Increasing intuition. Emotional Freedom Techniques

"To what degree is this job, relationship, move, course of action, in my greatest and highest good? " These are questions that come up frequently in my work with clients. When they arise, I check intuitively to see the motivations/intentions behind the options they're considering. Then we discuss them and they choose as they will. Learning discernment around this question is essential to living in a peaceful body, and a peaceful body allows for intuitive knowing.

As many definitions of karma as there are, they can be condensed to this: decisions we make from fear or a sense of lack will return to create distress. Nearly all of us have mused ruefully, "Well, THAT was a learning experience," then we set to making lemonade. With perfect hindsight, we can usually see how we might have chosen differently and had a happier outcome. In any event, we do the best we can with the choices we've made and hope to become wiser for the experience.

What if we could make that wiser decision in the first place? What if we could learn to make decisions that are consistently in our greatest good without having to "learn" from making the other kind? That's one definition of common sense: calculation applied to life, or the ability to envision the likely outcome of a decision without actually going through the process.

Some people have a gift for it, like perfect pitch in music. Some are reared in a family with a history of common sense and accept it like the color of their eyes. Some peoples' rearing is so chaotic they've never seen common sense modelled. And some are so defined by drama that they wouldn't know who they are without it. Whatever the individual situation, many of my clients want to learn it, no matter how young or old they are, or how many "learning" experiences may have complicated their lives . As I was a late and slow learner myself, I think it's fair to say that if I can do it, anyone can.

What about decisions that seem to demand an immediate response and that by their very nature are stressful? Situation: my house is on fire. Response: get everyone out and call 911.

Short of that, few things require an immediate response, though some of us are programmed to BELIEVE they do. First, develop some techniques for giving yourself time. "I'll need to think about that /check my calendar/call my therapist/ sign up for a self-help seminar, etc. and get back to you." Whatever it takes, give yourself the time to review your options and your motivations/intentions in choosing one action over another.

You may be surprised to discover that when you can quiet the emotional charge, the options for your responses increase almost magically. In a state of tension we activate familiar patterns of response, which are limiting by definition. Viewing from a place of calm allows for creativity and opens up new possibilities. "I can't believe I was able to say/do/feel that" is a response I often hear from clients who've approached situations in this way. Surprise yourself (and sometimes others) with a new repertoire of responses .

The peaceful body is independent of our life circumstances. Life is life. Some are more challenging than others. It's how dedicated we are to finding our way from chaos to quiet that puts you squarely on your Soul's Path.

There is more than one way to quiet ourselves. I've recently begun to teach Emotional Freedom Techniques tapping to diffuse even the most charged situations in short order. Meditation is another way to arrive at dispassionate perception. A long walk on the beach or in the woods works for others. However you reach that quiet place, when you arrive ask to know, with rigorous honesty, your deepest motivation/intention in each possible response you're considering. Few of us intentionally make lousy choices. What we usually do is tell ourselves little lies about why we're making the choices we do. Look for the truth that waits to be known just under the un-truth. (When I do this for clients, I consider it a short cut until they learn to do it for themselves. Another short cut is muscle testing, with which many of you are familiar.)

Years ago my first spiritual teacher gave a (now-familiar) assignment to people who believed that generosity was one of their attributes: put money in a stranger's parking meter when no one is watching. Just for fun, check out this article for an example of the exercise gone wrong: Random act of kindness begets meter madness.

Here is an example of the apparently altruistic choice with the reverse outcome of what was ostensibly intended. The desire to save someone from a ticket and a readiness to contest the parking police trumped an exercise in kindness and became an incident that made good copy which, in turn, snagged everyone who read the Denver Post. "Isn't that awful!" was the outcome of a supposed "act of kindness." It was a thought held by tens of thousands of people; that many people holding a negative thought exert a powerful influence.

Had the motives of the meter-plugger been completely positive, he'd have made a deposit without the police to witness, which would have altered the outcome entirely by eliminating the drama: the giver would have learned how challenging generosity is without a witness; the receiver might not even have noticed; and thousands of people would not have been drawn into negativity about it . (It should be said, though, that if readers craved a dose of negativity, they would only have had to turn the page, which is why many of my clients have stopped reading or watching the news in their goal of a peaceful body.) Unfortunately, a lot of what passes for "good acts," our own and others', have similar outcomes because of the muddy or less than honest intentions that spawn them.

Something more to think about in choosing to live in a quiet body, a fundamental for intuitive knowing...