6 Tips to Increase Your Intuitive Skills

This is probably the question I am asked more than any other: How do I increase my intuitive skills? So, to help you in that regard, assuming you, too, want to be more intuitive (I mean, who doesn’t??), here are my top six tips.

But first, a disclaimer. It is my belief that everyone and everything is an interconnected part of All That Is. It follows then, that at our core level of Oneness, we all have access to all the information in the universe(s). We can access this information through empirical study and research (via the left brain, aka, the slow way) or through intuition (via the right brain, aka, the fast way). If you do not share my belief, that’s okay, but try these tips out anyway, as an experiment and see if any of these work for you. Even Einstein said, “Logic will get you from A to B, imagination will take you everywhere.”  And this takes you right to my first tip…

1) Spend more time in your right brain.

This means enjoy daydreaming, visualizing, making music, art, dance, stories, or anything else creative. Why? Both intuition and imagination are processed through the right brain. By getting to know your right brain a little better through your imagination, even if it’s all pretend, you keep the portal open to intuition as well. At first, it may be difficult to distinguish between what you’re “making up” and a direct intuitive hit. That’s okay, too. With practice you learn the differences. The important thing is to visit the right brain and value it by keeping it stimulated through imaginative play.

2) Act on the intuitive hits you get.

Many of us are getting a lot of intuitive hits throughout our day, but since we live in a culture that devalues intuition as medievalism, mental illness, or even of the devil, we are very good at dismissing, rationalizing away, or simply ignoring the glaringly obvious intuitive guidance that is staring us in the face.

For example, a few months ago, my husband had the impulse to buy a lottery ticket at the grocery store. This isn’t common for him at all so it was probably already his intuition guiding him. He then had the sudden thought to play the famed numbers that the character Hurley used in the TV show Lost. Later that day, when the lotto numbers were revealed, indeed four of the winning numbers were the Lost numbers which meant a $150 prize! However, my husband didn’t get the prize because he didn’t actually play the Lost numbers. Why? After he had thought to play those numbers he reasoned that if we were fated to win, it wouldn’t matter what numbers he played; he’d win no matter what. So he played different numbers and didn’t win anything. This is exactly how the left brain tries to trump the right brain. So the next time you get an intuitive hit, try it out and see what happens! It may be all that happens is you save yourself an hour in traffic by listening to your  intuition and taking an arterial instead of the interstate you later find out was completely blocked due to a protest march. (Yes, this happened to me!) By acting on your intuition no matter how small it is or seemingly insignificant, you build your trust in your abilities. Intuition is just like a muscle: the more you exercise it the stronger it gets.

Again with Einstein: “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

3) Meditate and contemplate.

It doesn’t matter too much what practice you follow. Just do what appeals to you and therefore, is easiest for you to keep at on a regular basis. Most meditative and contemplative practices increase mental strength through focus which enables you to train your brain. You are then able to quiet down the left brain that is usually streaming a steady flow of commentary about everything and free up the right brain to be in the ever-present now, watching, aware, awake and open to the flow of intuition.

4) Pay attention to your body (and nature in general).

You body is more connected to intuition than your rational mind. Ironically, in our materialistic society, many people are disconnected from their body’s awareness, so it may take some time to get back in touch with your body’s wisdom and learn to trust its intuition. A general rule of thumb is that if you are going away from your intuition, your body will constrict in some fashion: your gut clenches, your throat constricts, your breathing gets shallow. When you are going towards your intuition, your body relaxes, opens up, and feels better. Nature responds similarly. When I am “in the flow,” I notice eagles overhead or some other “sign” that confirms my intuition.

5) Do your inner work.

It’s not sexy, but it is imperative. Some of the main blocks to getting clear intuitive hits are heavy emotions, limited thinking, and unseen shadow. Some people give up on their intuition because when they have followed it, it hasn’t been accurate. The issue isn’t with the intuition itself, but how it’s being received and process by you. Like a radio, if you’re not tuned in exactly to the right station you’re going to get static or pick up multiple stations at the same time. Fear, anger, sadness, and pessimism can all be like static and shadow can twist or add to the pure intuitive message trying to come through. If you have no idea how to do inner work, find a reputable therapist, spiritual director, healer, or wise religious leader to help you discover your inner world and integrate it.

