JANELLE THIESSEN [00:00:01]:
In today's episode of The Human Being Project, we're talking about intuition, what it feels like and how to trust it. We'll explore the difference between intuition and logic and the challenge of distinguishing between intuition and fear, which is a tricky one for me, as you'll see. We also talk about experimenting with your intuition by acting on your intuitive impulses and then observing the outcomes. This is a great way to build trust in your intuition. But I'm not going to lie, intuition can be elusive and not always confirmed or validated. That's why it's important to stay open and be patient with the unfolding of your intuitive decisions and to trust them, even if the outcomes or the validation come at a later time or in some cases, not at all.
RON THIESSEN [00:00:52]:
Hey, it's Ron Thiessen. Welcome to another episode of The Human Being Project by the Change Evolutionist, where my daughter Janelle and I explore the difference between being and doing.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:01:03]:
In a world of constant distractions, sky high expectations, and the relentless pursuit of more, we examine what would happen if we made space for more being and less doing.
RON THIESSEN [00:01:17]:
In the book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell talks about intuition. And he talks about how the research has shown that intuition is something that, it sparks from your animal brain, and the feelings of intuition are routed through your gut. And what Gladwell brings out is that your animal brain has the capacity to process information that goes back for all of your existence and it processes it in split second. And if it doesn't have to route through your executive functioning center at the front of your brain, it means that some of the information that you get is much more accurate than after you've thought it through.
So there's a big difference kind of between logic and intuition. Intuition often will tell you things that you should do that are not related to what seems to be the right thing to do or what seems to be the natural thing to do. But sometimes your intuition will tell you to do something that's just completely different.
I have another quote from Carlos Castaneda and I just want to read that in preparation here. He said in his book The Power of Silence, he said, "Silent knowledge is something that all of us have." And for me, as I read in the context of what he was saying, silent knowledge is this intuition that we're talking about.
"Silent knowledge is something that all of us have, something that has complete mastery, complete knowledge of everything, but it cannot think, therefore it cannot speak of what it knows."
This is so interesting because when you start talking about intuition, it's a great topic to talk about, but to describe how and why and where and when, it becomes extremely difficult because it's not something you can put into a word box. It has everything to do with a feeling that you have.
So he goes on to say, Man has given up silent knowledge for the world of reason. The more he clings to the world of reason, the more ephemeral intent becomes."
Ephemeral means it's something that you can't grasp. You can't really get a handle on it. You don't know. It's elusive. And so the more that we listen to reason, the less intuition makes sense. And so it's not that we need to not be thinking logically and not be thinking with our brains. That's not the point. But the point is that our brain should be subject to who we are internally rather than our brain controlling everything that we do, think, and say. Does that make sense to you?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:04:07]:
Yeah, that makes sense to me. But again, it's really difficult to know when you're listening to your intuition or when you're listening to fear. Those two are hard for me to differentiate. Sometimes I think I have a feeling about something and then I think, well is that just fear talking? How do you know the difference between fear and intuition?
RON THIESSEN [00:04:27]:
Well if you have not fed your intuition or listened to your intuition, then you probably won't know. So once again we go back to my thing about experiments. That the best thing to do is to conduct experiments. When you feel something, you feel an intuitive something that you think, I don't know if this fear, I don't know if it's intuition or whatever, act on it and see what happens.
Because when you act on it, it'll readily become clear whether it was intuition or not. And the more that you pay attention to it, I think intuition is a lot like conscience. If your conscience, you have certain values and certain things that you believe, if you violate your conscience, you go against what your conscience tells you that you should do, it feels really bad. It feels like, oh that was such a bad thing to do. But the next time the opportunity comes around, if you take the opportunity again, it doesn't feel as bad. And then the next time it feels not even as bad as that. And then before you know it you're doing it without even thinking about the consequences or whether it's part of your values or anything. The voice of your conscience in that particular thing has become dulled because you didn't listen to it right. And it's not going to keep hounding you, it will just go silent.
And intuition is exactly like that. If you think about maybe when you were younger you had some intuitive thoughts or something that you just thought this is a crazy thing, but I'm just going to do it. And you ended up having a lot of fun or it was just a really good experience. But if you thought about that same thing today in your adult body, you'd go like, I wouldn't even consider doing that! No way would I do that!
