Vitamin We #13: Intuitive Living 101

How are you feeling and being these past weeks?

Summer is a season that brings family closer together - We hope you are enjoying time & building memories through traveling, welcoming friends in town, or simply enjoying the sunshine!

Or are you feeling cooked by the summer heatwave 🔥 like we do?

Well, when the mind is not functioning, time for our intuitions to take the driver’s seat 😎 yay or nay?

This week let’s explore the 101 of intuition - and besides a feature story from a creative as usual, I’ve also prepared highlights from 3 books for you that explore the topic :)

Happy intuiting!

We’ve explored the meaning of Intuition in a previous edition (VM#6) - where we’ve briefly touched on the wealth of intelligence we already have within our own nervous systems - our gut brains, heart brains, head brains, and the vague nerve as the pathways.

So today, let’s go a layer deeper into the underlying assumption of that wealth of intelligence - If every little thing is part of a bigger whole, then it implies everything in our inner cosmos is interconnected.

And since the outer cosmo mirrors our inner cosmos, then the many elements in the outer world, from our perspectives, are also interconnected to each other.

Say the butterfly effect - a small butterfly flapping its wings could, hypothetically, cause a typhoon in the other part of the world.

Or, like in the Back to the Future movie, we understand that changing one event in the past could have a dramatic chain effect on many people’s life trajectories across timelines!

World events that we see in the news affect us for sure, and the other way around is also true!

Do we choose to worry about the dystopian future and feel immobilized;

or do we choose to focus on seeing where in the world gives us HOPE?

Every tiny step we take today, even just a smile to a random stranger, or committing a 20-min me-time every day, could potentially change lives.

We are really NOT separated.

The more we see other humans and species as companions and neighbors whom we share this earth with, the more we’d feel connected with each other and with our Higher Self, which gives us strength and power collectively.

“ Hi there, my name is Flo, and I'm a media designer and artist from Bavaria, Germany. I've always been passionate about art and design (I got a lot of that from my parents, who both are artists in a way too), which led me to pursue an education in art school in Munich. During my time there, I was able to explore different mediums and develop my artistic skills. And got to know some of the best artists and humans I know.

After graduating, I completed an apprenticeship in media design, which gave me the practical experience I needed to excel in my field. I'm now the head of graphics at a well-known publishing house in Munich, where I work full-time during the day. It's a challenging job, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with other talented professionals and work in a creative environment. My colleagues here are already my friends.

Despite my busy schedule, I make time for my artistic pursuits outside of work. In the evenings and nights, I create art and illustrations, which allows me to express my creativity and explore new ideas. I'm constantly experimenting with different mediums and techniques, and I'm always looking for ways to push myself creatively. But my big love is drawing. In the past more on paper with pens; today very much digital. I love the possibilities that digital art has opened up for us.

While balancing work, art, and family (and all my other hobbies haha) can be challenging, I'm determined to make it work. I'm incredibly grateful for the support of my family and others, who have encouraged me to pursue my passions and achieve success in my career. I know that I wouldn't be where I am today without their support and encouragement.

Looking to the future, I'm excited to continue exploring new creative avenues and pushing myself to be the best artist and designer that I can be. Whether it's through my work at the publishing house or my personal art projects, I'm committed to making a positive impact on the art and design world. I am a creative. I always will be. ”

Can we trust our intuition, after all?

Some definitions -

Thin-Slicing: The ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviors based on very narrow slices of experiences.

Adaptive Unconscious: The fast cognition that our internal computers create snap judgments - which takes time for our conscious mind to catch up, and only until then can we articulate why we feel how we feel about something or someone.

In the book, there are several case studies that show us at times, particularly when it comes to an area of one’s expertise, our rapid cognitions can be a lot better and productive than long but futile detailed analysis of situations. Or in situations where information gathering is limited by time, like speed dating, with a simple intention of, "Do I want to see this person again?", our intuition can also serve us really well.

There are also limitations; Our unconscious attitudes, which are largely shaped by our prior experiences and environment, can cause prejudices without our conscious mind knowing - namely, the Warren Harding error - that we might let the first impression we have about someone's appearance drown out every other piece of info we managed to gather in that first instance.

Conclusion: When it comes to decision-making, less information is better, and striking a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking is key, especially when it comes to decision-making that involves more variables.

If you don’t have a journaling habit already:

Every morning, when you just get up, before you pick up your phone and let the world of information feeds your mind, choose to take a “shower for the brain” - get a journal and POUR OUT from your mind and write three full pages as if your pen writes on its own, and your only job is to show up on your pages.

