How Can You Hear Inner Guidance?

7) As answers or insights come, write them down. Then hold the insight in your mind, and let it percolate. See what comes up, and note the feelings. You may be drawn to interpreting the insight, but it is also enough just to hold it in your consciousness. As you do, it will create shifts in consciousness, all by itself.

There are a couple of things to watch for. If your insight feels judgmental, punishing, or blame-assigning, it is probably not coming from your deepest source. In general, the wisdom of your inner consciousness is expansive, loving, and embracive. Your intuition may ask you to take responsibility for a situation, but it will never tell you to place blame on yourself or someone else.

8) Finally, think of a step you can take to put your insight into action. Here is where the real experiment begins. The only way to learn how to follow your intuitive guidance is to try it, and be very aware of the results. It may be that the guidance you receive unravels a situation quickly. Or you may find that it's guidance just for the moment, not meant to be applied in the long run. Sometimes, if the situation you're asking for guidance about is knotty, you may have to take a series of small actions, to keep asking for further guidance, and to keep observing the results. Sometimes the guidance you receive is just for now, and the next steps may emerge in time.

9) As you perform this experiment, keep a journal. Write down what happens inside and around you as you follow the guidance of your intuition. Notice the feelings you have, whatever they are. Notice how the world mirrors back to you what you put forth.

As you do this you'll find that you're naturally developing an attunement to your own deeper wisdom. You find yourself moving through life more skillfully, more imaginatively, and with greater trust. In time, you might even realize that you've brought forth the enlightened sage that lives inside each one of us. That's when your inner life begins to shine through all your actions. That's when you realize how much wiser, smarter, move instinctively loving you are than you might ever have thought.