(no subject)
"What are some stories of your intuition leading you in a direction that worked out really well for you? What are your thoughts on intuition?" -- belenen
Intuition. Lately I'm sort of thinking about it like a superpower, like my third eye can just power on like one of those trolls with gemstones in their bellies, and all of a sudden I'll just have an instruction book for life and know where to go next. But I find that it usually doesn't work like that. When it does though.... :)
I've used it to help others in ways that really surprised me; I've found myself saying things that were somehow true and having no idea where anything was coming from but somehow knowing things. Right now trust in my intuitive capacity feels pretty crushed. I'm looking for that troll gemstone power and it's not coming. What I learned is that my intuition has everything to do with trusting myself, trusting the messages in the thoughts and feelings and impulses that flow through me, and choosing not to censor myself; choosing to recognize everything that flows through me as valid. The moment I censor or doubt myself, I cut off my intuition. Intuition feels like a natural state of being.
Intuition for me has been connected to really inspired writing. I'll feel this heat in my temples and around my ears and that's often an indication that I'm writing something that's just needing to be said and it flows from somewhere other than my usual filters.
Intuition for me is often very embodied and has a lot to do with allowing myself to move authentically. Once I allow myself to really feel and trust what my body wants, including what wants to come out of my mouth, I feel like I'm in an intuitive flow. It's a feeling of presence, and often comes with a feeling that there are no wrong choices, really, but there is one that seems to pull me more than the others. It's a lot like taking the felix felicis in Harry Potter. Everywhere I go, everything I do, is somehow exactly where I'm supposed to go/be. The more I trust that, the more I find more places I'm supposed to go and do.
I practiced this last time I was at a festival. PDF. I was feeling kind of lonely and unsure of how to connect with anyone and before I stepped back into camp I took a moment to connect with my heart and told myself it was okay to allow myself to be vulnerable and receptive. Pretty much right away I had this amazing experience of connection with Eric. As soon as I allowed myself to be receptive to him in that way, he went through this kind of powerful emotional shift -- I don't know what it was about, but something big was going on inside of him, and I just sought to be totally emotionally present and validating and... it was really a bit scary for him but he acknowledged how present I was and how I was holding him in the experience. It went from, I'm disconnected, to all of a sudden, choosing to be in my body and let it respond how it wants to, and all of a sudden, and I'm a healer! I think that's kind of the way things go for me: disconnection is so easy, being vulnerable and in my body and allowing voice to my authentic responses is hard, but when I remember to do that and trust it, healing happens. That's such hard work for me, like life work: coming back again and again to this authenticity and trust in who I am.
A few months ago I had a vision of my friend Rebecca, who I'd been pretty distant from for quite a few months, tossing and turning in bed and not being able to make up her mind, and I just knew that the snappy judgmental email she sent me that I'd been fretting about was not about me but about some kind of turmoil she had going on inside of herself. I felt like it was time to call her and tell her I had this intuition and offer my support and that led to a rekindling of our friendship in a way that was pretty incredible. We've been following parallel paths the last few months. She started really getting into witchy stuff and owning her magic around the same time that I did, and then I had all these past life insights and openings, and when I called her then she was going through the same thing.
Sometimes, especially with a precious few really close connections, I'll find myself calling to a soulmate in a dream at the same time they've been calling for me. That happened with Missi after we'd lost touch for a few years and... we reconnected... but only so briefly... I really did not allow myself to have that connection, I don't know why. There was too much going on in my life and something about staying connected was hard. There was too much I'd have to then own about myself and my life as it was. I don't think there have been many people I've been so spiritually in tune with, and I love that years later, we were both dreaming about each other and looking for each other at the same time. I think one of my biggest regrets is not keeping up with that connection. I hope we reconnect some day but I don't know if it will happen; how many Missis are there in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne?
I was kind of at a low point in my life in 2011. I'd sort of given up hope and I had no faith in myself. I had pretty much no ability to stand up for myself or to claim what I wanted. I started reading Janet Conner's Writing Down Your Soul and something in me just came alive, knowing this was something that could help me. That night I went online to see if she had a website or something and it turns out the next day she was starting a year-long series of courses on trusting intuition and soul guidance. It was a big investment but I realized I had nothing to lose so I signed up for all the courses. That was when I started connecting to the name Lily and later in the year, still following my intuition when something was off, it's how I found Jon Terrell who introduced me to Shalom Mountain. I had a dream that gave me the intuition that I needed a healer and so I just searched until I found someone who fit -- and I couldn't have done better. And then Shalom probably saved my life. I followed this intuition that I was to go through a period of "sacred preparation" and went to Ireland, which wasn't at all what I wanted or was expecting, but still healed me in a lot of ways and connected me to what matters.