But that's probably because you've trained yourself not to listen to your intuition as much and listen to your logic more. And so when you do that, then there are lots of opportunities that can pass you by because you're not going to take the risk of saying, is this intuition or is this something else?
So for me, if I'm talking to someone about listening to their intuition, I would really encourage them to just do experiments. You get a flash of a thought of something that you could do that's out of the ordinary or something that you want to say that's out of the ordinary, whatever. And you think, but I think that's the right thing to do right now, then just test it. Go ahead and do it and see what happens.
And the thing is that if you start listening to your intuition or you start cultivating hearing your intuition, you'll hear it more and more and more. And the more that you hear it, the more that you'll see that your intuition, if you know how to read it and how to understand it, it will never lead you wrong. Because it has a way of being able to process much more information than what we can just gather with our eyes, with our ears, with just what we're looking at, what we can see in three dimensions. It has the capability to capture much more than that.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:07:36]:
Don't you think that intuition is a hard thing to experiment with in the sense that you could go with your gut, you could follow your instinct, like in the context of what you just said, if you feel the need to say something maybe and your logical mind says, well, maybe it's not appropriate, but I just feel like I should say something - maybe in that moment you won't have confirmation that your intuition was right. Maybe there would be some pushback or maybe somebody would take offense or maybe it would trigger someone but they needed it and your intuition was right because later down the road it served them or it served you or it served the situation. So you maybe don't get confirmation and instead what you get is actually confirmation that your intuition was way off because somebody reacted or it didn't sit well or whatever. So in that sense, how do you conduct an experiment and know that you went with your intuition and yes, it was a successful thing. Maybe it's not as black and white as that.
RON THIESSEN [00:08:34]:
Yeah, well, I think you raise a really important point because then that means that you just need to stay open because some of these things you won't hear until it's down the road.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:08:45]:
Or ever.
RON THIESSEN [00:08:45]:
Or sometimes ever. Sometimes it could be a thing as big as, like I'm just thinking of your son, my grandson Sol, choosing where he's going to go to university for his masters. Like he might think intuitively, I think this would be the best place for me to go, but it might be a big risk or it might be a big cost. And he probably would not know whether that was the correct intuitive response or the best intuitive response until years down the road.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:09:14]:
Right.
RON THIESSEN [00:09:14]:
Right? And he may be looking back...it's just like me, when I went to university. For sure my intuition was telling me to go, but I was terrified to go. So I delayed the whole process by a whole semester because I waited until the deadline was passed before I submitted my application. Because in my mind, I thought, well they're going to turn me down. And so then the answer is done already. But as it was, I got accepted. But I got accepted a semester later.
Now, when I look back on it, I say, well, was that ever my intuition! Because if I hadn't done that, my life would look very, very different today. So I'm looking twenty, twenty-five years ago, and for sure, I see the benefits. I've seen the benefits for quite a few years already. But the depth of the benefit, I didn't see for quite a few years after I made that decision. Sometimes you just have to go with that and say, I just have a feeling this is the right thing to do. At some point, I have to make the decision to move, to act.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:10:16]:
Is there a way that you can maybe...like, you and I, we're both spiritual beings. We call ourselves spiritual beings having a human experience. And so for others in the same boat as us who have the same awareness or belief system or whatever, is there a way that you could ask for confirmation when you feel an intuitive pull to do something or to say something or to make some sort of decision that you could ask for confirmation? Is that like too hinky? Is that trying to control a force that's bigger than you?
Because sometimes I do that, I feel an intuitive pull, let's say, to do this thing. I don't want to. It's out of my comfort zone. I'm afraid. But the opportunity has presented itself. So one could argue that the opportunity itself is the sign that you should do it. But like you, you tried to thwart the opportunity to go to university because you didn't want to. And yet somehow, even though you shouldn't have been able to get in, you still got in, right? Because you missed the deadline or whatever. So in ways like that, can you ask for confirmation when you're first learning how to trust your intuition?
RON THIESSEN [00:11:29]:
Absolutely. We've talked about this before in terms of spirituality, how do you connect with your spirituality? So I think you're talking about exactly the same three ways that I've talked about before that I know of, to connect with your spirituality. And that's with prayer, meditation, and mindfulness.