I once received intuitive guidance not to attend a class I was interested in. The instructor, also an intuitive, told me I was wrong not to attend, and that by not coming to class, I was dooming myself to being in a car accident. I trusted my own intuition over hers because 1) she was financially and emotionally invested in the outcome of my decision - she would make more money and have more attendees – both ego concerns that might twist or warp her intuition; and 2) her message of doom was a fear-based threat. Pure, intuitive messages are emotionally clear. Even if they are warning messages to keep you safe, they do not carry fear, or threats, but are simply matter-of-fact.

6) Learn the language of your dreams.

One of the first things I did to begin to become more aware of intuition through dreams was to keep a dream journal. Not only would I write down the interesting dreams I could remember in the morning, I also wrote open-ended questions down in the journal right before I went to bed at night to see how my dreams might answer them. For example, I’d write “I need guidance about which job to take” or “I am asking for guidance about this relationship.” It’s amazing how many intuitive hits would come in the dreams, or even the next day as I went about regular chores. The subconscious is very connected to your intuition, and even though its language is often cryptic, symbolic and archetypal, by connecting with your subconscious intentionally, you open another door to your intuition.

Good luck! Let me know how your experimenting and playing goes…

In My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, I wrote about an event when a choir of angels sang to me. I didn’t know if I would ever hear that glorious sound again, this side of heaven. Now I do know, which I will write about at the end of this post, but first, rather than rewrite about the original event, here’s the excerpt from My Karma:

“Around the time I started to see energy, I was filing lawsuits in federal and state courts for civil rights violations. Reluctantly.

Some time later, after a long day of bemoaning my litigious fate to God, I happened upon a little book about Rosa Parks. As you probably know Rosa Parks is considered “The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” She is well known for standing up for herself and others by insisting on sitting down. In 1955, she refused to move from her seat for white men who had entered the bus and she was subsequently arrested.

What I learned from this book, however, was that this was not unique to civil rights activists of the day. Many refused to move from their seats to protest segregation on public transportation. What is less well known and what made Rosa Parks stand out from the crowd was that she sued, albeit reluctantly, for her arrest. This lawsuit with the support of the NAACP, went to the US Supreme Court and in a landmark decision, the highest court in our country declared bus segregation illegal. This ruling was then the precursor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964—under which my own discrimination lawsuits were filed.

Knowing it was a lawsuit that had made a difference in the African American struggle for equality made me feel a little better that I too had sued for civil rights violations. Even though I knew the church needed accountability, I truly had not wanted to sue. It’s costly, it’s time consuming, not to mention a drain on one’s mental energy, and in general a real hassle. Plus, I had loved the people in the church. I had loved being their pastor. It grieved me to be in litigation with them. I would have walked away several hundred times over throughout the whole ordeal if I hadn’t been completely convinced that God wanted me to stay in the thing.

Needless to say, God made sure I knew I was supposed to stay in the thing.

One day I was questioning God as to why I had to sue. I mean really…why? Why was the legal part of it so necessary from God’s perspective? What was it going to gain? It seemed rather severe from my own perspective. The next morning I received a devotional scripture through a daily email subscription of mine that said in summary:  “The farmer knows each grain she plants. She knows how much threshing each type of grain needs to be harvested. Some types of grains need very little threshing, but some need a lot, like wheat, but the farmer knows.” (The sex change for the farmer—my idea.)

In other words, some situations need more intense treatment than others in order for something productive to come out of them and God knows which ones do. My task then was just to trust and follow the continued leading of God to the best of my ability.

