K-12th grade Internet schools are low-cost, quality private schools that make life easier for parents. Home-schooling normally requires parents to personally teach their children at home, using a wide variety of educational teaching materials, including books, the Internet, and computer learning software.

However, for those parents who have little time to spare, or dont yet feel confident in home-schooling their children, Internet private schools are a wonderful new alternative. These schools take most of the home-schooling burden off parents backs, yet can give children a low-cost, quality education at home.

An Internet private school for children is similar to the Internet college-degree programs that many universities around the country now offer adults. There are many good Internet schools parents can choose from. Some schools only offer high-school programs while others offer a complete, 1st through 12th grade education.

Many Internet private schools give a course of study similar to traditional private schools. They take children thorough a progressive curriculum in math, science, reading and writing, social studies, and many other subjects.

This structured, comprehensive program is like having a personal teacher and private school in a parents own living room. As a result, these schools can relieve parents of most of the home-schooling burden, while giving children a high-quality education.

This setup is especially helpful for single-working moms, or families where both mother and father work. Since Internet-school teachers supervise the childs education, its less likely that parents will have to take time from work or quit their job to homeschool their kids.

Many Internet private schools charge much lower tuition rates than brick-and-mortar, secular private schools, and sometimes thousands of dollars a year less than Catholic or Protestant-affiliated schools. Tuition costs vary with each school, from as low as $350 a year to $2000 or more a year. Many quality Internet private schools charge less than $850 a year.

Internet schools are a great resource for parents with a limited budget who also want to escape the public schools and give their kids a great education.

Our book, “Public Schools, Public Menace” has a whole Resource section devoted to Internet private schools and other education options for parents.

About the author:
Joel Turtel is the author of Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools Lie To Parents and Betray Our Children.”
Website: www.mykidsdeservebetter.com,
Email: lbooksusa@aol.com,
Phone: 718-447-7348.
Article Copyrighted 2005 by Joel Turtel.
NOTE: You may post this Article on another website only if you set up a hyperlink to Joel Turtels email address and website URL, www.mykidsdeservebetter.com

Since early 2001, I have been living a dream–a vision–that surfaced from using my intuition. By tuning into my inner guidance, I was able to build a national organization for women writers in just over 4 years that currently has over 11,000 newsletter subscribers and over 2,700 members (as of 2005). When I first came up with the idea to start the National Association of Women Writers (NAWW), I was a suburban mother of three small children who had a somewhat bold dream to connect and support other women writers like myself.

Intuition can be defined as a quick and ready insight. This insight can steer you on a correct path, warn you of danger, and/or connect you to your creativity. In Shakti Gawain’s book, Developing Intuition, she describes how “the most successful people are often very intuitive. Consciously or unconsciously, they follow their gut feelings. Following intuition puts us in the flow–a very alive, productive, and desirable state.”

Developing your intuition allows you the ability to not have to look to others to give you strength or to teach you what they know. Using your intuition allows you the ability to look internally, find the answers and the strength to be bold and act on your inner guidance.

Accessing your intuition is like many other creative activities you might engage. As you string together words or put paint on a canvas, you must listen and pay attention to these mental insights. They allow you to keep moving forward. The more you trust these insights, the more your craft will improve. Of course, you must add liberal amounts of perseverance and some organizational skills as well, but the end results will pay off as you see your dreams and goals come to fruition.

Following are five suggestions for developing and accessing your intuition so that you may find, follow, and fulfill your dream! Continually use these techniques to make decisions and reach goals.

ONE: REFLECT ON LESSONS ALREADY LEARNED

You must reflect to process information. In February 2000, I had just given birth to my third child and finished my MA in Organizational Management. At 30 years old, I was at a crossroad and in a position to finally pursue a career I loved. I just had to figure out what it was. For seven months I read about and researched different subjects that I was interested in, such as women’s issues, writing, and business startups. I journaled a great deal during this time, reflecting on the past and looking towards the future. I came to understand through this process that I wanted to use my social work experience, my love of writing, and my organizational management skills. While intuition led me during those months to make these decisions, journaling helped me to document the insights and focus along the way.

TWO: GET BACK TO NATURE

Developing your intuition requires the absence of chaos. It is impossible to fully listen to this inner guidance with all the interruptions that occur in our lives. To tune in to your intuition, to succeed, you have to get away from the chaos. For me, I jog or walk outside at least 30 minutes each day. Nature provides me with just the right sounds and scenery for my intuitive senses to come alive. I make this activity a priority in my life because this quiet time calms my soul, supports my creativity, and gives me the mental space I need to tune into my inner yearnings. I have used my “getting back to nature” time for over five years to make crucial business decisions and to figure out many pivotal solutions to roadblocks in my personal and business lives. Nature is the perfect prescription for anything that ails you. Experiencing the solitude that nature provides is a form of meditation that calms the soul and purges the stress from your life.

THREE: TRUST YOURSELF

Understand that most people usually act on impulses and societal cues. Those who slow down and pay attention to their own inner guidance find that they can think clearly and make difficult decisions. When my close friends and family were not supportive of my new dream, they would often say negative things. They honestly weren’t trying to be mean spirited, but simply could not visualize how I could possibly succeed at building an organization from scratch with three small children to care for. Past lessons taught me I was on the right path. I had done enough research and my strengthened intuition faithfully guided me through the difficult times. Another benefit of learning to trust yourself is that you will also nurture your self-confidence and build your self-esteem in the process.

FOUR: BLOCK OUT NEGATIVE THOUGHTS AND PEOPLE

Once you begin to trust yourself, you will inevitably have to start blocking out the negativity of others. Some of this negativity will come from loved ones. It is human nature for people to negate things and events they do not understand or have no personal experience with. Change causes stress and many people subconsciously dismiss new ideas because it makes them feel more comfortable to do so. One of the most important steps you will have to take to reach any goal is to be able to block out and/or redirect negativity. You have to trust yourself to be able to do this. The time you spend in nature will help you to purge the toxic feedback from others out of your mind and out of your life. Everyone that was close to me did not understand nor share in my dream in the beginning. Only after they started to see my dream materialize did they begin to support it. That is why it is essential to block out or at least filter the negativity. Understanding the cause of these behaviors and reactions makes it easier to dismiss them and to follow your own (more in tune) thoughts instead.

FIVE: ACT

The last and most important suggestion I can give you for developing intuition is to be bold and to act on the inner cues that are being sent to you as mental/emotional/spiritual signals or urges. Developing intuition is a cyclical process and, like any other innate talent, you must act on it to further develop it. Often we are drawn to people, subjects, and events through our intuition. I was drawn to establish the NAWW because I like to help people as evidenced by my obtaining a bachelor degree in social work. I have always used writing as a tool to heal and express myself. And lastly, I have always been an entrepreneur–even in the first grade when I made my own address books and sold them at school for 10 cents each. When my intuitive side sent the messages of what to do to start the NAWW, I listened. I acted by researching my competition (other writing associations), by asking my customers (my women writer colleagues) what they wanted, and by building a website and starting the official weekly newsletter. I acted quickly. In less than two months from the moment I conceived the idea of the National Association of Women Writers, the website and newsletter were born. My “baby” continues to grow and mature at a healthy rate.

