Ep. 09: Your Intuition is Knocking. Here's Why It Makes Sense to Listen.

Learning how to REALLY listen in on your body's messages (your intuition) is what changes how you make decisions. It's what stops you from overexplaining and overthinking. You just KNOW.

I'm sharing the science behind intuition and some facts coming from the Heart Math Institute that I found fascinating when I first heard them.

It might just change how you think about intuition. 

Transcript

0:00

Oh my God. I am genuinely so excited for this episode, like I'm just beaming about being able to talk about this. So welcome back to In Your Bones, the podcast for those who know that they're here to do it differently and listening to the wisdom that's in their bones, which is so perfect for today's episode, because today's episode we are gonna talk about intuition, and I feel like this word. Gets like, it's kind of framed a lot in a very woowoo way, you know? And so in this episode, we're gonna break down the science behind it. In the last few years there's been a lot of stuff coming out from heart Math Institute. So you can go to their website and they've got so much information from all the research that they're doing, and then. We're gonna talk about like how that shows up in your body. And I also wanna talk about like this notion that I just touched base on, which is that intuition is thought of as woo woo. Like I used to always think of, oh, the people that are following their intuition, they're just kind of following like their feelings and their hopes and their dreams and their desires, and it kind of changes on a whim. And it's la, la, la, la, la land. And that's not what it is from my experience now. I've had many times where my intuition has served me, and I bet you, you have too. Like I know that you've probably had a time when you've reached out to someone and they're just like, oh my God, you reached out to me exactly when I needed to hear from someone or. You've reached out or you've done something and it like led to something that you never could have imagined, and you were just kind of following this nudge that happened inside of you and you're like, oh my God, this turned out so much better than I could have even dreamt of. Yeah, that's, that's when you've been in the practice of listening to your intuition, and we're gonna go over a little bit of what that is in this episode as well. So let's start with. The fact that we've been taught to prioritize the logical mind over our intuition, and that's not always the way that things were taught. I want to take us back to like 2000 years ago, we were taught as humans a more, like we were more in rhythm with. Our body with the earth, and that led us to be able to be more with the sensations that come up that are our intuition. So I just want you to know that like things haven't always been so logically driven. Things haven't always been like, so like. A equals B, B equals C. If you're listening to this podcast, I bet you you can think of times when logic and sequential steps actually didn't serve you. You're like, oh, that didn't feel good to me to be able to do it in that way, or I just had an inkling that it should be done another way, and that's because. We're all made so different. We're not made for the one size fits all strategy. We're just not. And tuning back into your intuition is really, really, really discovering how your own energy speaks to you. And learning to then. Maneuver your world in a way that is most beneficial to your energy. And I get where that sounds really woo woo. So I will back this up with science in just a sec, but I want you to just know that you aren't built like anyone else and what your gifts are are so different from anyone else's. So intuition is learning how to not always rely on logic. Sometimes it will be logical than that. Step that we need to take. And sometimes we are actually going somewhere that's going to require us to do something that feels slightly illogical to our rational brain. Why? Because our rational brain will come up with all of these ideas and, and ways in which, uh, what we're trying to do has failed for us before. So following our intuition won't always make logical sense. I really want to drive that home because a lot of times our intuition. Is very much focused on our growth as a human. Our expansion and expanding out always means stepping outside of the comfort zone and the comfort zone is everything we've ever known. That's where our nervous system feels the safest. Our nervous system is fully, fully engaged in trying to fight off any potential threat and how can it fight off that threat if we're stepping into the unknown, right? We don't know what's out there. We gotta make sure that we can like, uh, protect ourselves, gotta love our, our nervous system and our body. But that's not what our intuition wants us to do. It's not what our soul wants. Our soul wants to expand and do things that haven't been done before and try new things. And so really when we're talking about our intuition, we're talking about following our soul's guidance. Our, I think a lot of people have like trouble even. With the word soul. So use whatever it feels good for you, following your heart's guidance, following, um, what you feel you're here to do in this lifetime. All of that rings true and it's all talking to the same thing, which is you here for a reason and you are here to follow what your own urges and contribute to the world, what only you can contribute. And so that path, that path of evolution, it's going to feel a little bit illogical at times, a little bit. So let's talk, let's, let's turn it back around to the science of intuition. And so I want to introduce this concept of habituation, and that's when your body has learned to turn down the volume of your own sensations and feelings. I remember when I was just, I had just given birth to my first daughter and I remember feeling like so numb. So numb. And my husband even asked me, he is like, doesn't hanging out with her bring you joy? Doesn't hearing her coup bring you joy? And. I remember like tears rolling down my eyes, down my cheeks, and I kind of sat there and the truthful answer was not really. I felt numb inside and now I know why, which was. The process of habituation, which is your body's own ability to turn down its own sensations when sensations have become overwhelming, which they did for me having a newborn. Um, so think