Still, not one to just trust, (although “I just must trust” did become a necessary mantra to help me cope over the years), I would repeatedly find myself struggling to come to grips with the litigation. One evening in particular I was wrestling with God about why the lawsuit had to be. The next morning I awoke to music as if my alarm clock had been set to a radio station. One problem, though. I didn’t have an alarm clock that played music. Moreover, it sounded like a choir was singing in my head…or maybe in my bedroom…or both? I couldn’t tell. It was glorious angelic singing or I presumed it was angels anyway. The words? “That all may be free. That all may be free. That all may be free.” This phrase was sung several times in hauntingly beautiful melodies and harmonies and then it gradually faded away.

I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and looked around—seeing nothing. Yet another bizarre event to wonder about, but whatever the source, the message was clear. Without civil rights (even for ministers), no one is free. Thank God for Rosa Parks. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to file my civil rights litigation in the first place, let alone win a civil rights victory for clergywomen.

But contemplating the angelic choir in my bedroom, made me more suspicious than ever about other strange events that seemed to confirm the existence of disembodied spiritual beings around me. I kept running into them, or they into me. Why me? I mean it wasn’t just a few angels singing that morning…oh no, no, no, no, it sounded like I got an entire tabernacle choir of them.

Maybe because I was still uncertain as to what to do with the few experiences I’d had up to this point that I metaphorically needed to be hit over the head with a two by four of a whole legion of angels singing to get that this is real. It’s not that I didn’t believe in angels. I was, in fact, raised in a church that did believe in them. It’s just that somewhere down the line, attending an intelligent academic-oriented Christian university and then Princeton Seminary, that I (along with many other like-minded ministers) relegated talk about angels to Sunday School theology and ancient scriptural stories. I don’t recall any Presbyterian ever talking to me about their encounter with angels. It went right along with seeing auras…

So while in essence I believed in angels, I didn’t really figure them into everyday modern life. The mystical was not in my worldview. I had a strong faith and a close relationship with God, but really on the whole my spirituality had been normal, for lack of a better word. I would later learn that more than 78% of Americans believe in angels, according to a Gallup Poll, and the percentage keeps going up. But for some reason, even though the vast majority of people in our country believe in angels, the acceptability of talking about such things is low. I have had many friends, clients, and strangers in the years since tell me about their encounters with spiritual beings. Alas, they usually begin their story with, “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but...”

I could relate to that worry. I was so afraid someone was going to think I was nuts, especially since I knew there was a senior minister running around out there declaring exactly that sentiment about me. So to whom could I talk about these strange events? No one, I thought, so I kept it all under wraps. I hid the fact that I had not only heard angels, but I was starting to see them…” (pp. 45-48 )

So, here’s where the story, almost nine years later, picks up. A couple of weeks ago, I clicked on a link for a TED talk on facebook. As soon as the speaker, Eric Whitacre, started to play a clip of his virtual choir singing Lux Aurumque (Light and Gold), my eyes filled with tears. Here was the angelic sound I had heard in my bedroom almost nine years ago—the same haunting melodies and gorgeously dissonant harmonies! I was moved and quietly wept as I watched and listened to the whole video later on YouTube. Of course, the legion of angels singing to me were vocalizing the words, “That all may be free. That all may be free. That all may be free.” Over and over they repeated these words but with an amazingly similar sound to Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir. And interestingly, Lux Aurumque is a Latin translation of a poem written about angels singing to Jesus:

Light,

warm and heavy

as pure gold,

and the angels sing softly 


to the newborn babe.

~ Edward Esch

Here’s the video of Eric’s virtual choir of people from twelve countries singing Lux Aurumque:

Thank you, Eric Whitacre! If you’d like to hear his fantastic TED talk about how his virtual choirs came to be, here’s the link for that. May you be blessed with knowing your angels are watching and  singing over you today!

Emotions can be very powerful fuel for actions that benefit or for actions that harm. In general it is better to be in touch with your emotions than not. But, once you can express your emotions, learning to detach is an excellent skill. Why? Well, for one reason, as I just stated, emotions you are not in control of can cause you to say or do something harmful you greatly regret afterward. A lot of people in prison could tell you that is exactly how they got there; their emotions got the better of them in the heat of the moment.

