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Welcome back to Courage is Calling – thanks so much for tuning in today.

I wonder what you think of when you hear or see that word? I wonder what preconceived ideas or experiences you have with intuition that you come with. Maybe it’s not something you’ve explored? Maybe it’s something that has felt a bit woo to you? Maybe you have had experiences where you’ve not trusted your intuition and regrated it? Maybe it’s something you really believe in and want to cultivate more – whatever it is, I hope that todays episode brings some clarity for you. Because learning how to access my intuition or my own inner wisdom or my gut sense is something that has transformed my approach to my business and my life and I want to share with you why it’s important, what we can do to nurture it and use it to help us make decisions, when we come up against tough stuff and in every day life. I believe that intuition is a superpower that we all possess – a gift within us that is our most sacred, trustworthy, brilliant internal guidance system. Like a compass that we can use to understand ourselves more deeply. And yet most of us dismiss it, or forget about it or override it because we live in such a fast-paced, quick fix society where we want other people to tell us the answers to all of our problems and how we should live. Our rational brains are absolutely brilliant in their ability to help us find logic and make sense of things, but the place of intuition in our life means that it can be called on for a deeper connection to the world around us and most importantly a deeper connection to ourselves, our desires and our boundaries. Most of us are familiar with our inner critics, I talk about that a lot – the voice that tells us our limitations, that quashes our enthusiasm, that tries to keep us safe from any risk, that works to pull us back in when we contemplate change or stepping outside our comfort zone. If our inner critic is the voice of limitation, our intuition is the inner voice of wisdom and curiosity– the one that tells you that you should move towards the things that light you up, or avoid the person who seems great on paper but makes you uncomfortable. It’s that sense of knowing or feeling in your gut. And it's something we should all be not only paying more attention to but be learning to nurture and grow into. I know that the world is noisy. Our social media feeds feel noisy. Opinions of others feel noisy. Our minds are noisy. So getting connected to our intuition is an opportunity to retreat from that. Your intuition is actually the most wise, accurate, deep part of your true self and I want to share with you ways that we can begin to hone this part of who we are, to allow it to have a stronger presence or prominence in our lives and see how amazing, calming and discerning we can feel when we give ourselves space to understand it more. Like courage, intuition can be cultivated. It can be strengthed with practice so I want to give you five tips that I know have helped me and I know will help you to amplify your trustworthy inner voice of intuition.

1. The first thing that’s important is to identify which voices are NOT yours.

Before you can hear your own voice, you need to sift through all the ones that are not yours. Being selective about the type of content we choose to consume and being mindful of the amount that we consume helps to keep our own thoughts from drowning out. The less unnecessary information we absorb on a regular basis, the more it can amplify our own voice and our ability to hear our own thoughts and the more meaningful it will become. The same goes for other areas of your life where there are many opinions filtering in – be aware of whose voices you hear when you think about the things you would love to do or how you want to move forward. It’s really important to have good boundaries around whose opinions matter to us and what we are prepared to engage in so that we can make sure we don’t lose our own voice and thoughts in the midst.

2. Secondly, honing your intuition is so much easier when you align with your values so get to know where you stand on things and what is of utmost importance to you as a person. Your mind can often steer you away from your integrity in sneaky ways, but your intuition will not. We have all had experiences where we have or have been tempted to betray our values. Learn what it feels like to behave in alignment with your values, and you'll start to sense your intuition more clearly. The more that you connect to your core values, the more you will sense your intuition guiding you towards or away from things. It might be worth spending some time writing down 5-7 values that are most important to you in life or work. What do you want to anchor your intuition? When you know what your values are, your intuition is more able to function - you can discern more easily what is for you and what is not.

3. The third thing is regular journaling. It doesn’t have to be long, It doesn’t have to be hard, but even setting 5 minutes at some time during the day and sitting down and writing out what is going on in your head, how you are feeling, what you are struggling with and what you want to feel or do to move forward is POWERFUL. It allows the brain to slow down – even the act of writing with a pen and paper nowadays is significant in helping us to slow down because we’re so used to fast typing or texting. So many of us are resistant to this practice because we might not know what to say or write, but there are no rules and that’s the point. It’s about slowing down, allowing your brain to release some of the things swirling around and seeing what comes up. To get the most out of journalling, the focus must be on self-expression through sustainable practice. So, how it feelsr ather than how it looks, and realistic consistency determined by you. There is immense power in habitually making time to listen to your thoughts, which only serves to strengthen the connection with our intuition.

4. On a similar vein – the fourth thing is finding quiet space for ourselves. Quiet space can be in the form of meditation or just taking 5 minutes outside with our feet on the ground or lying down for a couple of minutes, doing some deep breathing, feeling each muscle release and sending breath around your body. Finding a few moments a day for quiet space, allows for an opportunity to quiet our mind and what's going on around us. These pockets of quiet can bring us back to the present and keep us focused on what we can do in that specific moment, which is so often all we have control of anyway. There are some great free apps for this – I’ve been using Simple Habit for a while which allows you to really tailor your meditation for whatever time of the day or situation you’re in and whatever time you have. I did a 2 minute meditation before I started work today and it was a great way of just stopping, getting quiet and observing my breath before I began my day.

5. Finally, a really clever, simple but powerful tip for tuning into your intuition can be simply CHANGING THE "WHY" QUESTIONS TO "WHAT" QUESTIONS. When you come to the point of struggle or resistance or feel the urge to shame yourself (Hello, inner critic!) you can begin to return back to your intuition by framing your inner dialogue. So instead of asking "Why am I struggling with this? Why do I always do this? Why can I never get this together?" a more intuitive way to approach yourself might be to ask "What is it about this task that I'm struggling with? What is it that is keeping me stuck in this situation? What am I worried about here? What is it that I need to move ahead here"

Often when we ask why, the question is framed in a way to bring shame. But when we ask what – we are searching for deeper reasons to connect to and that can reveal some powerful answers if we are willing to listen closely to ourselves.

So – 5 ways that we can nurture our intuition and access the guidance, self-trust and wisdom that we want.