When you continually use these five suggestions to develop your intuition and to test your inner guidance, you will find that it will become easier to make decisions and to live peacefully with those decisions. Your life won’t automatically become problem-free, but you will begin trusting in the ultimate outcome of events as working in your favor for the future. By filtering through the physical and subliminal cues inside and all around you, you will learn to develop your intuition and succeed.

About the Author

Sheri McConnell is the President of the National Assn. of Women Writers (www.NAWW.org). She helps women writers and entrepreneurs discover, create, and profit from their intellectual knowledge! Free reports available with subscription to NAWW Weekly. Sheri lives in San Antonio, Texas with her husband Seth and their 4 children. Contact her at: naww@onebox.com or her toll free number at 866-821-5829.

Intuition was a wonderful gift. It was also an awful curse. By instantly recognizing patterns, intuition was nature’s vital tool for survival. Life ceaselessly faced a train of unlimited choices and, often, baffling problems. These demanded instant decisions. An animal could not remain undecided, whether to drink water, or to eat grass. Should it be aggressive and fight, run away, or relax and accept the situation? It was intuition, which interpreted events to trigger emotions. Anger made them aggressive. Fear made them retreat. And familiarity supported relaxation. Each emotion eliminated groups of thoughts. If fighting was the option, amicable thoughts did not fit. If the decision was to cut and run, it was useless to marshal one’s militant strengths. The intuitive process eliminated mental activity, which did not fit the chosen course of action. Sadly, this elimination process was also the biggest weakness of the system.

Each emotion set off a focused drive seeking solutions. Anger, fear, or friendliness triggered competing drives. Intuition focused each drive by eliminating views that did not fit its compulsive focus. Anger eliminated amicable memories. Fear lost sight of fighting strengths. As any situation evolved, the emotional strengths of these partisan drives varied. Opposing emotions competed for control. Intuition acted in the emotional center, the limbic system, to select the most powerful emotion, which then ruled. If it was anger, it pulled the trigger. When the choice was made, the process inhibited competing drives, with contrary feelings. Opposing views were largely lost to consciousness.

Across species, fear dictated an escape drive, which sought safety. A deer bounded away. A bird took flight. A fish swam off. While the activities of running, flying and swimming differed, it was the drive, which achieved the objective of escaping. Each drive evaluated experience and the environment. Escape was hardly possible by heading into the predator. Getting away demanded evaluation of many escape routes, including slipping into a safe sanctuary, inaccessible to the predator. Like the underside of a rock. Drives involved a search of multiple contexts to uncover the right answer. While intuitive drives usually delivered the answer instantly, some drives failed to uncover solutions.

Modern life offered few speedy answers. Senior positions had added problems. The higher the position, more the solutions needed for the myriad problems faced by a venture. Intuition, driven by emotions, was the creative force, which delivered answers. Hidden from view, drives constantly sought solutions. While one problem was consciously evaluated, subconscious drives continued search processes to solve other issues. Since, anger, fear or jealousy powered such searches, they often sought to achieve conflicting objectives. These hidden emotions troubled the mind, creating distressing internal conflicts. Sadly, this was the negative face of intuition, standing in the way of achieving peace of mind.

Conflicting viewpoints surged in the subconscious. How could they be integrated? In a harsh and unforgiving world, how could a multitude of clashing drives be graciously focused? How could the mind be stilled? Across the ages, many solutions were offered to focus the mind and still conflicts. Meditation, chanting and breathing routines were found to be beneficial. But, those practices treated the symptom, not the problem. The long term solution was to quiet the internal battles of these competing drives. All knowledge and experience lived within. These same drives were powerful search processes, which could delve deep, to deliver answers. Unique new insights and solutions waited to be discovered.

Drives provided windows into the mind. It was a drive, which assisted in the preparation of a simple shopping list. It searched memory and current context to deliver, line by line, a list of all the items you needed to buy. By contextually searching the mind, drives could be made to play a valuable, creative role. When particularly burdened by a problem, drives could draw out a list of one’s deepest concerns. With its sort facility, a spreadsheet could be used to list and comprehend the turmoils of the mind. The routine could begin by listing, line by line, different aspects of a problem, as it came to mind. Each, a short entry in a single cell of the spread sheet. It may have just begun with, say, “Feel awful” and gone on down. That was the first thought. Many conflicting emotions surged in the background. Each line would sum up a single feeling and its concern. It could be “Negative departmental report” Or, it could be just a hunch. “David will support me.” The worst fears were noted down. “Mortgage payments.” And the common sense thoughts. “This too will pass.”

Writing a list was a calming process. The questioning drive helped still the mind. Differing viewpoints were noted down. These views would arrive in conspicuous sequence. Each entry brought one viewpoint into consciousness - into the general view of isolated and competing drives. Sensible viewpoints would normally have been eliminated from view by angry emotions. Typically, about 60 odd entries would empty the mind of every related thought. Entering opposing viewpoints usually brought balance. The inquiry process stilled background turmoil. The most critical part of this process came next.

A label was entered for each line in an adjacent cell on the spreadsheet. “Fear,” “Opportunity”, or even “Unlikely” could be the labels. With every aspect already considered, it was easier to label an entry. Each label fitted a few more entries. The picture slowly cleared. Underground fears surfaced. Solutions emerged. The closing of one door usually opened another. Those 60 entries would fit a dozen or so categories. A “sort” of the labels column would arrange similar ones together, in alphabetic order. Listing similarly labeled ideas together would bring clarity. They became groups of consistent, allied thoughts. The sorted spreadsheet list integrated the mind.

Isolated drives were forced into the open and a balanced view emerged. Viewed together, “Unlikely” put a label on needless worries. The less likely outcomes could be ignored. The inevitable ones had to be accepted. That left you with the actions you could take. “Opportunities” formed the basis for a future plan. The rest of the list just climbed off your chest. Another threatening issue would have been acknowledged, accepted and foreseen. The spreadsheet evaluation balanced the mind and stilled hidden anxieties and conflicts. Lifted burdens. Anger and fear, love and altruism cooperated to search for solutions which met all the concerns of the mind. With the power of intuition, an integrated mind became the most creative force in the world.

About the Author

Abraham Thomas is the author of The Intuitive Algorithm, a book, which suggests that intuition is a pattern recognition algorithm. The ebook version is available at www.intuition.co.in. The book may be purchased only in India. The website, provides a free movie and a walk through to explain the ideas.

Even though I wrote about it in my book on Directed Dreaming, I’m really not sure you want to “access” your intuition at all! I think the better way to think about it is to “pay attention” to your intuition. After all, if intuition is really just a gut feeling about the right direction to take, it’s probably already available at the time you need it and all you need to do is pay more attention, and/or know how to prompt it.

