Identifying Intuitive “Feelings”

When talking about intuition we often use the words “feel” or “feeling”.  We ask ourselves, what is our intuitive feeling about something – or we try to “feel” into a situation in order to make a decision. 

But the word “feeling” is very ambiguous because we use it in many contexts.

We have physical feelings when we use our sense of touch.  Our fingertips can feel texture, temperature and the density of physical objects.  So we often use physical analogies to describe intuitive feelings (prickly, silky, heavy) since we have no other words available to describe energetic sensations.

We also have emotional feelings.  Emotions are e-motions, or energy in motion, either pulling us toward positive experiences or repelling us away from negative ones.  Emotional feelings always have an agenda – keeping us safe from pain or danger, or following the attraction of something pleasurable or beneficial.

But intuitive feeling is different from both physical and emotional “feeling”.  It is also completely different from logic, which is perhaps why we use the word “feeling” in order to emphasize that it is somehow the opposite of reason.  Intuitive information is often exactly the antithesis of what reason or logic would suggest.

So it is easy to confuse emotional and intuitive information.  Emotional feeling is dualistic in nature, either good for us, or bad for us, so whenever we have what we might think of as a positive or negative intuitive feeling, it is important to check and see if there is any other purely emotional reason for this feeling.

For example, if my attractive stockbroker friend recommends a particular stock, I may have a very positive feeling about that stock and think it’s my intuition telling me to buy it immediately.  The question is, whether it’s really an intuitive feeling about the stock itself, or an emotional  feeling about my attraction to the stockbroker.

Likewise, if I buy a plane ticket for Hawaii and see on the ticket that the plane is a 777, I may begin to have negative feelings about the trip.  Is this really my intuition telling me not to make the trip, or is it an unconscious emotional reaction to a recent news story about the crash of a 777?

Often we mistake emotional feelings for intuitive ones because they come on hard and fast with a huge emotional charge, seemingly out of nowhere.  What else could they be other than intuitive?

I was recently traveling on an interstate expressway and found myself close behind a large truck.  All at once I had a sudden graphic vision of the truck slamming on the brakes and my car careening into the underside, decapitating me!

At first I panicked completely, thinking this was an intuitive flash warning me of impending disaster.  But when I searched my thoughts for a possible emotional cause, I recalled that many years ago, a friend died in just such a situation.  I realized that finding myself in similar circumstances had triggered unconscious connections to that tragedy.  What I thought was an intuitive hit was really a strong emotional reaction to an old memory.  I slowed down just in case, but my fears were never realized.  It was not intuition after all, thank goodness.

Mistaking intuitive feeling for emotional feeling is one of the reasons we grow to doubt our intuitive abilities.  Intuition generally gives accurate information about something we had no way of knowing about otherwise.  Emotional feeling bases its responses on prior experiences.

Mistaking emotional feeling for intuitive feeling sows self-doubt and prevents us from recognizing the energy of true intuition.

If I had continued to think my truck vision was intuition without realizing where it was really coming from, I would have been very confused by the experience.  Although I would have obviously been grateful that my vision never materialized, I would have also been more likely to dismiss a true intuitive hit next time.

It is important to trust in our own innate ability to develop our intuition.  But like any other skill, this takes time and practice.  Learning to separate emotional and intuitive feelings helps us gain confidence and learn what true intuition “feels” like.  After experiencing real intuition a number of times, we grow to recognize its energy and then can tell the difference just by the “feel” of it.

For more on the energy realm, see my book, It’s All About Energy: Adventures in Expanded Reality”, available on Amazon, in local bookstores and on my website:  www.transformationalexpansion.com