about the last time you walked into a room and there was a really strong smell. Maybe something was burning or a candle. The, the smell of a candle's perfume. And when you walk into that room, it first hits you hard. But 10 minutes later you can barely notice it, and that is habituation. Your nervous system decided the signal wasn't new anymore, and so it quietly turns down the dial so our body in its insane wisdom can learn to turn down the dial of our own messages, our own internal sensations, and especially if growing up. Those sensations and those messages never got validated, which was totally the case for me. I remember I could walk into a room and I could read the body language of everybody in there, and I would walk out of there and I would say, dad, that guy was kind of a annoyed with you. And my dad would respond with like, no, he wasn't. Everything's fine, and so I thought, okay, maybe I'm picking up on something that really isn't there. And now looking back, I know that I was absolutely picking up on something that was there. I think children are especially keen to body language and to picking up on things. And it's because they haven't learned the process of habituation, which is turning down the dial on that. So say you are someone who really likes to be active, but then. You get a desk job and you're sitting there behind the desk and you've kind of turned down your body's instinctual pull to be out there and moving around. Yeah, your body stops reporting that urge. It's like, think of a security guard who's worked the same building for 20 years. He stopped noticing the details of it. He's not lazy. He's just habituated, and the information is still there. It's just not quite making it to the desk anymore. And this is why people often say that gut feeling, that instinctual feeling. Like they don't receive it anymore or that maybe they once used to be intuitive but not so much anymore. It's not that they don't have this intuition. Not at all. We're all wired to pick up on these signals. It's just that we're living in a world that doesn't, doesn't teach us to respond to these subtle signals. And instead we learn to override them perhaps or only respond to the loud urgent ones. But I want you to know that habituation isn't permanent. It can reset. Five years ago I could not pick. Up, my intuition, my sensations. I couldn't pick it up in real time. It would happen for me. At the end of the night, I would go to bed and I would think, oh, that was the signal my body was giving me. I needed to do that. I needed to say that I needed to reach out to this person. I needed to write that in this email. I needed to la, la, la, and I would get it in retrospect. Which I think is very much the first step to coming back into a coherent state with your body's sensations. I also wanna talk about not all sensations are coming from your intuition. So there's some sensations that feel more like fear, more like a closing down. It's, it's kind of that anxiety that buzzing that for me is not. An intuition pulse that is my body picked up on something and then my mind made meaning of it quicker than I could consciously process. So it could be like I'm out with. Friends, and then I meet somebody new and that person maybe reminded me of somebody that was really mean to me in high school. And so without even conscious awareness, I'm like, oh, that guy rubs me the wrong way. That's my intuition speaking when really. It was, there was this resonance between this person and someone I knew in high school, and my mind immediately made meaning from that resonance saying, well, that guy was mean to me in high school, so therefore this guy must be mean to me. You know that that's more fear driven. That's more an effort to protect ourselves. That's not how our intuition speaks our intuition, it speaks quietly a feeling of like, ooh, excitement. And even that excitement can feel like there can be excitement and fear that exists at the same time. Because doing things that feel exciting and expansive will often feel, like I said, outside of our comfort zone. And it will bring up feelings of like, oh, who am I to do this? Uh, I'd rather be folding laundry. That's okay. That's okay if that comes up. And that's the practice of learning to really decipher. Discern, okay, what's what? What's just fear and what's intuition? That is a lifelong practice. So. Don't worry if you're not a hundred percent sure all of the time. Don't worry if you're just starting the practice of this. All of us, each of us are, we're here walking this path. Learning how to discern between the two. And I want to throw something else out there, and this comes from the HeartMath Institute, which is that most of us were taught that our brain is in charge, that our brain is the command center and the boss of our bodies. But researchers at the HeartMath Institute have been quietly turning that assumption upside down because it turns out. The heart isn't just pumping blood, it's broadcasting, and the heart's electrical field is 60 times greater than the brains, and the magnetic field is over a hundred times stronger than what the brain produces, and that can be measured up to three feet outside of your body. Three feet. That means your heart's field extends beyond your skin. Before you've ever even said a word to someone, you are literally transmitting information before the conversation starts. And here's where it gets really interesting. Not all broadcasting is equal. So when you're stressed or you're anxious or you're frustrated, your heart rhythm becomes erratic. It's choppy. It's like a bad radio signal. But when you're in a state of genuine appreciation. And calm, that rhythm becomes smooth and ordered, like it's just more, more coherent. That's what researchers call it, coherence. And in that coherent state, your brain starts to sync up with your heart, and that's what people talk about when they say, I'm in alignment. Get into alignment. That's alignment when your heart and your brain are synced up. Think of it like an orchestra. When the conductor is calm, like every instrument is doing its thing, and it all flows in this beautiful melody. But think about if the conductor was frantic and everything starts feeling outta tune and it starts falling apart. Here's the piece that connects this to your intuition. Research from heart mouth found that the key variable in whether one person could receive another person's heart