One way to prompt it is to try Brainstorming. This is where you just sit down and ask yourself a question with the focus on the desired outcome (example: How can I get more traffic to my site, how can I resolve that conflict at work, etc.). You need to write down ALL the answers that come to you, no matter how silly or strange they may be. Then, later when you’re done writing you take a closer look at your list, and start crossing things out. You will probably find that you end up with about three good ideas that you could act on.

Then it’s time to take a deep breath, clear your mind by using some kind of relaxation method, and inevitably, one of your choices will appear, and your brain will start working out the answers further. It’s amazingly simple, but it works. You’ll want to quickly write down whatever comes to you; your mind works so fast, some things can get by without notice and easily forgotten. Then, take immediate action on your thoughts, before your conscious mind kicks in and starts asking all kinds of questions that you don’t need to worry about right now.

If you have problems getting into a relaxed state of mind, there are plenty of things on the market that can help you, including Hypnosis and Guided Imagery, and even computer “games” (since you’re probably in your office anyway).

So, don’t fret so much about “accessing” your intuition, just pay attention when it comes to you, and practice noticing it. I do it so often it’s second nature for me now, and it works every time!

About the Author

Evelyn Grazini is the Author of Directed Dreaming. Her specialties are Dreaming, Hypnosis and Intuition.

Her writings effectively condense volumes of professional research into one succinct resource. Free Reports on Dreaming, Hypnosis and Stress Relief are available. http://www.reawakener.com

Everyone has intuition; it’s hard-wired in us. Everybody wants more intution; it’s a great lifeskill for problem-solving, generating solutions, and making good decisions. It can be developed, but you have to have a certain mindset to develop and strengthen it. These are things NOT to do if you want to become more intuitive.

1. Be in a hurry

2. Have no symbolic ability. Dont participate in or enjoy any of the arts.

3. Be unconcerned about your integrity or purposes in wanting to use intuition.

4. Let your ego run away with you, having to be right, controlling and in charge.

5. Not learn how to differentiate between intuition, fear, and wishful thinking.

6. Hang out with people who don’t believe in intuition, know about it, or use it. Intuition is contagious and so is lack of intuition.

7. Try and invoke your intuition with willpower or force it in any way.

8. Believing that logic, analysis and rational thinking are the only way or best way to solve problems, make decisions and generate solutions.

9. Not being able to still the executive function of your brain–the part that scans, is alert, worries and analyzes.

10. Not getting coaching or teaching so you get feedback on your skills as they develop, learn how to manage your ego, and keep yourself off overload as you learn.

Susan Dunn is a personal and professional development coach, speaker, writer and author and head of a distance learning school. Email her for FREE ezine.

Intuition is vital to the empowered employee, says Garrett Boone, CEO of the Container Store, but intuition certainly doesnt come to the unprepared mind. The more knowledgeable you are, the better informed you are, the better prepared you are to use your intuition.

But how do you do this?

First of all, everyone has intuition though it may have grown rusty from disuse. Its those gut feelings, hunches and survival instincts we rely on. We always know it in restrospect: I knew that wouldnt work.

Intuition is knowing without knowing how you know; knowing through other than cognitive means. Its also implicit memory from having lots of experience in a certain area.

From years of experience, I can pretty much tell in the first coaching session what someones obstacles will be. It may seem uncanny, but its from fine-tuned intuition and years of experience with people. I can explain how I know, but its deductive reasoning.

If you want better intuition, invite it into your life. When you lie down at night, say, In the morning Id like to know what to do about X.

Practice your intuition. Right now Im selling my house, and I practice using my intuition to see if I can tell who the buyer will be?

Practice on small, inconsequential things until youre sure, like which bank line will move fastest. You can apply implicit memory to that I look for the line where the cars have their brake lights on, because I figure those are Type A personalities.

Work with an intuition or EQ coach to develop your intuition. Its surer than cognitive thinking, and takes a lot less effort.

About the Author

Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach, GLOBAL EQ. Emotional intelligence coaching to enhance all areas of your life - career, relationships, midlife transition, resilience, self-esteem, parenting. EQ Alive! - excellent, accelerated, affordable EQ coach certification. Susan is the author of numerous ebooks, is widely published on the Internet, and a regular speaker for cruise lines. For marketing services go here.

Are you looking for a better way to gain access to intuitive information? In dowsing, we use the aid of a pendulum to tap into our intuition. Depending on how you program it, your pendulum will give you answers by swinging in certain directions to tell you “yes,” “no,” or “undecided.”

Dowsing is very clear to read. Unlike the tarot, which depends heavily on the interpretation of the reader, dowsing is a method that really doesn’t offer much room for interpretation. Yes means yes and no means no. And learning to dowse takes no time at all! As such, dowsing is an ideal place to start developing a sense for intuitive information. A pendulum allows you to get crystal clear answers through an external source so that you can develop a trust in the validity of the information.

Unfortunately, the very advantage to dowsing - the fact that it is so clear to read - is also what makes it somewhat limiting. We have to ask questions that can be answered with “yes” or “no.” However, with some experience, we can access a wealth of information within this limited medium. The true advantage of dowsing is that it allows you to get a clear sense of your own intuitive knowledge. As you continue dowsing, you will over time start to receive the answers before the pendulum even swings. Before long, you will develop a keen sense of how your inner guidance system works.

All answers from your pendulum really come from your superconscious - from your Higher Self. Your Higher Self is your Soul self. It is the ancient, infinitely wise part of you that was directly created from Source. Your Higher Self is not limited to this present incarnation. It has access to all your lifetimes, past, present and future. It spans dimensions, time and space. Your Higher Self is pure Spirit. This is where the information really comes from.

When you dowse, your Higher Self will connect to your subconscious. This is what actually creates the movement of the pendulum. Consciously, you will not be aware of creating any movement in the pendulum whatsoever. It really is a wonderful thing to watch your pendulum swinging of its own accord! You would swear that you are holding your hand absolutely still, but in truth, your subconscious is creating the subtle movements that create the swing of the pendulum.

Everyone is intuitive. The more you practice, the more your intuition will be available to you. The pendulum is merely the external starting point. As you use it more and more, your focus will shift towards your internal receptors for intuitive information. However, as a good place to start, nothing beats learning how to dowse!

About the Author

Andrea Hess is an intuitive consultant working with spiritual seekers who want practical, accurate information about their life path and purpose. You may visit her site at www.andreahess.com for a detailed mini-course on dowsing, or a free Sample Reading.
(ARA) - The rising cost of tuition has put many families in a bind. A survey conducted by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges found that tuition at public institutions increased in 37 of the states that responded. In Arizona, California and New York all surveyed schools reported in-state tuition increases of at least 20 percent. Tuition at the State University of New York has increased by 30 percent and at the University of California by as much as 40 percent over last falls levels.

While all parents want the best education for their children, financial constraints can be a burden on the long-term investment in their childs education. However, with diligent planning, families can work together to develop solutions to this problem and be able to afford the best education for their children. Ray Loewe, college planning expert and advisory board member for the GE Center for Financial Learning, offers the following tips on college planning and ways to make the transition back to school more affordable.

