5 Tips for Connecting to Your Intuition

Some ideas to awaken your sixth sense.

1. Pay attention to “weak signals”
Intuition passes through fine and fleeting manifestations that it is important to learn to spot. So, when out-of-frame thoughts cross your mind, unrelated to the present situation or usual inner ruminations, train yourself to become aware of them. Likewise, when visual suggestions pop up on your mental screen while you're busy doing something else, don't let them slip away. Like in the cinema, freeze the images. Also be connected to your body by noting the feelings that drive it. Identify exactly what specific sensations occur, where in your body and on what occasion. In general, consider all these internal signals as a potential source of intuitive information about yourself, your loved ones, your environment, and not systematically as useless parasites. Note their presence and welcome them without denigrating them or trying at all costs to explain or analyze them.

2. Play with your sixth sense
Like a muscle that gets exercised, our sixth sense becomes more refined with experience. Have fun asking for it: during an evening, guess the profession of those you are talking to, exercise your empathy by trying to feel what the other person is experiencing, make “off the cuff” predictions about an event, try to know who calls you or sends you a text message... And, why not, play mentalist by sending information through thought to a loved one, and watch for the possible result, who knows! Accept to be wrong, with kindness, intuition being, like error, human. Allow yourself to give in to your seemingly irrational impulses from time to time. Do you suddenly want to change your route to work? Do it. A movement encourages you to open the door of a certain place? Go for it. Go for “freewheeling” walks, letting yourself be guided solely by your feelings. Feel free to let what comes spontaneously to you come.

3. Stop hyperconnection
Invasive, screens bombard us with superfluous or anxiety-provoking data. They also muzzle our intuition, which feeds on inner availability. Take control of your digital consumption by establishing disconnection periods: when you wake up, set a delay before connecting, on the email side, take a break at the weekend, put your phone in airplane mode in the evening. Limit your alerts and notifications, are they really all necessary? Replace evenings surfing the Internet or binge-watching series with real-life activities: concerts, restaurants, reading, etc. In general, be more present to your loved ones. Forget your Smartphone when you play with your child or have lunch with a friend. Don't forget: human-to-human communication is the channel through which we capture the most information – particularly subtle information – about our environment.

4. Invite mindfulness
into your daily life Being connected to your intuition requires fully investing your inner space in a form of mental appeasement and sensory attention to “what is”. This experience, which spiritual traditions call “the present moment”, is acquired through mindfulness methods such as meditation , yoga or qi gong. They have in common that they reconnect us with slowness, by connecting body and mind. Apart from this learning, it is possible to cultivate small moments of mindfulness on a daily basis. The goal is to put attention where we usually don't put it. Stop, even if just for a few moments, to connect with your senses. At the table, take the time to truly taste and smell the flavors. In the shower, feel the water on your skin, the temperature, the roughness of the towel. Or, in transport or at work, focus on your breathing, imagining and feeling its precise path through your body.

5. Know yourself
The path of intuition is only traced serenely in an authentic and peaceful relationship with oneself. This requires learning to know yourself well, daring to address your gray areas (fears, flaws, wounds, etc.) while cultivating a lucid and distanced look at them. Negative beliefs such as "I'm worthless", "I won't make it", "I'm not loved" in particular weaken self-confidence and hinder the development of true intuition. They can lead us down the path of illusions, such as projection, that is to say when we place our own desires, anxieties, expectations on others or a situation, in the name of the sixth sense. We can also wrongly call intuition an impression linked to a stereotype, such as the famous “dirty offense”. It is essential, when an important intuition presents itself to us, to always pass it through the sieve of discernment.