut.’”
To me, there’s movement in intuition. A ripple in the negative space around you. Intuition feels more like a companion, a partner. Not a stranger popping in to drop off a message. More something that is always there, but I don’t access or notice I’m accessing it. Not unlike the stars above us that we don’t see during the day, but know they are there all the time.
What’s the difference between intuition and inspiration? According to Rick Rubin in The Creative Act: A Way of Being, the word inspiration comes from Latin — inspirer, meaning to breathe in or blow into. Through this absence, you are inviting energy in.
When I write poetry - picking the next word or phrase, sometimes feels like waiting for them to percolate into my consciousness. For me, there’s a bit of a call and return game; a partnership in play.
Unsplash Rohan Makhecha @rohanmakhecha
how can we access intuition?
During this month’s thought echoes podcast, I interviewed Roxanne Colyer, an artist and intuitive. We chat about her creative process and the impact of her work on others. I asked Roxanne to describe the interaction she has with her thoughts.
“Thought as intention, design or purpose feeds right into an artist’s philosophy. With anticipation or expectations, they all have a place in the creative process. If you define thought as intuition, this is a very active point for me.”
As someone certified in intuitive and bioenergy healing, Roxanne describes a piece she created during COVID and how the painting captured the cultural energy of the time in a way unique to other work she’d done. If you’re curious to learn more, give her interview a listen.
According to Dr. Chelom Leavitt, being in the present moment by practicing mindfulness, has a symbiotic relationship with intuition. When we are mindful, we read more cues of other people. In relationships being able to pick up on each other’s signals is necessary to nurture our relationships. She sites research where mindfulness in couples helps regulate emotions. They may use intuition that helps maintain connection and avoid conflict.
Each of us can tap into our intuition by practicing meditation and keeping a regular journaling practice. As Dr. Dianna Raab explains, if you want to gain more insight on a situation, write about it. Pay attention to what emerges and jot down what comes to you. The monthly thought echoes writing group uses a technique called a priori writing as a way to tap into your subconscious by conning in sideways. Feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to learn more.
Unsplash George Bakos @georgebakos
does listening to our intuition help us make better decisions?
When I was trying to decide if it was time to retire from corporate a decade ago, there were many things in play. Not the least of which was watching the next corporate merger and acquisition tsunami heading our way. Plus, I no longer felt compelled to participate within a corporation that seemed more into profits than changing an industry like back in the 1980s when computers and video were going to change the world as we knew it.
At the time, I was working on a piece of fiction outside my day job and woke up from a dream in the middle of the night. As I gained my bearings, a scene was playing in my head that had nothing to do with work … exactly.
I observed a screaming match over a giant mahogany boardroom table. My agitated characters yelling at each other. Some pounding on the table as I stormed into the room.
“You’re making too much noise, I can’t get any sleep!”
Apparently my attempt to queue up my subconscious to magically process my choice of whether to retire or not seemed too controversial to happen quietly. I had hoped to calmly wake up to “the answer” while drinking coffee the next morning.
***
Forty years after my first encounter with a fork-in-the-road choice, my decision to retire leveraged the life skills Mom and Dad initially taught me. An intuitive QED because all my brain cycles were busy trying to decide what to pick and Mom’s question was always a surprise coming at me sideways.
“Which will you regret not picking more?
Every time I asked this question, I’d have a gut response. With whether to retire early or not, I did too.
Psychologist Gordon Pennycook at Cornell University, offers this advice, “Our reflective deliberation scaffolds off our intuition, we tend to use them in tandem.”
Each of us makes decisions differently. Some rely more on intuition, others more on analysis, but realistically we probably all use a bit of both. Overtime, as we age, our intuition draws from a deeper repository of experience that our body and memories hold.
Invite intuition with analytical thinking to dance together when making your next important decision. In the end whether you trust your gut as the final answer or not, listen to what she has to share with you.
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