* While tuition costs are on the rise, interest rates for paying back college loans will drop to an all-time low. Its good news to those already paying off loans or who will start paying in the near future. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, someone with $25,000 in debt could save about $5,000 in 20 years if he or she consolidates at this rate.

* Students should try and find a part-time job. Jobs offered on a college campus are ideal because employers know from the outset that theyre hiring college students with their irregular schedules, tests and exams. They know that education is a priority and are usually more forgiving as a result.

* Many parents think that Saving for College will just disqualify a student from getting financial aid. The actual fact is that income most often keeps students from qualifying for financial aid, not their assets. At the same time saving for education is an investment.

* There are four types of financial aid: scholarships, grants, loans and work-study employment. Colleges are not created equal regarding financial aid. Become familiar with your colleges financial aid packages.

* Apply for a loan. Loans are financial aid available to both parents and students. They are subsidized by the federal or state government, financial institutions or the college and may have lower interest rates than regular loans. Generally, you do not start paying back these loans until after college graduation.

There are many ways to prevent future financial hardships that can arise from paying for education, but having a plan is crucial. Web sites such as the GE Center for Financial Learning (www.financiallearning.com) can help you and your family take action to ensure an easy and trouble-free return to school each semester.

Courtesy of ARA Content

Courtesy of ARA Content

Everyone has intuition; it’s hard-wired in us. Everybody wants more intution; it’s a great lifeskill for problem-solving, generating solutions, and making good decisions. It can be developed, but you have to have a certain mindset to develop and strengthen it. These are things NOT to do if you want to become more intuitive.

1. Be in a hurry

2. Have no symbolic ability. Dont participate in or enjoy any of the arts.

3. Be unconcerned about your integrity or purposes in wanting to use intuition.

4. Let your ego run away with you, having to be right, controlling and in charge.

5. Not learn how to differentiate between intuition, fear, and wishful thinking.

6. Hang out with people who don’t believe in intuition, know about it, or use it. Intuition is contagious and so is lack of intuition.

7. Try and invoke your intuition with willpower or force it in any way.

8. Believing that logic, analysis and rational thinking are the only way or best way to solve problems, make decisions and generate solutions.

9. Not being able to still the executive function of your brain–the part that scans, is alert, worries and analyzes.

10. Not getting coaching or teaching so you get feedback on your skills as they develop, learn how to manage your ego, and keep yourself off overload as you learn.

Susan Dunn is a personal and professional development coach, speaker, writer and author and head of a distance learning school. Email her for FREE ezine.

Please feel free to distribute and reprint, including the bio line.

Intuition is an EQ competency, that is it’s considered something necessary to successful living, and something to be respected and valued. In recent years it has emerged from obscurity, even suspicion. What exactly is intuition?
Main Entry: intuition
1 : quick and ready insight
2 a : immediate apprehension or cognition
b : knowledge or conviction gained by intuition
c : the power or faculty of attaining to direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference(www.m-w.com)
According to Intuition magazine online, intuition is increasingly recognized as a natural mental faculty, a key element in the creative process, a means of discovery, problem solving, and decision making. Once considered the province of a gifted few, it is now recognized as an innate capacity available to everyone–not a rare, accidental talent, but a natural skill anyone can cultivate. Remember those math problems you got the correct answer for, but you didnt get full credit because you couldnt show your work? Intuition, Intuition magazine says, is a key ingredient in what we call genius, and it is also an important tool when applied to everyday life.

That having been said, from where does this almost mystical ability come?

In their amazing book, “A General Theory of Love”, authors Lewis, Amini and Lannon, all doctors, agree that all of us acquire wonderfully complicated knowledge that we cannot describe, explain, or recognize.

They cite researchers Knowlton, Mangels and Squire, who devised an interesting experiment they gave subjects the task of predicting the weather in a simple computer model. They designed the experiment so that as unhelpful as the cues looked, they did relate lawfully to the outcomes, but the relationship between cues and effects was deliberately such a complex and probabilistic function that even the smartest person couldnt figure it out. It was way too difficult for logic to unravel; that is, subjects would have to approach this task without the use of the neocortex.

The researchers were right. No one figured it out, but that didnt stop them from getting better at the system they couldnt understand or describe! After just 50 trials, the average subject was right 70% of the time, which means, of course, that some were doing far better than that. What they were doing was gradually developing a feel for the situation and intuitively grasping the essence of what was going on.

We tend to believe that success can only come from understanding (via the neocortex), but in reality our marvelous brains, when presented with repetitive experiences, are able to extract unconsciously the rules that underlie them. Such knowledge, say Lewis, Amini, and Lannon, develops with languorous ease and inevitability, stubbornly inexpressibly, never destined for translation into words. Words being a neocortical ability.

Things we cant describe, but we “know,” come from our implicit memory. Our implicit memory ensures that camouflaged learning permeates out lives. Spoken language, for instance, is a confusing assortment of phonological and grammatical rules that we couldnt possibly describe, yet we all learn to speak our native tongue. In fact, children are able to learn it without any formal instruction at all. Similarly, in learning foreign languages, its generally considered that immersion is the best way to attain fluency spending your days with native speakers and just absorbing it. Consider the extent to which we intuit. In his book, “Language Instinct,” Steven Pinker observes that we all know that thole, plast and flitch are not English words but they could be, whereas vlas, ptak, and nyip cannot be English. Why? Well, just because, but wouldnt you agree?

The advantages of intuition? Its much quicker and also surer to use your intuition. You have a greater grasp on reality, as it were, when you dont confuse things by bringing in the neocortex. “Reason,” said Pascal, is the slow and tortuous method by which those who do not know the truth discover it.

There is guidance available to us at all times, says Penny Peirce, just belowI> the surface of our logic, just after we stop pushing and striving, just before we jump to conclusions. By cultivating the ability to pause and be comfortable with silence, and then by focusing steadily and listening for the first sounds or feelings, for the first impressions, you can help your intuition wake up suddenly and enthusiastically, as if from a long winters nap.

How do you develop your intuition? One way is to learn to still your self-talk, what I refer to as the Talking Head that constant yammering that goes on inside your head. Get centered. Quiet your thinking mind. Slow down and focus on one thing at a time. Listen. Practice.

Although intuition is a natural resource, says Nancy Rosanoff, an intuition trainer, it functions best when developed and exercised. Like a muscle, intuition becomes strong, reliable, and precise when trained and put to use.”

So whats the buzz about intuition? Its coming into its own. Its getting legitimate. Corporations are even hiring intuitionists to make decisions. I say its about time, because its a much surer way to make a decision than are logic and reason; an important decision that is. How much data would be too much to know about the woman youre going to be leaving your baby with all day? About the man youre considering marrying? At some point the data ends, and you make a decision based on your feelings. Do you doubt this? Oliver Wendell Holmes, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said that 90% of the decisions at his level were emotional. He just rationalized them afterwards. As we all have done.

In small matters, use the head, said Freud, and in large matters, the heart. And that’s intuition!

Susan Dunn is a personal and professional development coach specializing in emotional intelligence. You can visit her on the web at http://www.susandunn.cc.