Now, looking back on it, I think the sacred preparation was a period of preparing myself to shift my gendered conception about myself. I felt so uncomfortable in Ireland, especially uncomfortable being perceived as male, but it was all so confusing and I didn't know what was happening. I knew I felt lonely and socially awkward but I didn't connect my experience to gender. Pretty much immediately afterwards, though, that changed. I organized an amazing whitewater rafting campout with some of my best friends; and that's where I had really painful visions of patriarchy and power-over structures emerging; it was heartbreaking, terrifying, visions that I now interpret as the beginning of decolonizing my heart. Of accepting that I am trans. A week later I got my septum pierced. Within a few weeks of that I changed my name to Lily, had a naming ceremony, and went to the Transcending Boundaries conference where I decided I was going to meet people by tuning into the energies that felt right. It happened right away with Adi in a morning workshop. I went to an intimacy workshop led by belenen that I wished could have been longer and then started reading zir LiveJournal and I really felt... not alone... like finally here was someone else expressing longings I've had that I never heard expressed by another soul. And, we "happen" to be housemates right now. :)
So healing has more often than not been confusing and painful, but following my intuition with that whole string of events does seem to have "worked out" for me in the sense of, well, I'm out as trans to everybody which is a pretty major thing that would have been absolutely unthinkable when this all started. I'm more comfortable with more of me. Deciding to follow my intuition at the time more or less saved my life.
About a week ago I decided to scan a list of folks on Facebook who liked a certain post by a healer-type person I follow. I decided to choose someone whose energy I resonated with and then connect with them how I felt led to do so. So, I found someone, browsed through her public posts, and the first thing I saw an expression of the sort of heart connection I'm always seeking. I friended her and she cancelled my request. I wasn't sure if I had actually made a friend request or just imagined it, so I did it again, and it was cancelled within a minute. Oh well. I felt kind of bad about that because my intuition felt good -- but maybe I was just, I don't know, putting my heart on my sleeve too much or something. It brought up all my wounds about no one liking me or understanding me or... I mean, I swear, a lot came up! I end up checking out this person's blog and she's writing about sacred sexuality and shadow work and going to this workshop in Norway that sounds a whole lot like New Culture, so I decided that the unfriend likely meant nothing -- my messages to her went into the "other" folder and she had no idea who I was -- so I commented and shared. She's in her 20s and writing about this stuff, and I mean, no one is in their 20s and writing about this stuff. At least no one I know! I didn't expect to hear anything but I got an apology email thanking me for my thoughtful comment on her blog and saying she'd be thrilled to add me; that because of the nature of what she writes about and some strange requests she's gotten she's had to be cautious. I haven't added her again yet but... I mean, there's a bit of gender essentialism language in her blog which kind of irked me, though that was mostly in the description of tantra workshops she attended which for some reason in the West tend to put the "divine masculine" in men and the "divine feminine" in women and workshops split into two binary groups which to me is bleeeeh cisheteronormative shit, why can't they get that the whole deeper point of tantra is a genderfuck?! Yeah, I love tantra and have so many judgments about this kind of tantra workshop. But oh well, it doesn't seem she's judging me for being trans (if she's figured it out, I don't know), so I'd say it worked out.
A lot of times intuition comes way ahead of understanding what it might mean... so the vision I had of the emerging of power-over patriarchy... that was an intuition that is still being unpacked, as was my intuition that I needed to go to Peru. When I got back from Peru I really doubted my intuition because, how could I have such a strong intuition and then have nothing come of it? I missed my grandfather's funeral even! How was that intuition, sounds more like bad timing! It took almost a year but it became clearer over time that my trip to Peru was necessary and my intuition to go there was right on. The fruits of following intuition aren't always immediate. It's continually choosing to trust the process.
Overall I'd say playing with intuition is one of my favourite games. Where does my intuition want to play today? That was kind of what I imagined Ireland would be like: I went because I wanted to get lost and to play hide and seek and find some treasure. The way it happened, I did find treasure, but not in the form I expected or necessarily wanted. I prefer more fun and playful experiences of getting lost and wandering and letting my intuition guide me and being receptive to whatever might turn out to be a gift. In a way that's kind of my vision for my life: I step into adventures and follow my intuition where it leads.
One of the biggest intuitions I've ever received was that my life would change in unexpected ways when I did three things: 1) come out to my parents, 2) commit to being embodied, 3) write my memoir. The second is still hard for me but I'm hoping it's something I'll be able to commit to at deeper and deeper levels soon. And the memoir, that's really hard since I lost the one piece of writing I felt really reflected me (because my computer just does that apparently), but I'm trying to somehow put it together again, to find some kind of words to reflect this life that has felt so, so much bigger than me. This is an example of getting intuition and then resisting it all the way which I guess happens a lot.