signal wasn't how close they were standing. It was whether the receiver was in a coherent state. In other words, coherence isn't just about feeling good, it's about becoming receivable. It tunes your body. It's like adjusting an antenna. It makes everything feel like it's flowing around you. I want you to think about the last good day you had. You know, if you're a mom or a dad. That good day? Did you notice that your kid just happened to be behaving better? They were listening. They were happier, they were eating. What about on the days when you felt frustrated and anxious? All of a sudden, that kid is having more meltdowns. All of a sudden you're hitting all the red lights. All of a sudden, uh, you're, it is just, everything kind of feels like it's crumbling and you're just like, this is par for the course and the day that I'm having. To me, that's just the environment. Picking up on your own coherence. So one of the most beautiful studies HeartMath did was with mothers and infants. When a mother placed her attention on her baby, really tuned in, her brainwaves began to synchronize with her baby's heartbeat through a blanket that's just from presence and attention. So this stuff isn't mystical. It's actually very measurable, and it suggests. That what we call a mother's intuition actually has a very real electromagnetic basis. So I want you to know there is stuff that you are going to be able to pick up on because that is how our bodies are. Built we're built to be able to like tune to somebody else. We're like all like radio signals out there. Turning to all these frequencies and learning to turn to a frequency that is in our best interest. I'll say that learning to tune into the frequency that is in our own best interest starts with. Learning how to pick up on our own intuition. That's how we start learning how to trust ourselves. And nothing can be done. Nothing can be done if we don't first learn how to trust ourselves. Step one is like, who am I? Like what? What is it that I really am beyond the labels of mother and a business woman or employee or woman, like wife? Who am I beyond those labels? And then the second part is like learning to trust my body signals, learning to trust that I can do this thing that I wanna do. Learning to trust. In my own wisdom. And then from there, okay, how can I do it? How can I embody this and move forward? Like this is really the path. This is the path of having a life that feels so good. Yeah, having a life that like you get to the end of your life and you're like, oh my God, I did it. I don't have regrets. I lived full out. I went full throttle. I was flowing down the rapids of life, and sometimes it was choppy and sometimes it was smooth, and I learned how to maneuver both sides of it because I'll tell you right now, following your intuition will absolutely take you to choppy waters. And it is precisely because following your intuition will always take you beyond your comfort zone and learning. Like learning to find safety little by little, taking those steps past your comfort zone. Oh man, that's the feeling. That's the feeling of like. Oh shit. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. Ah. It's like jumping off a cliff like, oh my God, am I really doing it? Am I really doing it? And then you jump and then you land and then you're like, oh, that was freaking amazing. Let me go again. And to me, building your business is filled with moments like this because. We aren't taught to put ourselves out there, we're not taught to trust our voice. We're not taught, you know, social media wasn't something that any of us grew up with. And so we're overriding our own bodies. What, what it's familiar with. You know, your body will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven. We've, we know this and so we have to, um. Give our bodies safety. As we learn to tune into our intuition and our intuition can show up as like a feeling in the body. It can almost show up as like a picture that we can receive, or it's, uh, almost like we can hear or a, a thought that feels different than the other thoughts. It feels like. True, like true guidance. There's a different energy to it. That's how our intuition speaks. That's how it comes to us. And then our mind chooses like. To make some sort of meaning of it. Oh, I don't know that, that feels so crazy. I don't know if I can do it. Uh uh. That's our mind. That's our mind receiving it. That's the filter that our mind then perceives that message through. I don't know if I can do it. It is probably not gonna work out. I should probably go do the laundry. This is, and so much of. Uh, following your intuition is gonna be learning how to walk side by side with the meaning that mind gives it. And so this is, this is exactly why I wish for everybody, everybody out there to do some sort of subconscious reprogramming work because then you truly know how to do that, how to walk side by side. With the stuff that comes up with those thoughts from your mind that aren't your thoughts, by the way, they're thoughts that you once heard someone say one time and now they're in. For me, that was the game changer. That was the game changer to really knowing. Okay. This is my intuition. Okay. This is just the fear. Talking was learning to understand my mind, and then having someone help me. Untangle the meanings. My mind gave certain scenarios. That's the work. I don't necessarily think that you can do that by yourself because mm, your blind spots are your blind spots, you can't see 'em. And having someone help me through my own blind spots, that changed the fucking game. On being able to listen to my intuition. So I want you to know each of us has this, this ability to tune in. Each of us has a far more wise system that is installed in US than just the logical brain. And I bet you, you can think of a time when you, when it has served you, it's almost easy to turn into, to tune into when you're feeling genuinely like, grateful and calm. That's when I feel most in tune to my intuition when I'm like, genuinely at peace. So look for the moments. Look for those moments where you're like, damn, I'm so grateful for life. Damn. I'm so glad to be like looking at this flower, hugging my child, being here in this moment. And that's when you can trust what comes up for you in those moments. Alright, I love you so much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. I'll see you in the next episode.