Harnessing your intuitive insight

Featuring insights from teacher, writer and guide on all-things intuition and energy, Lauren Aletta from Inner Hue.

When you are able to tune into your intuition in a real way, it can provide valuable insight and guidance to help pave your way forward. Being able to listen to intuitive messages helps to build deeper levels of self-trust, self-belief and courage; which subsequently provides you with confidence and inspires courageous aligned action.

There are, however, some things you need to be aware of when developing your intuition.

“For me, it’s been exciting to see more and more people grow interested in understanding and developing their intuition and inner connection,” says Lauren.

“However, I feel like there’s the potential for people to want to learn how to understand their intuitive and psychic nature to use it as a commodity in an attempt to control situations and circumstances in their life or as a means to get what they think they want. And intuition doesn’t really work that way because it’s so interwoven with other powerful and dynamic frameworks such as your soul’s unique make up and the programmed beliefs and stories you hold which can often stem from trauma. I know many of you would like for me to give you a ‘5 ways to develop your intuition’ but if I were to do that (which I once did) I wouldn’t be doing my job and I’d just be perpetuating harm and disconnection.”

So today, we’re not here to tell you that there is a simple 5-step solution to help you connect to your intuitive insights. We’re going to start with the basics.

What is intuition?

One thing we know to be true, as beautifully put by Lauren, is that intuition is everyone’s birth right.

“Intuition is your ability to perceive and interpret information via the feedback system of your body and energy field. Our intuition communicates information via our senses —so through feeling, sensation and knowing, or through inner sight and flash insight or by hearing clear words and repeated guidance. If you’re human, you’re intuitive. Full stop.”

There is no doubt that some people may be naturally more developed and stronger in their intuitive abilities than others, and this can come down to having had more practise, perhaps in this lifetime or over many lifetimes, or from having received encouragement and support to listen and pay attention to what messages are being sent within them. But it’s important to remember that whatever stage you are at in developing your intuition, it’s okay. Begin by knowing that everyone is instinctively intuitive because we’re designed that way.

Challenges to Accessing and Understanding Intuition

Beginning with the foundational perspective that everyone is inherently intuitive, it’s also really important to understand what can impact and prevents us from picking up our inner directives and intuitive whispers. Lauren has listed for us two of the most common prohibitors that really disconnect us from our intuition.

Facing Fear

Although it may seem obvious, fear distorts how we think and react, and so when we’re afraid of what our intuition may be trying to tell us, we instinctively try to block out the insight we are receiving and the associated negative emotions.

Lauren explains, “Now, I’m not talking about seeing ghosts or knowing people’s thoughts. I’m talking about our intuition informing us that we’re in the wrong relationship. Or that our body is sick. Or that we’ve been travelling down an unfulfilling career path which our identity and ego is deeply constructed around despite always having the subtle underlying knowing we’re not where we’re meant to be. Once we know and acknowledge things like this, we cannot un-know them which inevitably means at some point we have to do something about what it is we now know. And that can be messy, disruptive, scary and takes us into the unknown.”

And we can all agree the unknown is a scary place – or so we have been taught. But what we forget is that when we embrace our intuition, rather than running from it, it can make us feel alive and energised. “It puts us in the position of being powerful, conscious creators!” says Lauren.

“If we block our intuition we block the information it’s trying to communicate and so we can carry on as we are, always feeling a little (or a lot) disconnected, misaligned and seeking temporary solutions, answers and guidance outside of ourselves that are seemingly more acceptable, neat, tidy and palatable yet doesn’t ever really feel right.”

Using this logic, by avoiding difficult actions in the short-term, we really place ourselves in long-term unhappy situations—showing how important it is that we learn to connect with ourselves and take on our intuitive insight as guidance even when challenging. Sometimes disrupting our current trajectory is exactly what needs to be done to grow and align our actions with where we want to be.

Dealing with Trauma

The second challenge to accessing your intuition that Lauren details is trauma. A great way to put trauma into perspective is by looking at how it’s defined by Dr Gabor Maté, a renowned psychologist who specialises in trauma, addiction and healing. He says, “trauma is not what happened to you; trauma is what happens inside you as a result of what happened to you.”