Intuition. Lately I'm sort of thinking about it like a superpower, like my third eye can just power on like one of those trolls with gemstones in their bellies, and all of a sudden I'll just have an instruction book for life and know where to go next. But I find that it usually doesn't work like that. When it does though.... :)
I've used it to help others in ways that really surprised me; I've found myself saying things that were somehow true and having no idea where anything was coming from but somehow knowing things. Right now trust in my intuitive capacity feels pretty crushed. I'm looking for that troll gemstone power and it's not coming. What I learned is that my intuition has everything to do with trusting myself, trusting the messages in the thoughts and feelings and impulses that flow through me, and choosing not to censor myself; choosing to recognize everything that flows through me as valid. The moment I censor or doubt myself, I cut off my intuition. Intuition feels like a natural state of being.
Intuition for me has been connected to really inspired writing. I'll feel this heat in my temples and around my ears and that's often an indication that I'm writing something that's just needing to be said and it flows from somewhere other than my usual filters.
Intuition for me is often very embodied and has a lot to do with allowing myself to move authentically. Once I allow myself to really feel and trust what my body wants, including what wants to come out of my mouth, I feel like I'm in an intuitive flow. It's a feeling of presence, and often comes with a feeling that there are no wrong choices, really, but there is one that seems to pull me more than the others. It's a lot like taking the felix felicis in Harry Potter. Everywhere I go, everything I do, is somehow exactly where I'm supposed to go/be. The more I trust that, the more I find more places I'm supposed to go and do.
I practiced this last time I was at a festival. PDF. I was feeling kind of lonely and unsure of how to connect with anyone and before I stepped back into camp I took a moment to connect with my heart and told myself it was okay to allow myself to be vulnerable and receptive. Pretty much right away I had this amazing experience of connection with Eric. As soon as I allowed myself to be receptive to him in that way, he went through this kind of powerful emotional shift -- I don't know what it was about, but something big was going on inside of him, and I just sought to be totally emotionally present and validating and... it was really a bit scary for him but he acknowledged how present I was and how I was holding him in the experience. It went from, I'm disconnected, to all of a sudden, choosing to be in my body and let it respond how it wants to, and all of a sudden, and I'm a healer! I think that's kind of the way things go for me: disconnection is so easy, being vulnerable and in my body and allowing voice to my authentic responses is hard, but when I remember to do that and trust it, healing happens. That's such hard work for me, like life work: coming back again and again to this authenticity and trust in who I am.
A few months ago I had a vision of my friend Rebecca, who I'd been pretty distant from for quite a few months, tossing and turning in bed and not being able to make up her mind, and I just knew that the snappy judgmental email she sent me that I'd been fretting about was not about me but about some kind of turmoil she had going on inside of herself. I felt like it was time to call her and tell her I had this intuition and offer my support and that led to a rekindling of our friendship in a way that was pretty incredible. We've been following parallel paths the last few months. She started really getting into witchy stuff and owning her magic around the same time that I did, and then I had all these past life insights and openings, and when I called her then she was going through the same thing.
Sometimes, especially with a precious few really close connections, I'll find myself calling to a soulmate in a dream at the same time they've been calling for me. That happened with Missi after we'd lost touch for a few years and... we reconnected... but only so briefly... I really did not allow myself to have that connection, I don't know why. There was too much going on in my life and something about staying connected was hard. There was too much I'd have to then own about myself and my life as it was. I don't think there have been many people I've been so spiritually in tune with, and I love that years later, we were both dreaming about each other and looking for each other at the same time. I think one of my biggest regrets is not keeping up with that connection. I hope we reconnect some day but I don't know if it will happen; how many Missis are there in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne?
I was kind of at a low point in my life in 2011. I'd sort of given up hope and I had no faith in myself. I had pretty much no ability to stand up for myself or to claim what I wanted. I started reading Janet Conner's Writing Down Your Soul and something in me just came alive, knowing this was something that could help me. That night I went online to see if she had a website or something and it turns out the next day she was starting a year-long series of courses on trusting intuition and soul guidance. It was a big investment but I realized I had nothing to lose so I signed up for all the courses. That was when I started connecting to the name Lily and later in the year, still following my intuition when something was off, it's how I found Jon Terrell who introduced me to Shalom Mountain. I had a dream that gave me the intuition that I needed a healer and so I just searched until I found someone who fit -- and I couldn't have done better. And then Shalom probably saved my life. I followed this intuition that I was to go through a period of "sacred preparation" and went to Ireland, which wasn't at all what I wanted or was expecting, but still healed me in a lot of ways and connected me to what matters.
