Trusting your intuitive abilities is a pay as you go situation. You build a process by listening to your intuition. You build experience and confidence in your abilities by trusting them. This is not like a college course with a syllabus and set of requirements laid out for your tuition payment. In trusting your intuition you do not use your analytic mind, but you use "receptive mind." Receptive mind (playful mind) opens to an awareness and understanding which actually far surpasses analytic mind in its openness and trusting belief in a goodness which upholds and sustains the universe as well as  our very lives. Receptive mind is the closest we come to comprehending what was at work when the universe began and what brings the sun up every day. Receptive mind makes space for that which has no space and clarifies our position in the world and the life-world we create. Receptive mind speaks through symbols,imagination,  word play and a thousand other ways. Developing your intuition is a process of trusting and nurturing your receptive mind, and that is a pay as you go situation. Receptive mind is patiently waiting for an invitation into your life.  Insight and imagination are within you.

Simone Weil was a French philosopher and social activist who, in her journals and other writings, speaks of the importance of beauty. "We need some every day," she writes.

 

How much significance do you give to beauty in your life? We are not speaking of cosmetics or cultural definitions of beauty, but of what you yourself identify as and find beautiful. Simone Weil believed that beauty is every bit as important to the spirit and soul as food is to the body.

 

Beauty has a nurturing and nourishing capacity as well as the ability to shift our awareness and our perception. Recognize your responses to what is beautiful and give it more space and appreciation in your life. Insight and imagination are within you.

What is a day but an opportunity? What is a life but an opportunity? What is a moment but an opportunity? What will you do with your day, your life and your moment? Listen carefully to your heart and your feelings and give yourself the opportunity to really hear yourself--your enthusiasms, your wishes, your dreams. Make time each moment to open to what is going on in those areas.

 

You have unlimited opportunities and unlimited possibilities to realize your dreams. Can you give them an opportunity to materialize in your consciousness? It is often a matter of attitude.  A young boy from Harlem spoke to a professor of a nearby university who was studying urban life and told him how he made it in this complex and challenging environment: "Attitude is latitude." He said.

 

You have an opportunity to make an attitude adjustment to something more positive every moment, every day and every lifetime. Think about that. A lifetime of opportunity.  Insight and imagination are within you.

So often our thought process interferes with our feelings and we have a difficult time "trusting our heart." Gradually over time we tend to dismiss our feelings, telling ourselves that this is a difficult and challenging world and we have to "be tough." We hear that "good 'guys' finish last" and we interact with others from a defensive standpoint.  In the process we close our hearts and turn from our truest feelings and nature. We miss a vital resource in the process. Learning to recognize when you are shutting down from your heart center and when you are opening it is a major accomplishment.

 

How do you learn to trust your heart? Notice feelings of joy, bliss, happiness, satisfaction and then realize what situation or mindset created them. Learn to value those feelings as compensation for experiences you may now take for granted. They are openings you may want to pursue in terms of your interest, your spiritual development, and they may actually tell you what your heart desires in all of its innocence and purity. Trust your heart. Insight and imagination are within you.

Reading between the lines suggests knowing that there more information and knowledge available than what is written. Intuitive understanding or knowing is like reading between the lines of what is present. We are more than our bodies and brains, and our senses and our spirit also provide knowledge and information we can gain access to by endorsing their value and presence in our lives. There is more there than you think there is. That is an accurate statement.

 

Begin to look between the lines. Notice what you are not noticing. Become aware of your own restrictions and perspective. Open to what is waiting for you merely to recognize and appreciate. Insight and imagination are within you.

The Buddhist Monk, Thich Nhat Han, talks of the busy disarray and distractions of our minds in a helpful way. He likens our overactive minds and souls to that of apple juice, with particles swirling about continuously. He suggests that when we become still of body and mind, such as in the practice of meditation, we allow the particles (thoughts) to settle down, and then our minds and bodies, like the apple juice, become clear and peaceful.  Insight and imagination have the opportunity to present themselves in this clear and peaceful state.  So, settle down.  Become the limpid, refreshing and clear apple juice when ever you would like to return to a more natural state of your being.

Our consciousness is so complex that we can place our awareness in more than many thousands of places. The mind is like a camera lens, focussing on minute detail or wide vistas expanding through space. The mind can be aware of universes within as well as outside our physical form, and so it requires respect and nurturing in its use and guidance in its choices. The Buddhists speak of consciousness as the "silent witness" which watches where our mind moves, and Buddhism invites us to cultivate our awareness of the silent witness as we watch our mind select different areas of focus. This recognition allows us  with practice and attention, to learn to "mind" our mind, and guide it in directions we choose more thoughtfully and more consciously. Today you are invited to notice where your mind goes; to watch its inclinations and choices. You're awareness is a vast resource for your own development and understanding of your own life and all that is. Insight and imagination are always within you.