So you could use any of those three to say, I have a decision to make. I'm not sure exactly what I should do, so I need some sort of guidance, or I need some sort of confirmation, or I need some sort of affirmation that I'm doing the right thing. So if that's prayer, that's kind of like what you were talking about, to acknowledge that there's a higher power, and you need wisdom from that higher power to know, am I making the right decision right now? You can do that through prayer.
Meditation, you can say, if you take the options or the alternatives, I can do this or I can stay with what I'm doing, or I can do something different. So there might be options that you're facing, and you think intuitively, I feel like this is the best one. So to take that into your meditation time and say, what are the pros and cons? What are the benefits and the drawbacks of this particular decision?
And for mindfulness, when you're going internally and you're investigating what's going on inside of you...actually, if you're in a mindful place, it's usually fairly clear to determine what is fear and what is opportunity.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:12:57]:
Why? How is it clear?
RON THIESSEN [00:12:58]:
Because when you're attuning into what you actually feel inside, it becomes more evident. You can face a situation, you can have fear about it, and you just go, no, I'm panicking. But if you're in a mindful place, you can determine what is anxiety and what is the excitement of doing something different. At least I find it very easy to be able to determine that, am I anxious about this or am I just considering the alternatives or weighing the risk?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:13:35]:
How do you personally define intuition? Does it play a significant role in your decision making? Have you ever experienced a situation where your intuition told you to do something, but your logical mind was hesitant or extremely resistant?
And what about spirituality? Is there an intersection between intuition and spirituality? Like, is it possible to seek confirmation or guidance from a higher power when you're making an intuitive decision?
Let's talk about it in the community chat! You can find the link in the show notes.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:14:12]:
Okay, here's an example that I would love to know what you would do in this situation.
RON THIESSEN [00:14:17]:
Okay.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:14:18]:
Because I have sometimes had an instinct like, if my husband walks out that door, he is a goner. There's going to be an accident at work today. I feel like something bad is going to happen. And, what do I do with that? If I say to my husband, babe, don't leave. I just have this feeling a crane is going to fall on you today. He's going to look at me like I'm absolutely crazy!
And also, I'm obviously afraid, right? I'm afraid that something will befall him. So I guess, would you say that if you're feeling fear, if you stopped and paused and asked yourself, okay, I have this intuitive feeling, something in my gut tells me something is awry. Either something's going to happen to him or whatever. So do you ask yourself is this coming from a place of fear or is this coming from somewhere else? Like wouldn't you say that almost always, if it's fear-based like that, it's probably not intuition?
RON THIESSEN [00:15:24]:
I would give you a qualified yes on that because your intuition may forewarn you about things that would be painful or catastrophic or whatever, but your intuition will always give you solutions, not like panic. Okay, so if you're looking at this thing that you're talking about, if that's a chronic thing that you think, oh, I think maybe something's going to happen today. So I'm not saying it happens every day, but every once in a while you get that, oh, I think something bad is going to happen today, and you can identify it as, this is a fear thought, right? I've had this thought before, this is a fear thought.
But if it was intuition, your intuition would be prodding you, especially if you know how to listen to it, it would be prodding you. No, today you need to do something about that. Today he needs to change his schedule. Or you just know, you've got this gut feeling that something is not right today. And it would be quite strong. It wouldn't be like that feeling like, oh, I'm just afraid that if he goes out today, something bad is going to happen.
Your intuition is, if you know how to listen to it, it keeps prodding. It's not just a thought that produces anxiety. And if it's your intuition speaking, it's going to be speaking to you about solutions, not just bury your head in the sand and panic.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:16:46]:
But what if your intuitive response is, the solution is, I make sure he doesn't go to work today?
(Both laughing)
One could argue that's a solution. I will pile drive him before he hits the door. Wait, now I'm the cause of his demise? Oh.
(Both laughing)
RON THIESSEN [00:17:09]:
Well, it's actually a really good question. I can just tell you from knowing how intuition speaks to me. Although I've never been a person who has had a lot of fear, so I can't really say...I've never had sort of the fear that paralyzes that I can recall. I mean, maybe it's happened.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:17:30]:
You're not a mother or a woman. (giggling)
RON THIESSEN [00:17:34]:
Yeah, yeah I'm sure. Hm. Interesting thought process there.