“There is a lot of evidence that links traumatic experiences to our neural and nervous systems development and function,” explains Lauren. “This gets interesting because from an energetic perspective, misaligned beliefs and stories and unacknowledged pain that are the result of trauma are not visible to the physical eye but exist as an energy form that conglomerates together within our body and energy field. The conglomerates of energy from the unprocessed experience and emotions can block your energy system and prevent a fluid flow of unseen intuitive information reaching you.”

“Often what happens when intuitive insight and information is trying to come up, is you get anxious, confused and overwhelmed or triggered and reactive. Uncomfortable emotions arise and we push them back down. Or, we do receive insight and guidance from our intuition about something we need to address, but the thought of addressing it flares up our nervous system because to address whatever is occurring also brings the memory of pain linked to something we experienced previously that was scary, painful and isolating. When we continue on this loop it only further strengthens the limiting stories, programming and beliefs we hold about ourselves and we become stuck.”

Once we understand this, it becomes clear that addressing trauma is essential to allowing ourselves to connect with our intuition and be willing and able to take on board what it has to tell us.

Key Lessons to Take Away

Lauren has observed time after time:

1.     Healing is essential

“Our natural intuitive abilities are only going to support and guide us to the degree we have addressed, respected, loved and healed our pain. When we heal our energetic system flows more easily which is how intuitive data and insight flows to us.”

2.     Energy doesn’t lie

“There is no point working hard at trying to superficially raise your vibes without doing the healing and inner work. You cannot override lower energy outputs with temporary higher vibes.  All you will manifest is disappointment and frustration or the sense of feeling blocked.”

What Can Help You Tune Into Your Intuition?

Once you understand and work with those two key take-aways, there are a couple of things you can actively implement in your life to help you tune into your intuition. The first as detailed by Lauren is to explore your own personal rhythm and give yourself the space and quiet time necessary to connect with yourself.

“When you consciously choose to slow down a little and attune to your own rhythm you will be able to connect with your inner being and soul more easily and receive the gentle and sometimes often simple guidance and insight it’s offering you. The more you move to your own rhythm and take action, following through on the inner prompts you receive, your alignment shifts which shifts your personal energy and vibrational frequency. Suddenly you’re taking your cues from your internal environment over your external environment. You’re responsive rather than reactive. This changes everything!”

A simple way you can work this into your daily routine is by creating a morning or evening ritual where you choose to sit with yourself. You can use oracle or tarot cards while holding an intention or a question. You can specifically hold an intention and connect with your soul to seek its intuitive guidance. Alternatively, it could be just regularly getting out into nature as that helps with self-connection; or exercising as movement shifts energy in your body helping you to release stuck emotions and change your brainwave state, allowing guidance and messages to flow through.

When you are in this space attuned to your own rhythm, intentionally shift your focus from surface level or externally based environments and activities to become aware of what’s going on in your body and energy. Lauren says to focus on, “what sensations and feelings are you receiving? Is there a soft but repeated message coming from within that’s trying to get your attention? Notice what harmonises you and what triggers you. Note where and when your energy and inner feelings and sensations elevate and when they drop or feel off and wonky.”

The second piece of advice is to love yourself enough to respect and fully begin to acknowledge your personal story and experiences.

“And not just from an intellectual level,” says Lauren. “Lean in and really allow yourself to feel any pain and trauma you still hold and extend compassion to yourself. Love and care for yourself how you needed to be loved and cared for when you were frightened, angry and hurting. And do this in a really conscious way where you don’t shift over into victim and disempowerment but where you feel proactive, powerful and empowered by the love, support and tenderness you’re giving to yourself and the standards and boundaries you will have to create so you can honour you!”

Each and every day, just do whatever it is you need to build up your self-trust and self-confidence.

“Trusting and believing in yourself is intrinsically linked to embracing and developing your intuition,” says Lauren. So naturally, self-confidence will automatically help you place precedence on the internal guidance and prompts you to receive over the external ‘shoulds’ and directives that are not aligned to your personal needs. Like with anything, Lauren recommends starting small, and developing self-trust one step at a time — it’s not an overnight process!

“Your natural intuitive abilities are inherent within you and will strengthen and develop the more you begin to anchor in and trust in you.”