David W. Zierk, PsyD

What you know to be true before you start thinking.

Let’s dive right in by sharing a story.

A woman walks down a street soiled in poverty and darkened by her trembling fear—the sidewalk pitches and heaves more than it flows. A streetlight above flickers, yellowed by the passage of the daily grind and leaning slightly toward a sunrise made dreary by monotony and a lack of hope. She hears all at once different levels of sound. There’s a train in the distance, grumbling and in no hurry. The steady pat-patting of her dusty dress shoes faintly dampens the dull groan of unending traffic a mile or so away. The late-night breeze ruffles her hair and causes the buttons on her proper-length coat to chatter against her purse strap, gripped firmly for control over what’s next. She knows where she’s going but is scared she may never arrive.

Poof!

Do you feel it? What awoke inside you after reading the above passage and forming an image in your head? What is your sense about what will happen next? Does the woman arrive safely, or does she meet a marginalized fate? Do you feel it? Do you feel the future?

Like magic, intuition happens awingly.

You are accessing your intuition when you refer to the crystal ball in your head. Intuition is knowing or understanding something immediately without actively turning on your thinking brain. When a particular cluster of brain circuits light up and, out of nowhere, you experience a “hunch,” your intuition or precognition is in play.

While intuition is commonly used, it is uncommonly tricky to explain.

Let’s give it a go.

Intuition is more than a wild guess or a dice roll. Anyone can take a stab at something, but intuition involves restraint while keeping your mind open to possibility. Your intuition works best when you hold back the urge to brainstorm and alternately allow your mind to naturally connect the dots using your third eye without consciously trying to divine the future.

Remember the idea of dots; we’ll return to them shortly.

Intuition also happens fast. It has to. Otherwise, modern man would never have evolved. Think about how handy it was for our distant ancestors to rely upon snap judgments when facing down a bear or being seduced by a colorful berry that looks delicious but could also be fatal. Thinking without thinking is what saved the day.

Going back to the story that opened this blog, guided by your visual imagery, what did your gut tell you? What did your mind sense that your conscious brain didn’t pick up on? Did you have a premonition of a happy ending or a sad farewell? What else showed up? Here is a final challenging question. When your intuition whispers to you, can you trust this voice?

Let’s break down the tricky concept known as intuition.

Returning to the dots mentioned above, each dot represents a different dimension that informs your intuition and is relied upon for inspiration and instant understanding. The first dot represents a stimulus that grabs your attention. Take, for instance, the ringing of a phone. The ring is familiar sounding and launches your learning history. Automatically, you know what to do. Welcome to the core idea of behavioral psychology and how it pivots around the pairing of stimulus-response (S-R).

The second dot is situational awareness. When you are informed of your immediate surroundings, you “know” the situation. For example, you decline the call when your phone rings and you don’t recognize the number. This is intelligent situational awareness. Congratulate yourself for good judgment. In behavioral terms, the stimulus is followed by the best response.

The third and final dot refers to the dimension of understanding the context of the moment. Context is when your mind receives a stimulus, engages your learning history, and forecasts an outcome based on circumstances outside of conscious reasoning. For instance, when your cellphone rings, you answer it. When the ringing phone belongs to your friend, you leave it alone. How about when your phone rings but you’re in class? It’s hoped you will hold back and send the call to messages. Your decision to answer or not is guided by your understanding of the situation's context. Behaviorally speaking, when facing the same stimulus, having different responses within reach.

There it is. Your intuition can be summed up in 1-2-3 simple dots.

However, intuition is a bit more complex when viewed through a neuro-scientific lens. To distill it to the bare bones, cognitive researchers have determined that your intuition involves the interplay of emotions, implicit memory, bodily awareness, emotional intelligence, and a healthy brain.

Your emotions color what you see and influence its importance. They signal how you “feel” inside about what’s going on outside. Implicit memory is recalling something you learned without knowing that you were taught. Without being fully aware of all the details of your experiences, what first comes to mind is often an implicit memory when triggered. Bodily awareness is tuning into your senses and being sensitive to what your body tells you. Remember, your body stores energy and communicates with your brain continuously. Are you listening? Emotional intelligence is understanding and navigating the signals you detect when gazing into your private world and interacting with the public world. Finally, regarding a healthy brain, it’s common sense to know that when you optimize brain functioning by making good choices, you are polishing your intuition.

Speaking of intuition, do you remain confident with the future you forecasted for the woman walking down the street? If intuition is what comes to you before your thinking kicks in, how comfortable are you in following your intuitive pulse? How much do you trust your inner truth? Regardless of how you answer, remember that your intuition is sometimes wrong, even when you feel confident. Restated, in shorthand, this means “your gut never lies but doesn’t always tell the truth.”

Summing up and moving on, beyond knowing about intuition and how it works, learning how to sharpen your intuition improves confidence in your inner voice and deep wisdom. This process begins with practicing mindfulness, acknowledging what shows up, rapidly analyzing its content, and adapting in savvy ways to your surroundings by listening to your gut. This is the power of your sixth sense.

Press the button below to learn more about how your mind works as described in Dr. Zierk’s book, Mind Rules: Who’s in Control, You or Your Mind?