But anyway, so your intuition is a calm voice. Maybe I could put it that way. Your intuition is a calm voice. It's not a panic voice - you got to do something, you got to do something, you got to do it now! It's like your intuition, if you need to do something and you need to do something now, it's going to tell you, you need to move now. But not with this panic kind of, if you don't move now, all is lost.
I guess for me to say that intuition will always be offering you solutions in a very calm and assuring kind of way. Because your intuition, it can foresee the outcome and so it just knows something needs to be done, and so this is what you should do. And it's a very calm, I don't know, it's a calm voice. I don't know any other way...
See, you know exactly what we're running into right now is we're talking about intuition, and we're trying to put words to it. And it's exactly what Castaneda said. "It cannot think, therefore it cannot speak of what it knows." How can you describe what intuition feels like in words when it's not about words? It's about that inner knowing.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:18:58]:
I think maybe an important part of it is that it really only has to do with you. In the sense that, like, for example, using the same context of Kev's going to go out to work, maybe something would happen to him, I feel sick about it. But my intuition probably isn't going to lead me to do something about somebody else's welfare. That's going to be his own intuition that would lead him there,
RON THIESSEN [00:19:24]:
Right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:19:24]:
That would lead him to avoid a scenario that would cause him harm.
So maybe intuition is more of a very personal thing. So if it's related to your life or decision you're making about your future or a decision you're making about your present, it's your inner wisdom that guides you towards choices that relate solely to you. Because really, can we control other people's choices? Not really.
RON THIESSEN [00:19:49]:
No, but on the other hand, sometimes you might intuitively know that you need to step in and help someone so that they can avoid something that would be painful or harmful to them, you know? But I think being able to identify the difference between the panic and anxiety of fear and the calmness of intuition...because your intuition is managing the situation well, the fear is saying it's out of control.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:20:20]:
Okay, so it's a panic response versus, like, a nudge. Your intuition might be more of a nudge?
RON THIESSEN [00:20:26]:
Ah, that's a good way to put it!
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:20:28]:
Okay.
RON THIESSEN [00:20:28]:
Yeah, a nudge.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:20:30]:
That makes sense. So it is true that if you are feeling that fear, panic, sort of hyperventilating, anxiety-inducing, oh my gosh, my gut is telling me - that it's probably, fear is telling you.
RON THIESSEN [00:20:41]:
Yes, yeah.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:20:42]:
And not likely an intuitive response. Okay.
RON THIESSEN [00:20:44]:
Right. So there's two things at work here. One is that intuition, it's almost impossible to put into words. And the other is that, I guess I'm so accustomed to listening to my intuition, it's not like I can tell you, okay, this is how you do it. It's an integral part of me, but I'm tapping into something that has no words.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:21:09]:
And yet you have articulated this very well to your students, because I was just at a class where one of the girls, she can't be more than, like, 22, said to me, I didn't even know what my intuition was. I didn't have a clue that it even existed. And something about whatever you taught in those classes, now she's very much in tune with her intuition, so...
I guess you've basically described it as an inner wisdom that nudges you in a direction that feels aligned inside. It's like you have this sense of peace. You feel you're on a path towards something that you're just aligned with, that you should do this. You should step in here. You should speak up here or whatever, and it's gentle.
RON THIESSEN [00:21:53]:
I really like that word nudge because that's a really good description. It's like a little pressure. You know, you come to sort of a fork in the road. You have to make a decision. You can go one of two ways. And it's like just this little pressure that indicates to you, this is the direction you should go.
And it's usually not forceful. It's certainly not screaming in panic. I'm trying to think if I've ever had an experience where it was almost demanding. Because even when it's been situations where you need to do something right now, like in this moment you need to do something, it's still not a screaming in panic kind of thing. It is very much a nudge. That's a great word to describe it.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:22:52]:
Based on that then, I would say that I use my intuition a lot when I'm having conversations with people or when I'm observing myself or others or nature. Because it sounds like you're describing something that's very spiritually aligned, like it just resonates in your core.