Develop your intuition and you can be sure about your decisions.
Intuition is vital to the empowered employee, says Garrett Boone, CEO of the Container Store, in Fast Company, but intuition certainly doesnt come to the unprepared mind. The more knowledgeable you are, the better informed you are, the better prepared you are to use your intuition.

So now, you may be thinking, Im going to have learn to be an intuitive, empowered employee. Its hard to keep up with the buzz, the fad du jour.

However, intuition is no fad. Its an EQ competency, and EQ matters more to your career success and life happiness than your IQ. And the good news is EQ can be developed over your lifetime.

Do you have intuition? Ive never coached anyone who didnt have some. They just needed to hear it described so they realized theyd always gone on hunches, and gut feelings, and survival instincts, and, yes, even good vibes.

All too often this comes out when we say,

I knew … the market was going to fall I knew … she wasnt the woman for me I knew … he was a crook I knew … it would never work out I knew … better than to do that

Until you get acquainted with your intuition, that phrase will most often come out as a V-8 afterthought I coulda use my intuition!

Intuition can be defined as knowing about something in other than cognitive ways knowing without knowing how you know. If you develop your intuition instead of regretting you didnt use it, youll be saying, My intuition says dont do that, and Sorry, but Im going with my hunch of this one.

How do you develop your intuition? Professional Intuition Coach Nancy R. Fenn offers the following beginning exercises:

When the phone rings, guess whos calling before you pick up the phone. If a tool or article is missing, let it come to you while you go on about your business. Before you get the mail, decide on at least one item that will be in the mail. Guess what time your spouse, child or roommate will walk in the door. At any given time during the day, relax and try to guess exactly what time it is without looking at your watch or a clock.

Heres an exercise from Nancy: Think of a problem youre having that youd like guidance on. Stand perfectly still and see what changes first in your environment, i.e., dog barks, curtains blow in the wind, ambulance goes by, baby laughs, leaf falls to the ground, bird fly overhead to the left. Interpret this event symbolically as the answer to the question.

What an exercise like this does, is force you to still the logical, rational and very limited neocortex, so other parts of your brain can work.

Work with an intuition or EQ coach to develop your intuition. People whove developed theirs say they know its intuition because they feel absolutely sure. What a great feeling!

About the Author

Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach, GLOBAL EQ. Emotional intelligence coaching to enhance all areas of your life - career, relationships, midlife transition, resilience, self-esteem, parenting. EQ Alive! - excellent, accelerated, affordable EQ coach certification. Susan is the author of numerous ebooks, is widely published on the Internet, and a regular speaker for cruise lines. For marketing services go here.

Today I want to talk about how our feelings guide us toward creating the things in our life that we desire.

When in the creative process, particularly during the waiting phase, we need to know how the universe creates a response. Sometimes there is nothing we must do - it simply will come into being. Other times events will be set into motion to allow us to reach out and snatch our goal right out of the fabric of our daily lives.

When the latter is the case, the universe will produce in you an idea, and even more often, a feeling. A little nudge in your stomach. A little itch to do something or go somewhere that you may have no real reason to do or go. These are the moments when we either help the universe to bring our creation to life, or we drop the ball and perhaps cause our creation to take much longer.

For instance, if you are looking to meet someone special, and you have performed your inital part in this creation, one day you may feel like driving to the bookstore. There may not be a book you want - there may be no apparent reason to go at all. Maybe five minutes before you had decided to stay home all day!

So you stay home, and finish your day, and the universe finds another way to create your goal (which may take much longer), or you putter over to the bookstore and bump into your soulmate in the section you’re browsing.

Perhaps your goal is to make a sum of money. Especially if this is the case, you must listen to your intuition. The universe will give you an idea that will allow you to make this your reality. When you get this idea, don’t blow it off as one of your “dumb ideas”, or as impractical, or as undoable. Just get to work on making it so! If you insist, you will create.

The haziest part of the creation process for many is the waiting zone. You must learn that although the universe may produce your desires with no action on your part whatsoever, you may also be called to action in order to manifest that desire. When that time comes, act on your impulse! Act on your feeling. That is what intuition is - the nudge that the universe gives you when showing you how to manifest your desire.

For more information on your ability to create your own reality and take control of your life, see my new e-Book, The Secrets Of Manifesting Your Reality. It goes in depth to teach you how to use your powers as a creator and begin creating your reality moment by moment.

Thanks for joining me today - check back tomorrow!

Namaste!

About the Author

jonpeeoh (www.jonpeeoh.com) is a new website devoted to raising consciousness, magick, and teaching others to take control of their powers as creators of their own reality.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking casualties of recent stock market performance are the 20 state-sponsored college tuition pre-payment plans throughout the country. With college costs continuing to grow at a pace of about 9% per year and investment returns on plan assets being flat or negative, the sponsors of the various prepaid tuition programs now project long-term cash shortages.

Investors in the program thought that they had purchased paid up tuition credits under the program, regardless of the future rise in tuition costs. But now states anticipate notifying investors hat the plan cannot meet its projections, and so the investors must pay up by making additional investments or bail out of the program. Colorado has already notified investors of the default and other states anticipate similar actions in the future. Other states are considering more creative options. Most plans agree that the growth of plan assets will not keep pace with college tuition inflation over the next decade.

Investors are irked because they thought that these plans represented a guarantee backed up by the sponsoring state and are shocked to learn that this is not the case.

Of course, a recovery of the financial markets will greatly help ease the burden, but many investment advisers do not expect that to happen in the near future.

Tony Novak is an independent writer and financial adviser in Narberth PA who provides OnlineAdviser services through MedSave.com and FreedomBenefits.org.

Accurate predictions of the future are rare. Many examples exist where misguided intuition of the brightest and most qualified individuals prevented them from foreseeing the future. Consider examples from the arts (see part I), business (see part II), and science (see part III).

Misguided intuition in the arts
D. W. Griffith is regarded by many as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. More than anyone of the silent era, he recognized the potential of movies as an expressive medium. During that time, his achievements were momentous. In 1915 he finished the feature “Birth of a Nation,” regarded as the first masterpiece of cinema. In 1919 he finished the movie “Intolerance” (1919), which marked a new standard in filmmaking. His next two movies, “Broken Blossoms” (1919) and “Way Down East” (1920), sealed his reputation as America’s preeminent director. According to James Agee, “To watch his work is like being a witness to the beginning of melody, or the first conscious use of the lever or the wheel; the emergence, coordination, and first eloquence of language; the birth of an art: and to realize that this is all the work of one man.” The great silent movie actor Lillian Gish called him “the father of film” and Charlie Chaplin called him “the teacher of us all.” During the same time, D. W. Griffith also exhibited superb business instincts by founding the United Artist production company together with Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and Mary Pickford, the three greatest performers of the day.

