How often have you just had a ‘hunch’ about something and found yourself to have been right? It may have been something as small as knowing who is calling before you answer the phone (and no I’m not talking about caller ID!) or as big as taking a turn somewhere and avoiding a fatal accident or getting on the ‘wrong’ train and meeting the love of your life.

For many of us, intuition is something we feel occasionally graces us with its gift, however we don’t really see it as part of our everyday life, definitely not as a sixth sense, always present.

The truth is, with todays rushed lifestyles, we don’t allow much space for our intuition to come through. When we allow quiet time in our day, the chances of us being alert to our own intuitive messages are so much greater.

I think of intuition sort of like a map, it’s always available, you just need to know how to read it and seeing as you are the cartographer of your own particular intuition map, you can decide how the signals work for you. In my own case, I recently had a few instances where I was about to do something when I felt a heavyness on my chest and my throat became tight, it was a feeling of a few seconds but it was enough to make me pause in what I was doing and all three times, it helped me to avoid potentially upsetting, disastrous or dangerous situations.

I have also had times when I would be daydreaming during a walk or just before going to sleep and something would come up, a fleeting thought, not really as strong sensation at all, yet a few days later I would find myself in a situation where that thought had important relevance. I think of these times as ‘heads up’ from my intuitive self.

How do we access our intuitive self?

Well, as always, everyone is different and I bet that if you spent some time thinking about it you would realise that you have had a few ‘moments’ yourself. Think about when those moments happened and then try to remember what you were doing at the time which allowed you to be open to that information. For example, you may have been reading a book or listening to music, most likely, you were in a space where you weren’t TRYING to access anything and quite probably, you were relaxed. Of course there are times when our intuition steps in to save us from dangerous situations but those are not the times I am referring to right now.

When we allow ourselves times of silence and solitude, it opens up the channels of communication to our inner voice or intuition. We create a space for knowledge to become known to us, knowledge which, quite possibly, has been lying dormant in our psyche and just needed us to pay attention. Meditation, yoga, prayer and visualization time are all ways of allowing this space. When we consciously decide to be still and ‘listen’ to the self, we are giving our Selves permission to speak, we are essentially saying: I am listening, please tell me what I need to know.

Doing this not only helps us to access our intuition more easily, it can also prevent us from finding ourselves in uncomfortable situations in our daily lives, when we are listening to our inner voice, we are much more likely to realise when we are too tired and should not drive or when we are feeling strange in our bodies and need a few days off to avoid a cold. We can hear the message which says, ‘follow the yellow brick road’ and we can find our dreams.

Intuition and business.

Some of the great business minds of our time, have followed their own inner knowing against all odds and today have some of the most successful businesses on the planet. Richard Branson started his empire with 4 pounds, he didn’t have  a handy manual with step by-step-instructions all the way, sometimes he had to rely on his ‘hunches’. The late Anita Roddick (founder of The Body Shop) started her business by doing door-to-door sales, she had no way of knowing it would become a world wide chain, somewhere she just had to trust that she was on the right track and as we know now, her intuition was spot on.

However you choose to access your inner voice, try to do it every day, give yourself the gift of being a good listener and I hope that you will be as pleasantly rewarded as I am, every day.