I don't know. I think from what you're describing, I'm getting it now. But I didn't prior to us having this conversation today, I really was unclear on are my feat responses intuitive?
RON THIESSEN [00:23:25]:
I remember this was a number of years ago, I had a client who was the victim of a rape, and she had gotten pregnant and had a child. And she was just torn with guilt because she both loved and hated the child.
So I said to her one day, tell me what you think about forgiveness. And her face just went into this mask of hatred. And she said, I will never forgive him for what he did! And I said, I'm not talking about forgiving him, I'm talking about forgiving you.
And she literally fell out of her chair on her face on the floor, and she just started weeping. And it was almost unintelligible what she was saying, but she said -because the rape had happened, a friend of hers had raped her, had taken her to his house - and she was lying on the floor weeping and saying, why did I go with him? Why did I go with him? Why did I even trust him?
So she'd beaten herself up about that a lot. That was a very intuitive question because it hit at the heart of what her problem was. And it's not a formulated question. Like, it's not part of a theory of dealing with somebody, a therapeutic theory or something. It was an intuitive question.
Another experience that I had just recently was, you know that a friend of mine with ALS chose to use medical assistance in dying and asked me to be there at her death, which was a very difficult thing. But she had all of her family around her, and my wife and I, Maryz and I were the only people that were there, there may have been one other person there, that was not family.
Everybody's around the wheelchair just before they're going to take her outside and administer the chemicals. So everybody's crying. And it's a very emotional kind of event. And Daniel looked up at me and he said, "Ron, would you pray for us?" I'm telling you, in that moment, I was absolutely frozen. Pray for you! What am I going to pray in this kind of a situation? Her mind's made up. We're not going to pray for her not to do this. I had no idea what I should pray, but I figured, well, I've been in this situation often enough that I could trust my intuition to know what to do. So I just opened up my mouth. And I have no idea what came out. Still, to this day, I don't know what came out.
But I know that the kids came to me afterward and they said, that was the most meaningful thing we ever heard! I don't know what was meaningful about it. I don't know what happened there. But I know that there was an intuitive connection with spirit. And what came out was something that was spiritual enough to lift people. And that's what spiritual energy always does, right? It lifts people.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:26:43]:
Hmm. So I guess in order to be tapped into your intuition, you sort of have to be like, Yes Man. You know the movie Yes Man, Jim Carrey? Where you're not always, no, no, I can't. No, I'm intimidated. No, I don't want to do that. No, that'll be uncomfortable. No, I don't want. Instead, you're like, okay, I don't know why, but this is what I need to do. This is what I need to say. This is where I need to be.
RON THIESSEN [00:27:09]:
That's interesting. Yeah, this is interesting that you say this because I was just reading The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer. He was saying that if you want to connect with intention or spirituality, he's referring to it as intention, you want to connect with that spirituality, you need to start saying yes more. Because he makes the point that the spiritual realm is full of yes and it doesn't actually have no. The spiritual realm is full of yes. So if you want to be more connected with your spirituality and therefore with your intuition, absolutely, saying yes more often is really a beautiful way to go because so often the no is about fear.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:27:58]:
Yes!
RON THIESSEN [00:27:59]:
Or feeling risky, right?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:28:00]:
Yeah.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:28:01]:
Let's try something new. I'm going to ask you some reflective questions to help you digest the episode. You ready?
Okay. Looking at your own life, can you identify any major decisions or moments where your intuition played a significant role? How do you think those situations would have unfolded if you had ignored your intuition? Or if you ignored your intuition, how would they have unfolded if you hadn't?
How do you differentiate between fear and intuition? Like, am I the only one who has an issue with this? Are there any specific signs or indicators that help you distinguish between the two?
How important is intuition in your decision-making process? Do you believe that intuition is a reliable guide for making life decisions? Or do you think your decision-making should always include logical reasoning?
What about the experimentation idea Ron presented? Do you feel that it's necessary to receive confirmation for your intuition to consider it a successful decision?
Whether you agree or disagree with the things we've talked about in this episode, we want to hear your thoughts. Head over to the community chat to continue the discussion.
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Ron Thiessen is a practicing psychologist and educator. To apply as a guest on the podcast, please visit thechangeevolutionist.com/podcastguest.