However, from the mid to late 1920s things began to change. His intuitive powers started to wane. In 1924, at the age of 49, Griffith wrote in an article published by the Saturday Evening Post, “We do not want now and we shall never want the human voice with our films.” Only three years later, in 1927 the first talking movie, “The Jazz Singer” with Al Jolson was released. The reaction of the public to the movie was astounding. The picture was a sellout, one of the big box office hits of all time. In October 1930, the Fortune magazine wrote, “The advent of American talking movies is beyond comparison the fastest and most amazing revolution the whole history of industrial revolutions.” Griffith’s failed prediction was only an early sign of his now chronic misguided intuition. From the late 1920s, Griffith’s movies were slowly sinking into oblivion. In the glitter of the Jazz Age, his filmmaking was considered hopelessly old-fashioned. His last picture, “The Struggle,” was made in 1931 and played in theaters for merely a week before being withdrawn. On July 23, 1948, Griffith died in a small Los Angeles hotel virtually forgotten by the industry he helped build.

What was the cause of Griffith’s transition from great intuition to misguided intuition? One of the most common causes of misguided intuition, and therefore, the limited success of experts in predicting the future, is the “situation bias.” Experts, like all humans, tend to imagine future technologies as an extension of current technologies. The bias grows stronger when the individual has a vested interest in the current technology and is concerned that the new technology will diminish the popularity of his or her prized, older technology. Griffith was a master of the silent movie. His skill in eliciting powerful reactions from the audience without resorting to spoken dialogue was legendary. This unique skill was the reason for his downfall. It distorted his intuition and prevented him from foreseeing the potential of the human voice in movies.

How is this example related to misguided intuition in market research? The situation bias is especially strong in manual interpretation of qualitative data. During such interpretation, the analyst shows a strong tendency to look for the familiar. Pat Bentley from Apple emphasizes this point: “When you analyze the respondents’ answers manually you look for repeats, things that sound important either because you heard them before or you’re looking for them yourself; therefore, they make sense to you.”

Do you want to observe your own situational bias? Go to http://www.computerintuition.com/Question1.htm and follow the instructions.

About the Author

Mike T. Davis, Ph.D., SCI, Rochester NY
We are the inventors of Computer Intuition?, a psycholinguistics based program that analyzes the language that people use. The program calculates the psychological intensity, or psytensity, of every idea found in the input, and “converts what people say into what people do”?. SCI’s clients include many Fortune 500 and smaller companies.

You have permission to publish this article in your ezine or on your website, free of charge, as long as the resource box is included. Please send a courtesy copy of your publication to claudette@metavoice.org.

Word Count: 499 words

Thanks,
Claudette Rowley
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Trust the Power of Your Intuition Claudette Rowley
Copyright 2004

Trust the Power of Your Intuition

“Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.” - Shakti Gawain

You have an important decision to make…your intuition is telling you one thing and your mind is advising another direction. You may have read about intuition or, heard people talk about the importance of following it, but still you hedge at taking the leap. What’s missing can be summed up in one word: TRUST.

What stops you from trusting your intuition?

- The Logical Mind - It’s not uncommon for logic to say “If it can’t be proven, seen, felt or heard, it’s hogwash. Give me facts, give me proof.”

- Social conditioning - Most of us aren’t raised in environments where our caretakers say, “Use that intuition! Really listen to it.”

- Doubt - Until we become attuned to the voice of our own intuition, we may harbor doubt. People often say to me, “I’m not sure if it’s my intuition or something else.”

- Inner critic/self-sabotage - Whenever you hear your inner wisdom, the inner critic is bound to pop up and offer its sabotaging opinion.

- You don’t like what your intuition tells you - Sometimes our intuition rings clear as a bell, and we don’t like what it says. For example: “You need to leave this job NOW.” Unless you have another job lined up or money in the bank, most of us would feel fear upon hearing that statement.

You might be thinking “I know I need to trust my intuition. But how do I do that?” Try out the steps below, in the order that intuitively feels right to you.

T - Talk to your intuition. Ask your intuition a question. Get in touch with it.
R - Rest your mind. Your mind can get in the way of hearing an intuitive insight. Give your self the space to clear your mind and listen to your inner messages. Spend time in nature, meditate, do yoga or something with a rhythm to it, like taking a shower, going for a walk, or listening to peaceful music.
U - Un-know. Let go of the need to know. You may understand your intuitive message, or it may ask you to leap into the unknown. It’s not important to understand the “why” or the result you’ll gain by taking action on your intuition. S - Suspend judgment. Intuition isn’t good or bad. It’s purely a message from your own inner wisdom. T - Take action. Until you take action on the messages you receive, your intuition can’t work its magic in your life.

Using your intuition will lead you in new directions and open a door that you might not have otherwise opened. Trusting your intuition is the key that unlocks the door, and acting on it allows you to walk through the doorway to a new opportunity. Trust your intuition and watch its power unfold.

Claudette Rowley, coach and author, helps professionals identify and pursue their true purpose and calling in life.
Contact her today for a complimentary consultation at 781-676-5633 or claudette@metavoice.org. Sign up for her free newsletter “Insights for the Savvy” at http://www.metavoice.org.

Mark sits at his desk with his eyes closed, pen in hand, apparently deep in thought. Or is he dozing? Actually, he’s about to take a crucial first step in winning a new account.

Holly is on her way to see a potential client when a flash of insight radically changes her strategy for the meeting. An hour later she has a contract for a six-figure account plus a substantial signing bonus.

Mark ponders and Holly has an ah-hah moment. Yet they’re both doing the same thing - they’re checking in with their intuition before making a sales call. Why? They’ve discovered that the insights and promptings they get from their “inner voices” can help them score more sales more easily than when they go it alone.

Make Intuition Your Ally - Intuition is the secret weapon of many successful sales leaders. Ask them about it, though, and they’re likely to describe it as “gut instinct.” Sound familiar? Of course it does, because whether you admit it or not, you’re highly likely to have experienced it yourself, and just as likely to have ignored its messages.

The fact is, everyone receives intuitive information. It’s both a gift and a skill, and the more you practice it the better you get at it. How does your intuition speak to you? Do you receive information in words, feelings, a flash of insight, a gut reaction? Do you simply just know? Roy Rowan, author of a study on intuition, said, “This feeling, this little whisper from deep inside your brain, may contain far more information - both facts and impressions - than you’re likely to obtain from hours of analyzing data.”

Ask Your Intuition Questions - My friend Mark, who you met at the beginning of this article, is a national sales leader in his industry. When I asked him how he explains his success he told me that before he meets with a client he asks his intuition a series of questions such as, “What do I need to know about this company?” “What is the best way to approach the decision maker?” “What should I know about who I’m competing against for this sale?” “What can I do to win this account?” He sits with pen in hand and quiets his thoughts. The answers come to him as he writes. Mark’s competition scratches their heads.

Keep Your “Inner Sales Person” Positive - Pay attention to what you tell yourself about your sales prospects and your life. If your “self-talk” is positive and optimistic your personal and business life will reflect that. Try a simple experiment. Close your eyes and say the following to yourself for about 30 seconds: “I’ll never get ahead. I’m not good at sales. I won’t make my quota this month.” How do you feel? Depressed? Demoralized? Hopeless?