No censorship at all. Just write - and don’t be surprised if words with denser emotions are popping up - this is EXACTLY what you need to move them out. If you have the book (which We highly recommend!), re-read P.10-18 on how to use morning pages to feed your “inner artist child”.

Commit to this for at least 30 days to rewire your brain so it feels safe to turn on the receptive mode of intuition.

Here are the keynotes I shared while we were running the Artist’s Way circle last Nov:

Why do this, and what are the benefits?

• Removing “blocks” and clearing the pathway so our consciousness can communicate with the creative forces at ease

• By giving a voice to our inner censor/critic and committing to a repeating, predictable daily somatic practice (pen-and-paper) that ultimately creates a sense of safety, our flight or fight part of the brain will receive it as a calm-down signal and stop worrying and whining.

• ONLY THEN the wise inner voice can emerge for us to hear, where we can truly meet with much less resistance and barriers!

• You’ll realize you are wiser than you thought.

• You’ll also realize that you have more truth and clarity than you assume - you just don’t want to admit what you know or feel.

• And so many more - if you are willing to stick to it!

If you have been practicing morning pages for more than a few months consecutively:

And you would love to take this work to the next level and enhance your communication with your intuition, you can start conversing with your inner voice with QUESTIONS, like writing letters to your inner voice. This is where Book #3 comes in handy.

When creating a dialogue with our intuition, some question types to avoid are:

1. Yes/No questions: If we want a real conversation to happen, we want more clues - so close-ended questions are not very productive.

2. “Why me” questions: These are traps to get us into the victim mentality, or worse, an ego-centric angle to see the world as if the earth would stop spinning because we've done something wrong 🤨

3. Questions about the future: Although many of our intuitive hits do give us prophetic hints if you attempt to use these writings as fortune telling, picking petals off flowers, or questions like “When will I win the lottery?”, these questions are not helpful because time is human-made and only exists in our current construct of consciousness. Instead, we can ask questions like, “What would it take/ What needs to happen for me to be ready to receive more XXX into my life?”

4. Questions about other people: Connecting with our intuition is about us, not anyone else. It’s about deepening our self-understanding and the unfolding of our souls within us. As we change, so will everyone and everything around us.

Productive Questions in 5 Categories:

Choose a salutation that works for you, and start your conversation with “Dear Voice/ Source/ God” etc.

Then start asking compassionate questions that start with 5W1H, with an intention to establish a connection with the truth of our stories, the truth of our souls, the truth of the situations, and the divine within. Forget about fact-finding, drawing conclusions, or making judgments.

Category 1: Soul questions that support becoming aware:

Questions make us conscious of what is truly happening. Examples:

• Where do I feel stuck? What isn’t moving?

• What am I feeling? What feeling lies behind that feeling? What are my feelings telling me?

• What have I been unwilling to see?

Category 2: Soul questions that support understanding and meaning:

Questions that help us understand the meaning behind what is happening. They usually don’t feel good - which is great for transformation!

• How have I prevented myself from looking at the truth?

• What will I see if I open my eyes and really look completely and honestly at my situation? What can I do to become strong enough to take a long hard look at where I am?

• Why have I not been willing to do that work before?

• How can I become conscious of this trigger so it doesn’t have dominion over me?

• Where am I? How did I get here? At what point did I take a turn in the road? Why did I take it?

Category 3: Soul questions that support soul exploration:

Unearthing deep patterns with questions like these:

• When something upsetting happens, do I stay present and aware and deal with it, or do I retreat into a mental “waiting room” until things calm down? How well is this waiting room strategy working for me?

• At my core, what is the thing I am most afraid of?

• How well does my life resemble me - the me I think I am or the me I want to be?

• When am I me? Am I ever maskless?

• What do I seek?

Category 4: Soul questions that support imaging and incubation:

When we start to feel the urge to create an external life that mirrors our inner lives, these are some supportive questions to start:

• What do I want? What do I really, really, really want?

• When do I feel powerful? What difference would it make in my life if I had some very real power?

• Do I really want all my problems solved? What parts of me really want that life, and what parts aren’t ready?

• What evidence do I have that I am protected and loved?

Category 5: Soul questions that support creating and manifesting:

These are some examples of questions that help us FOCUS on the practical, realistic steps that create the new reality in our lives:

• What is needed right now?

• Who and what can help me?

• How will I know when I’m expanding, moving forward, and making progress?

• How can I let go when I’m afraid to let go?

• What one thing do I need to stop doing or start doing today?

• How am I going to forgive myself?

These are some really great question prompts to start with, but the list is definitely not exhaustive! Play with these in your automatic writing/ morning pages and see what your intuition has been trying to tell you all along!