Many years ago when friends greeted one another, the standard greeting was, "How Be Ye?" That quaint expression has long since been replaced by some version of "How're You Doing?" It is rare for someone to ask, "How Are You?" perhaps just because one hopes the responder will answer with a simple "Fine, thanks" and not truly and thoughtfully review one's life and present a detailed account of all the challenges he/she facing at the moment. We just don't have the time to listen to that kind of detail, and so its more interesting to focus on what's "going on" or "what's doing." We have become such busy creatures of doing that we have nearly eclipsed our "being" selves. And we look to accomplish so much in our day, our resolution filled year, and our life that we in fact miss the being-ness, the very essence of our life. There is a ring of respect, appreciation and life affirmation in the old expression, "How Be Ye?" and it invites us back to the fact that before doing anything, we are humans of being. In that beingness lies our truth."How Be Ye?"

Could there be any lesson more useful than learning to listen carefully? When studying Qi Gong some years ago my teacher suggested listening to one's self deeply. Part of listening to oneself, this teacher continued, is listening deeply to all living things. He suggested that we need to listen so well that we can hear the roots of trees drinking water from the underground tributaries. How much better could one listen than this?  If we listened this well to the words, expressions, body language, spirit and energies of ourselves, and others, we would more naturally be attuned to intuitive understandings and insights. We might also feel the energy of the universe moving through all that is. Joseph Rael also invites us to tone the vowels, for the sound of each carries a different energy and life. Dwell on each vowel separately as you would tone the "Ohm" and experience the energy.  Tibetan bowls carry wonderfully rich overtones. Listen carefully and experience the variety of energies the universe contains.

Working out at a fitness club is not like working out in the intuitive/insight gym.  When you want to develop your intuitive abilities you do not select a particular place or time to "exercise" your sense of things at a feeling level. Developing your intuitive ability is something you carry with you at all times. You do not need a particular setting or kind of equipment to allow it to develop.

 

Begin by giving more acknowledgement to your feelings. This is not to say your emotions, which are different from your feelings. Your feelings are a way of understanding your own spirit's desires, whereas your emotions are struggles and defenses your ego makes important. You have to get beyond these petty struggles to the basic feelings of joy, happiness, and peace which are your natural state and condition. Take note of the feelings you have when you are participating with different activities and groups. What gives you a sense of joy and peace? Take note of that. This attentiveness to feelings rather than emotions is important in the intuitive awareness you are seeing to develop. Do not try to over-rule the emotions you may be experiencing...just come to realize that there is a difference between feelings and emotions.  Practice this awareness and develop your ability to sense the difference between them.  Any time, anywhere.

This is the beginning of insight.

What would it take to make the most of your life? Have you ever considered that question before? What would it take to live up to everything you are? What would it mean to have the kind of daily life that felt so positive that you looked forward to every moment with not just good energy but joyous exhuberance?

 

It is good to take account of your enthusiasm and energy bank account occasionally. Are you deficient in those funds? Are you over-extended; in need of a loan in the energy bank? What would it take to build some new reserves on which you could draw at the present or some future time? Are you allowing yourself the personal and professional time to develop and build those resources? You can consciously begin to work toward a good reserve and bank account of positive energy/enthusiasm if you consider it worthwhile. Begin by doing one thing a day which makes you enthusiastic and joyful.  If you can't imagine what that would be, then pay attention to your responses during the day to notice when your energy lifts and you feel a rush of fresh enthusiasm. Note that event and then consciously and deliberately bring more like it into your life on a daily basis.  Making the most of your life isn't something defined by others. You define your life by the good energy you are bringing into it. Make the most of your day today. Enjoy your life!

Too often we critically analyze situations about which we should merely explore our feelings . We tend to want to dissect every circumstance with our minds rather than to follow our heart or our instincts about them. Learning to open our awareness to our feelings can be a challenging experience, but without doing so we are dismissing a critical tool for information about our own interests and truths. Coming into the awareness that we are more than our minds can take practice. Some never arrive at the point of trusting feelings, but those who do have discovered they rarely lie, and that they are a good and trustworthy guide for giving direction. You may have to practice the development of trust for your feelings. You have more resources available than you allow to give you guidance. Once you have opened to the possibility that you have something to learn from yourself, you no longer need to search your mind, to make lists of a particular items benefits and/or detriments, though you may still wish do so.  Trusting your feelings opens new doors and windows to knowledge, to happiness and to new insights about yourself and others. Trust your feelings.

What during your lifetime have you done with your time and space on this earth? Have you accomplished more than you imagine? Have you tested your limits and your beliefs about who you are and what you give to the world? Have you taken the time to notice what kind of friends, and what sort of beauty you have brought into your life and into your space? Give yourself some time to reconsider what is really important to you and begin to map out some of the ways you may be able to begin moving toward what really matters to you. Awareness is always available if you only allow it to develop.  You have to make a time for it...you have to value it...and you have to bring it into your space. Becoming aware is a practice you can begin today but you must make a time for it and you must make space for it.