Now do the same experiment and focus on these statements: “Things have a way of working out.” “I’m learning some new skills and things are beginning to change for me.” “Today I’ll take steps that will open up opportunities for more income.” Now how do you feel? Hopeful? Optimistic? More confident? When you’re in this state it’s much easier for you to be open to intuitive messages pointing you to avenues of increased prosperity.

Know Your Gut, Know Your Client - Successfully making the sale requires that you process hundreds of pieces of information subconsciously. You must develop and trust your ability to use your intuition to read between the lines. Do you press a client for the sale, or do you back off and wait? Are they motivated by the lowest price you can offer or is the quality of your product or service the prime impetus for buying from you? Many times, logic and analysis will provide that information. On other occasions, your gut feelings or instincts - your intuition - will provide the answers.

Use the Power of Silence - As any good salesperson will tell you, “Sometimes the best thing to do is ’shut up.’” But there are times when you also need to silence your mind to receive valuable intuitive insight. When you need help making a decision - pause - take a deep breath, reflect on the question and allow the intuitive impressions to come to you. Intuition is often described as “still and quiet.” It doesn’t usually answer in a big, booming voice. It is much subtler. Pay attention to any images you receive, words you hear, physical sensations you experience or emotions you feel. These are all ways that intuition will communicate with you. Write down any impressions you receive. Some people find that intuitive insights will pop into their mind immediately. For others, it may come later in the day when they least expect it.

Make Your Enthusiasm Work for You - Intuition often communicates its message through passion and excitement. The root of the word enthusiasm comes from the Greek, entheos. It literally means, “God within.” If a sales strategy or decision leaves you feeling drained or bored, that’s a clear message from your “inner guidance” saying, “Don’t go there.” Conversely, if you feel energized and enthusiastic, your intuition is giving you the green light to continue with your plan of action.

Envision Your Success - Spend time each day imagining your ideal life. Envision the details of that life. Imagine you are living it now. What are you wearing? What are you feeling? Who are the people around you? We are often quite clear about what we don’t want. The path to success comes from spending time thinking about what you do want. What does an ideal day, month or year look like to you? Being clear about what you want is often the first step in being able to create it. Successful people visualize their goals and dreams. Your intuition can help you achieve success when you know what you want to achieve.

Write it Down - Many people have great success receiving intuitive information through writing. This technique is similar to brainstorming. Write a series of questions about your choices. Suppose you have to make a decision to fill a position in your company. You might write, “If I hire Mary will the company’s sales increase?” “If I hire her will this be a positive choice? “What are her strengths?” “What are her weaknesses?” When you’ve completed your questions, write the answers quickly just as they come to you. Repeat your intuitive Q&A about each potential employee and then assess the results.

Take the time, make the sale - Be sure to set aside time to routinely check in with your intuition. It won’t be long before you’ll be experiencing faster, stronger and more accurate insights. Though intuition can be described as a secret weapon, there’s no big secret about how to use it. Follow the suggestions I’ve outlined above, and begin now to enjoy the rewards of this powerful competitive advantage.

2003 Lynn Robinson, M.Ed. All rights reserved in all media.
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Lynn Robinson is one of the nation’s leading experts on intuition. As a business advisor, she provides vital insights on goals, strategies and critical decisions. She is a best-selling author of three books, including Compass of the Soul. Lynn has appeared on Fox Cable News and in The New York Times, USA Today, Boston Globe and Boston Business Journal. Contact: 1-800-925-4002 or www.LynnRobinson.com.

“We need to be willing to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to
follow that guidance directly and fearlessly.” (Shakti Gawain)

One can wonder if intuition really exists, and?even more?whether it’s a reliable source for basing our decisions on. Haven’t you ever felt that something was the right thing to do, yet, hesitated to do it, because it would be such a drastic step in your life? Well, I’ve been there. The funny, or maybe sad, part of the story is, that it took me years before I dared to follow my intuition, and a few more years after that, before I got the conviction that my intuition had led me in the right direction. In the meantime I had spent a lot of energy struggling with the question whether I had made the correct decision, or whether I had just been paranoid.

The main reason for doubting ourselves is oftentimes simply because others ridicule our intuition. They may even tell us that we are insane for even considering the direction our intuition sends us. However, the only way we can find out is to do what WE think is best.
Definitions and Statements

Intuition is explained by the Concise Oxford Dictionary as, 1) Immediate apprehension by the mind without reasoning. 2) Immediate apprehension by a sense. 3) Immediate insight.

Increasingly, we notice that management- and leadership experts recommend us to practice more empathy in our leadership styles. This clearly entails the sensitive issue of feeling rather than thinking, right? It’s an encouragement to act with our hearts instead of our minds; to follow the “hunch,” the little voice within us that tells us what would be the right direction to go. Pollock (2002) suggests, “When you must weigh two or more ideas, the most productive approach is to give them an initial screening. This is usually based on a mixture of common sense, intuition, good judgment, imagination and, yes, some luck.”

Referring to the need for meaning at work among the workers of today, Whitehead (2002) exclaims, “? The trend towards imagination and creativity is more than the latest hype from the management consultancies. [?] It reflects a growing realization of how the world actually works. It’s a world [?], not only of facts and figures, but of intuition, hunch and gut instinct.” Whitehead continues, “A huge amount of decision-making is not about weighing up the facts and figures, but following a hunch about what you think will happen.”

In an article about successful investors, Sykes (2002) pulls the intuition issue even further by stating, “Intuition. It’s what separates the men from the boys, or shall I say, the women from the girls? Either way, intuition is vital in decision [-making]?”

A good example of this philosophy is given by Tazzia (2001) when he discusses his findings about “the skills that top marketing officers of the future will need,” thereby listing them as follows, “1. Strategic vision and strategic process, 2. Intuition and the ability to react, 3. Creative development and innovation, 4. Desire for accountability, and 5. An action orientation.” When elaborating on point 2, Tazzia concludes, “The world is too complex and moving too fast for classic analytical tools to cope. You can’t wait to gather all the data, and even if you could, the data would change before you could react.” He then continues, “Can intuition be taught? Not in the opinion of our panel. But it can be killed early in a young manager’s career. Intuition demands that people trust their judgment, take risks. If companies hammer a young manager for a market failure, will he or she ever take a risk again? What you can teach these young people is how to mitigate risks, how to cover their bets. That would be valuable.”

This is exactly what Michael Burke may have meant when he stated, “Good instincts usually tell you what to do before your head has figured it out.” Embroidering on this theme, it may very well be that we are using our intuition all the time, and in everything we do, especially if we consider the following statement: “Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses.” (Unknown Source) An interesting development these days is that not only people are using intuition as a strategic management tool. Entire organizations do so as well. Murphy (2002), for instance, sums up the successful approach of a business by stating, “With the right tools and a little intuition, organizations can increase profitability by leveraging customer information to anticipate customers’ needs and influence their behavior.”

