How to Trust Your Intuition: A Grounded Guide to Inner Guidance
Learn to distinguish intuition from fear and take aligned action in your daily life
In any type of spiritual practice, it’s key to foster your intuition. It’s through your intuition that you connect within and with the universe, source, etc.
Sometimes, it helps to look up the meaning of something you’ve experienced or seen, which works particularly well when you encounter natural elements, numbers, crystals, tarot or oracle cards, but what really helps you determine what the message means to you is your own intuition. Often, there is a generic meaning or an array of possible meanings, but only you know what it means to you, how it relates to your life, and what messages are being sent.
Intuition is the part of us that is connected to the universal life force, source, god, the universe that speaks to us. It’s a form of communication that is loving, kind, patient, slow, and calm. Our inner voice or inner guidance is how our intuition communicates with us.
When the information is loud, hurried, nervous, fearful, it’s not intuition. It may be fear, ego, instinct, etc. Instinct may be a flash of survival, and it comes quickly because it rises from the animal aspect of who we are.
The difference between intuition and instinct is that intuition is about being calm, slow, intentional, peaceful, and wise, whereas instinct is about survival, acting without thinking.
Intuition can show up in many ways. The communication and messages can come through your body (sensations—the glowing within, butterflies, open heart, God bumps (goosebumps), waves, aches, pain, tightness), numbers, signs, symbols, messages, or something someone else says.
How can cards provide guidance?
If you believe in synchronicity, the concept that the right messages, signs, and/or symbols appear when you need them, nothing is a coincidence, then you understand that when you ask a question, the energy of your soul directs the corresponding cards that provide you with the guidance your soul most needs to hear. It requires using your intuition, as your inner guidance leads you to select those specific cards.
In addition, each card has many meanings. For some people, it matters if the card is upright or reversed. This doesn’t affect most Oracle cards and applies mostly to Tarot. My point is that there are many interpretations, and it’s up to the reader to find the meaning that resonates. Once again, that requires intuition. Sometimes it’s your own, and at others it’s a combined effort between you and a reader.
The same applies to any other intuitive tool: crystals, other decks, a pendulum, etc.
Tools are useful but not necessary. The purpose is to hone your intuition such that your inner guidance is clear. But having a tool helps get you there and also provides a more grounded or clearer experience.
One way to improve your relationship with your intuition is the following:
RECEIVE + INTEGRATE + ACT
Receive - Intuition guides you to open to receiving the messages: What is the message?
Integrate - Intuition guides you to reflect on the message: What does it mean for me?
Act - Intuition guides you to take action: What step do I take?
The act doesn’t have to be big or evident. It can be small and simple, like taking a quiet moment, napping because your body needs rest, choosing a new mantra or affirmation. A small and simple act can have a big impact. It can also be big, like booking a trip, moving, changing jobs, etc, but it doesn’t have to be. Yet, acting is vital. There’s no point in receiving messages and thinking about how they will affect you without actually making a change or moving. The purpose of grounded spirituality is to bring it into your daily life, and the best way to do it is to act.
Spirituality is grounded in the fact that it lives in us. It’s not separate from us. If I can leave you with any message, it’s that spirit, source, the universe, etc., connect with us in ways we understand. As I listed in last week’s post, through our bodies, numbers, tools such as crystals, people, conversations, synchronicities, where the right events flow at the right time. Once you choose to see and you open this communication channel, you can’t unsee.
Grounded spirituality is about understanding that we are bigger than just one being and that receiving guidance from the universe is about making sense of it in our daily lives. We use tools and elements to ground us and bring them into ourselves through our intuition and our practices.