Intuitive guidance has become so woven into my daily life that I often don’t even notice it anymore. I don’t mean “don’t notice” as in I ignore it. No way! I mean “don’t notice” as in it’s become the water that I swim in; so much so that doesn’t seem unusual anymore.

I practiced my skills until they became second nature. Just like I don’t have to think about tying my shoes, catching messages from sources beyond my ego-mind has become embedded into my life.

If you’re just getting started, it might feel frustrating that you need to do the equivalent of playing musical scales and conjugating French verbs. Repeatedly.

But for most people, that’s how it goes. Yet, what often happens is that someone gets a wild hair to tap into their previously estranged intuition for the purposes of making The Biggest Decision Ever.

Should I move to Australia? Sell my home and travel with the band? Marry a guy I met last week who feels like my twin flame?

That’s a pretty big ask. It’s unlikely that you’ll trust whatever answer comes through. With good reason.

I suggest starting with the small stuff. For example, earlier this week I felt a nudge to cook a batch of chickpeas. I had no use for them at the time, so it didn’t make sense, but whatever. I froze them. The week before, the same with pesto. 

This week I got a head of radicchio in my produce delivery and went in search of a recipe online because I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with it. Apparently it pairs well with pesto-flavored chickpeas. 🤔 

Just the other day, I had a niggling feeling, as if I had forgotten something important. After confirming that my work schedule was indeed synched with my calendar and there was nothing urgent pending, I sat with that feeling. It urged me to go to the store. Not the closest one, but whatever, I know better than to argue!

As I pulled up, I notice an employee carrying in bouquets. Fresh flowers bring me a lot of joy, so I’ve been treating myself to them lately. But the last batch seemed kinda old and didn’t last very long before getting wilty, so I hadn’t bothered since then.

These were just delivered, were as fresh as possible, and I could feel a surge of YES! in my body when I saw them.

One more. Yesterday I was sent to another store, this one even farther away (by city standards, farther = 6 miles instead of 3, but adds on 20+ minutes of driving time), only to find that almost everything on my list was on sale. I saved a hefty chunk of cash because I listened to my inner nudge.

So here we have three incidents within the span of a week that were all pretty minor, simple domestic tasks, that made my life better somehow, but had no pressure involved. This is how we can grow our Trust muscles. By practicing in the arena where the consequences are minimal, following through, and recognizing the rewards.

Do this for a while and you’ll get good at noticing the nudges and then when a big one drops, it will be a lot easier to catch it and say, heck yeah, I’m moving to Philadelphia.

(That happened to me 11 years ago!)

I’ll note that in addition to practicing in the shallow end, I’ve also made myself available to receive these messages. That comes from cultivating presence, awareness, and a willingness to be guided. You can ask all day long for the intuitive suggestions, but it doesn’t do much good if you’re running around putting out fires constantly and don’t notice when they arrive.

I’m working on a mini-workshop about presence, synthesizing all the body-mind-spirit tools I’ve collected over the past few decades. I have a lot to say about this, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, heed those inner nudges and do your best to take guided action. Maybe even keep a log so you have handy dandy “proof” to refer to when you doubt yourself.

It’s hard to argue against your knowings when you can look back at a series of beneficial experiences that resulted from following your gut.