| What is instinct? What is intuition? Let's explore them | | | | in a powerful sense, a guide to our becoming whole |
| one at a time. | | | | and real. I mean here not 'real' in terms of scientific |
| I encourage you to close your eyes for a moment ... | | | | real of see, hear, touch. I mean real in terms of |
| Turn of any unnecessary sound in your immediate | | | | authentic, truthful, fully embodying one's heart and |
| environment, perhaps even dim the lights. Relax your | | | | soul. |
| body, allowing it to sink with its true weight into the | | | | I was once shown, in a meditative experience, how |
| chair in which you are seated. Take a deep, slow | | | | intuition 'works'. How it always seems to know the |
| breath. | | | | best way, the richest way, the most |
| As you learn to meditate with openness to what you | | | | growth-oriented way, the 'path of least resistance |
| discover, with inquisitiveness as to the true nature of | | | | and greatest gain'. It went like this ... |
| reality within, you will be able to tap into your felt | | | | Imagine that you are above the earth, in an airplane |
| sense of what instinct - and intuition - and many | | | | perhaps, or a hot air balloon. You are flying over land, |
| other inner states and capacities, are. | | | | with water flowing and meandering through it. |
| Let's begin with instinct. Instinct is an inner warning, a | | | | From this vantage you are able to see an object, or |
| signal. It arises from within in response to a stimulus | | | | an idea or a possibility. For ease of understanding you |
| or a situation without. It is your higher mind's, or your | | | | might think of an idea or a possibility as an object. |
| deeper wisdom's, way of telling you that there is | | | | You can see, from this vantage, where the object is |
| danger, real and true, imminently near to you. Your | | | | relative to the bigger picture - the world around it. |
| instinct directs both your attention to the danger and | | | | You can see the obstacles near and far from it. And |
| your action. | | | | you can see the pathways of potential flow. |
| When the instinct is awake - or rather when you are | | | | Unhindered, energy always flows. Sometimes this is |
| awake to your instinct - you immediately hear this | | | | swift, other times it is nearly impreceptible. Yet |
| message and receive it. You might 'hear' it as a | | | | energy is always in flow. To be alive is to be in flow. |
| strong surge of energy in your body. Or as a sudden | | | | Intuition is like our own birds' eye view, embodied. It |
| alertness to a specific stimuli, focusing in from the | | | | is the voice of that birds' eye viewer, speaking to us |
| abstract or 'large view' to the very precise. Or you | | | | from where we can hear it most intimately - within. |
| may 'hear' it as a sudden sense of what to do, in this | | | | Intuition is the process, or voice, or mechanism, |
| moment, now. | | | | which guides and directs us to where and how we |
| Instincts are about survival. They are the internal | | | | can flow. It guides us around the obstacles. It gives |
| mechanism of alerting us to the perils and dangers to | | | | us a sense of options, of choices. It shows us where |
| our survival. Cutting ourselves off from and | | | | we, as energy, can flow. |
| disregarding the signals of our instinct, we become | | | | If you are a follower of your intuition you will know |
| numb to the real and present dangers which threaten | | | | that it always leads you to opportunities - never to |
| our very existence - physical, emotional, mental, and | | | | dead ends. It always leads you to personal growth - |
| psychic. | | | | it never banks on what you've already done, already |
| Intuition is different than instinct. It is not about | | | | learned, without naturally stretching you to discover |
| danger, about survival. It is about thrival. Where | | | | and to know more of your Self. |
| instinct is a sudden, sharp, not-to-be-denied message | | | | Intuition leads us to expansion, yet in a very organic |
| of danger and what to do about it, intuition is a fluid | | | | and natural way. It is not the mind dreaming, or |
| message. In fact, intuition is precisely about flow. | | | | planning. It is the inner wisdom leading us to our own |
| The purpose of intuition is to lead us, to guide us, to | | | | next step. |
| self-actualization - the process of becoming all that | | | | - Excerpt from "Awakening Instinct - Running the |
| we essentially are and nothing that we are not. It is, | | | | Gauntlet - Windows Through Time" by Ariole K. |