Now, looking back on it, I think the sacred preparation was a period of preparing myself to shift my gendered conception about myself. I felt so uncomfortable in Ireland, especially uncomfortable being perceived as male, but it was all so confusing and I didn't know what was happening. I knew I felt lonely and socially awkward but I didn't connect my experience to gender. Pretty much immediately afterwards, though, that changed. I organized an amazing whitewater rafting campout with some of my best friends; and that's where I had really painful visions of patriarchy and power-over structures emerging; it was heartbreaking, terrifying, visions that I now interpret as the beginning of decolonizing my heart. Of accepting that I am trans. A week later I got my septum pierced. Within a few weeks of that I changed my name to Lily, had a naming ceremony, and went to the Transcending Boundaries conference where I decided I was going to meet people by tuning into the energies that felt right. It happened right away with Adi in a morning workshop. I went to an intimacy workshop led by belenen that I wished could have been longer and then started reading zir LiveJournal and I really felt... not alone... like finally here was someone else expressing longings I've had that I never heard expressed by another soul. And, we "happen" to be housemates right now. :)
So healing has more often than not been confusing and painful, but following my intuition with that whole string of events does seem to have "worked out" for me in the sense of, well, I'm out as trans to everybody which is a pretty major thing that would have been absolutely unthinkable when this all started. I'm more comfortable with more of me. Deciding to follow my intuition at the time more or less saved my life.
About a week ago I decided to scan a list of folks on Facebook who liked a certain post by a healer-type person I follow. I decided to choose someone whose energy I resonated with and then connect with them how I felt led to do so. So, I found someone, browsed through her public posts, and the first thing I saw an expression of the sort of heart connection I'm always seeking. I friended her and she cancelled my request. I wasn't sure if I had actually made a friend request or just imagined it, so I did it again, and it was cancelled within a minute. Oh well. I felt kind of bad about that because my intuition felt good -- but maybe I was just, I don't know, putting my heart on my sleeve too much or something. It brought up all my wounds about no one liking me or understanding me or... I mean, I swear, a lot came up! I end up checking out this person's blog and she's writing about sacred sexuality and shadow work and going to this workshop in Norway that sounds a whole lot like New Culture, so I decided that the unfriend likely meant nothing -- my messages to her went into the "other" folder and she had no idea who I was -- so I commented and shared. She's in her 20s and writing about this stuff, and I mean, no one is in their 20s and writing about this stuff. At least no one I know! I didn't expect to hear anything but I got an apology email thanking me for my thoughtful comment on her blog and saying she'd be thrilled to add me; that because of the nature of what she writes about and some strange requests she's gotten she's had to be cautious. I haven't added her again yet but... I mean, there's a bit of gender essentialism language in her blog which kind of irked me, though that was mostly in the description of tantra workshops she attended which for some reason in the West tend to put the "divine masculine" in men and the "divine feminine" in women and workshops split into two binary groups which to me is bleeeeh cisheteronormative shit, why can't they get that the whole deeper point of tantra is a genderfuck?! Yeah, I love tantra and have so many judgments about this kind of tantra workshop. But oh well, it doesn't seem she's judging me for being trans (if she's figured it out, I don't know), so I'd say it worked out.
A lot of times intuition comes way ahead of understanding what it might mean... so the vision I had of the emerging of power-over patriarchy... that was an intuition that is still being unpacked, as was my intuition that I needed to go to Peru. When I got back from Peru I really doubted my intuition because, how could I have such a strong intuition and then have nothing come of it? I missed my grandfather's funeral even! How was that intuition, sounds more like bad timing! It took almost a year but it became clearer over time that my trip to Peru was necessary and my intuition to go there was right on. The fruits of following intuition aren't always immediate. It's continually choosing to trust the process.
Overall I'd say playing with intuition is one of my favourite games. Where does my intuition want to play today? That was kind of what I imagined Ireland would be like: I went because I wanted to get lost and to play hide and seek and find some treasure. The way it happened, I did find treasure, but not in the form I expected or necessarily wanted. I prefer more fun and playful experiences of getting lost and wandering and letting my intuition guide me and being receptive to whatever might turn out to be a gift. In a way that's kind of my vision for my life: I step into adventures and follow my intuition where it leads.
One of the biggest intuitions I've ever received was that my life would change in unexpected ways when I did three things: 1) come out to my parents, 2) commit to being embodied, 3) write my memoir. The second is still hard for me but I'm hoping it's something I'll be able to commit to at deeper and deeper levels soon. And the memoir, that's really hard since I lost the one piece of writing I felt really reflected me (because my computer just does that apparently), but I'm trying to somehow put it together again, to find some kind of words to reflect this life that has felt so, so much bigger than me. This is an example of getting intuition and then resisting it all the way which I guess happens a lot.