Nevertheless, not everybody perceives intuition as a reliable source for decision-making. Suutari (2001), for example, allots it a fairly ambivalent status by asserting, “Time constraints, among other factors, force [a] manager to make a plethora of decisions based primarily on an existing knowledge base, experience and even intuition.” Suutari continues somewhat further in his article, “Experience, (and its cousin, intuition) provide a basis of reference as to what has or has not worked before. However, experience is only valid if the fundamental circumstances are similar. Experience can play a role in decisions in all modes, resulting in a tendency to repeat a specific action until it fails.”

Now this is exactly the part where I don’t agree with this author’s point of view, because I find it hard to see experience and intuition as two related subjects. On the contrary! While experience is based on past occurrences, intuition is more of a guiding sensation into taking the most viable “leap in the dark,” whereby “the dark” is obviously the unknown. But then again, there’s a quote by Dr. Joyce Brothers that says, “Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.” So, who knows, maybe intuition IS based on experiences, if not from this life, perhaps from previous ones?if you believe in reincarnation??

Interestingly?and seemingly contradicting?McDonalds (2002) comes up with a broad, lyrical range of definitions in which he clearly detaches intuition from any sort of experience: “Intuition. The ability to see any event, any object from a viewpoint of the cosmic whole, from it’s culmination - the seed, the flower, the fruit in relation to the whole. The knowing of something without prior knowledge or the use of reason.” McDonalds (2002) emphasizes the increasing recognition given to intuition by citing the following statement from Intuition Magazine Online, “In recent years, the subject of intuition has emerged from obscurity. Intuition is increasingly recognized as a natural mental faculty, a key element in the creative process, a means of discovery, problem solving, and decision-making. Once considered the province of a gifted few, it is now recognized as an innate capacity available to everyone not a rare, accidental talent, but a natural skill anyone can cultivate. A key ingredient in what we call genius, it is also an important tool when applied to everyday life.”
Personal Thoughts and Suggestions

Having done some reflective thinking, I came up with the following cycle:

The more we eliminate confusing rustle in our lives, the more we become focused. The more we become focused, the better we understand ourselves. The better we understand ourselves, the more intense we live. The more intense we live, the better we hear our inner voice. The better we hear our inner voice, the more empathic we can listen to it. The more empathic we can listen to our inner voice, the more determined we become, for it’s then that we know we hear the right thing? and do it.

Here’s some other food for thought:

1. Use all the knowledge you gained through school- and street education, but never underestimate the feeling you get when making a certain decision. If it doesn’t feel good, reconsider, for if you don’t, 9 times out of 10 the outcome will be unfavorable.
2. No matter how convincing others’ arguments toward the opposite are, if your intuition has been pushing you in a certain direction for quite a while, and you have given it sufficient consideration, go for it. In the end you’ll find you did the right thing. Remember, you’ll never fully fathom others’ motives, but you DO know yours.
3. Once you’ve taken a decision based on your gut feeling, work on it! Even the most excellent project or the most blissful idea can go wrong if you don’t invest time and effort in it. And how easy will it then be for the negativists around you to rub “the failure of your intuition” in your face?

Finalizing: Intuition is a powerful guiding tool in every area of our life if we just care to give it a chance. The value of following one’s intuition can be concluded from Albert Einstein’s proclamation, “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” And finally, it may very well be the immortal Ralph Waldo Emerson, who stated the most dynamic conviction about the power of intuition when he said, “If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.”

References:

Diverse. (1999). Intuition, [Internet]. Cyber Nation [2002, April 6].

Higher Awareness, I. (1999). Intuition and Awareness. Higher
Awareness, Inc. Available: http://www.higherawareness.com/awarenessandintuition.shtml [2002, April 6].

Macdonald, I. A. (2002, February 27, 2002). Intuition…Awaken the Journey Within, [Internet]. Iain A. Macdonald. Available: http://intuition2vishnu.homestead.com/ [2002, April 6].

Murphy, D. (2002). Predictive analytics as the proverbial early bird. Customer Inter@Ction Solutions, 20(7), 26-27.

Pollock, T. (2002). Mind your own business. Supervision, 63(3), 17-19.

Suutari, R. (2001). Playing the decision-making game. CMA Management, 75(7), 14-17.

Sykes, T. A. (2002). Investing 301: Part 3. Black Enterprise, 32(6), 65-67.

Tazzia, E. (2001). Nurturing your natural talents. Advertising Age, 72(44), 20.

Whitehead, M. (2002). Passion at a premium. Supply Management, 7(4), 20-24.

I have always been aware of the voices inside my head. More so now that I know what to listen for, but theyve always been in my awareness.

You know the ones I mean. Firstly theres the chatterbox. Its the one that says thing like, Dont be ridiculous, how will you manage a project? or Who wants to get up early to go and meditate on a Sunday? Stay in bed a little longer, you deserve it or I wouldnt even try test-driving that huge car. Youll never be able to handle it!

Its the voice that constantly nags at the back of your mind.

Then theres the voice that tells you to do something and keeps at you til you do. You know the voice that says Cmon, you love to act, go and try out for that community play, or Theres someone following you, go into a store or Get up and do your meditation because the benefits youll gain far outweigh lounging around in bed when youve had your 8 hours of sleep.

The difference between these two voices is profound.

The first one is the culmination of years of negative programming. It is the voice of the sub conscious trying to protect its picture of how your life should be.

The second voice is the voice of intuition. It is also known as the sixth sense and is one of our amazing senses, as well as our pathway to connect with the Universe. It has been said that if Prayer is our way of speaking to God, then Intuition is His way of speaking to us.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

So, that means that every time we have had that funny feeling where the hairs on the back of our necks stand on end, or we get a flash that leads us in a certain direction, God is talking to us? I believe, that it most certainly is.

A friend I worked with told me an astounding story.

She was sitting at work one day when she got a blinding flash in her head. In those couple of seconds she saw a truck smash into the drivers side of her husbands car and crush him to death. She said she was so charged that she screamed to him to move over to the passenger side. When the phone rang later and the police told her that her husband had been in an accident but was miraculously unhurt, she rushed over to the hospital. When she got there he told her about what had happened. He had been waiting for the lights to change and all of a sudden her face had appeared in front of him, screaming to him to move to the passenger side of the car. He said the look on her face was so compelling that he shifted immediately. As he did, the truck ploughed into the seat that hed just left. The Police said he would have died instantly.

That is the power of tuning in, acknowledging and recognizing your Intuitive capabilities. When God sends you the things you need, to get your life going in the direction you want to go, hell whisper them softly in your ear. They’ll stay with you and keep on whispering until you act on them. You just need to learn to listen.

Open your heart to your Intuition and listen for its quiet prompts. When you feel that you want to make beautiful pottery all day long and not be a corporate banker, have the courage to do what your heart is telling you that you love to do and know that everything will always be all right, because God is with you.

Discover your Inspiration by listening to your Intuition.

Lisa van den Berg is the author of Alleviate Stress How to WIN at the Game of Life! Get your copy now at http://www.Alleviate-Stress.com/web/ar7 Learn how to live the Life of your dreams by subscribing to Lisas weekly e-zine Empower Your Life! at http://www.TheAlternativeRookie.com, today!