image from intuition.byu.edu
What is intuition? For long years it was ridiculed as the fevered imagination of bored housewives with nothing better to do than dream up fanciful reasons for something they couldn’t logically explain. Much has changed since then, much study has been done and there are still people unconvinced intuition is real. All we need to do is remember back to the Salem witch trials, or the witch trials in England to recall the documented evidence of women burned at the stake, tortured and left to starve in cages, all because they “knew” something but could not explain how they knew.
However, ask people if they believe they get a ‘gut instinct‘ or a strange feeling like their hair standing on end on the back of their necks and you will probably get them to agree they have. Strange what a difference terminology makes. One of my favourite characters on TV, Mark Harmon, playing Jethro Gibbs in NCIS has made his “gut” famous when solving cases. “Trust the Gut”. It always makes me smile. I suppose it sounds a little more manly than saying he has an intuition about a person or event.
Intuition has saved more lives than we have an accurate count for. There are recorded instances of people deciding not to catch a train, take a bus, catch their flight and there has been a disaster of some kind. They had no reason to change their plans at the last moment, yet in every case it has invariably saved their lives. There are numerous documented instances of people who worked in the Twin Towers who decided for no known reason not to go to work on 9/11 as well as people who were unaccountably detained from getting to work that day. These sudden, unplanned, and unaccountable decisions saved numerous lives that day.
image from kineticsmag.com
The ironical part of this is that intuition or gut instinct, sixth sense, knowing or just a feeling, can and does happen to anyone. Acting on these ‘hunches’ is a different matter. If those people had failed to listen to this intuition or sixth sense they would not be here today.
Intuition is not only found in the province of New Age Spirituality or TV shows. It has been suggested that intuition may be the ingredient which separates successful business people from the rest. It was described by Dr Gerald Hodgkinson of the Leeds University, in the UK as “the brain processing previous experiences and other cues to help it make a decision, a process which takes place on a subconscious level”.
This goes part way to explaining the intuitive response and no doubt more will be acknowledged as time passes. If I hadn’t listened to my intuition or sixth sense many things would have been different in my own life, especially when I was a serving police officer, but also where my children are concerned. Arriving at school minutes after an accident and before the school had time to call me is one simple example. Deciding to move to one side as a drunk, out of my line of sight, suddenly swung a four by two piece of timber moments before it would have taken my head off if I had remained where I was is another.
There are many tomes written on the subject and there will always be the nay sayers and that is fine. Yet I truly believe that we are guided by intuition, sixth sense, gut instinct, a knowing or feeling when we need a little help. I, for one, will gladly accept whatever help I am given if it means I or anyone else will be safe as a result of my hunch.
The final word on intuition goes to Albert Einstein.
image from http://www.psychicwilliamconstantine.com
“At times you have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
― Alan Alda
May you find your feet always guided in your best interests.
Ciao, Susan x
Owls and Orchids 
Always, always, always follow your intuition. Women do it more naturally, while men seem to struggle more with it.
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True, I know a few guys who are tuned in…. Some of the good detectives I worked with had developed it. But I feel it’s changing, slowly, as more guys stop rubbishing it as ‘silly women’s feelings’, they are getting to acknowledging their gut feelings. I found it funny they prefer the ‘manlier, term. 😆
Thanks for dropping by.
Ciao
Susan
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Once again Susan a great blog, you must have heaps of them stacked up 🙂 I agree with what you have to say there it is one thing that, most times, kept me out of strife in the job. It was only when I began working as a psychic on a regular basis that I became in tune with myself. I see it as that part of the mind which is connected to the cosmos that ‘sees’ moments or even hours before something happens. It probably is what deja vu is all about. (Oh there’s another one called deja moo, it’s when you detect bullshit before it happens) sorry I get carried away. It works extremely well for Shamans and the like, those who actually travel outside the self to find things and people. There is sooo much about the human condition that needs to be studied but closed minds always seem to predominate. It’s fear I guess, of the unknown or the self. Anyway, a great topic and one I could go on and on with. Take care,
Cheers
Laurie.
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Thanks Laurie, psychic too! We do have lots to talk about. Serendipity at work perhaps? I always found that thinking outside the box, following those hunches worked best for me, way back when. It was studying …. All those odd topics hitch led me down my path and one I wouldn’t change. Nor would you I suspect.
You’ll have to check out my ‘box’ you suggested, a work of art. I had so much fun with it.
Stay well
Ciao
Susan 😊❤
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I’m just a cornucopia of mystery and delights. 🙂 Serendipity has been working overtime here since I ‘met’ you. No I wouldn’t change much about life at all, it’s there for a reason. I will check your box out when I can get past whatever is blocking me. I’ll try harder tonight.
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I often wonder how many times intuition has “happened”, and I have been so oblivious I never even knew it, not even in hindsight. Sometimes I look back and find that even the things I once struggled over seemed to have been guided by an invisible hand. Intuition is amazing, and I think as well that there must be this retroactive version of it, a version that acts on the greatest time scales possible, a gentle force that smooths over our past as we forgive and heal. Maybe when we’re fully healed, and look back, it ALL looks to be the result of perfect intuition, i.e. grace. Thanks for a subject that soaked in and went to work! Michael
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My pleasure Michael. I find it a fascinating topic and one I could let run away with me. I can see so many instances of intuition, a guiding hand steering me in the right direction that I’m now simply grateful for the wonderful way things turn out.
Reviewing the past is a wonderful way to gain clarity on sometimes difficult times. We can then see how much we were guided by intuition… See all too easy to get lost in a fascinating subject.
Be well.
Ciao
Susan
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[…] it was different. Nothing will ever convince me we didn’t have a helping hand or three. My intuition didn’t let me […]
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