Even if your emotions don’t lead you to criminal behavior, out-of-control and reactive emotions can still create a lot of havoc in your relationships and career. Learning to detach from your emotions is a way to create an empowering awareness that allows you to choose your emotions and therefore your actions. The challenge is that when emotions strike, it can be difficult to choose what actions are thus forthcoming. The emotion rules rather than your intention! To create more balance and less reaction in your emotional life, learning the art of detachment is necessary.

First, in order to detach, you have to get in touch with your emotions. Only when you are accepting of your emotions’ full import and at home with the gamut of them, does the ability to detach from them become possible. However, sometimes getting in touch with long denied emotions is a little (or a lot) like opening Pandora’s box. If you find yourself getting overwhelmed by your emotions, use the services of a reputable counselor, therapist, spiritual director, or healer who can help you. Once you can name your emotions and accept them, without them overwhelming you, then you are able to move on through the process of detachment.

Second, notice your language. Most often, once someone is in touch with their current emotion, they will say something that clearly identifies themself with the emotion. For example, “I am sad” or “I am angry.” Whenever we fill in “I am _____” we are essentially saying, “I = ______.” So, rather than fully identifying with the emotion, change your language. Say something different, such as, “I am noticing sad/angry feelings arising.” This makes you the observer of the emotion without identifying with it. This in and of itself creates distance from the emotion yet without denying that it has come into your awareness either. By creating some space between you and the emotion, there is far less chance that the emotion will overwhelm you. Then you can process it without being reactive or destructive.

Third, once you have named it, and disidentified with it, then you can dialogue with it. Talk to the emotion as if it’s a guest who is passing through with a gift for you. “I see you anger/sadness. I am glad you have arisen so you can teach me something. What are you here to teach me?” Allow the emotion its own voice to speak to you. Once you have heard the lesson, then you can thank your emotion for being such an excellent teacher, and send it away or release it. Add visualizations if this helps you.

I learned this skill by myself out of necessity. It was a time of great grief and stress (see my book, My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, for the details!) and expressing all of my emotions was literally killing me. <It is possible to die of a broken heart.> Thus, I had to find another way to process the emotions without emoting them and stressing out my body more, and yet without denying them either. I found that I could visually process my emotions by looking at them in my mind’s eye, having a dialogue with them and then releasing them up and out my spine or by pulling the energy out of my body. I did not have to emote or express them in order to release them. I only had to acknowledge, honor, dialogue and learn from them. Today, I do the same process with clients who come to me for energy healing.

The bottom line is—You are not your emotions. You can observe your emotions. So who is the You who is observing? You are not even your thoughts. You can observe your thoughts so who is the You who is observing? This is the trillion dollar question. When you know the answer to this, the resulting emotional equilibrium is a peaceful, calm, deep sea that brings peace to your life as well as to all around you. Be the peace!

Some pix from the book launch!

This topic has come up several times with clients in recent weeks and months and thus, it must be I am to write about it! Sexual attraction, as far as I have been able to determine it, is fundamentally a soul question that our spirit has the answer for. Yes, hormones and the biological imperative to reproduce the species play a part. But even hormones and biology have a degree of consciousness that plays into the deeper soul question.

The soul question that is inevitably in every instance of sexual attraction is “Do you complete me?” to paraphrase the line from the Jerry McGuire movie. In other words, there are places in us that do not feel complete or whole and the attractive person, either someone known or unknown, represents to our subconscious what we don’t feel we have in our own selves.

This is seen very dramatically in the Jungian based Myers-Briggs personality types. The vast majority of us choose a mate whose personality is the “opposite” of ours in 3-4 out of 4 categories. For example if you mostly function as a T (thinker) you are much more likely to choose a mate who mostly functions as an F (feeler) and vice versa. I put opposite in quotes because the personality qualities that Jung depicted are not on an either/or scale but rather a continuum. They do not mean that a thinker cannot feel or a feeler cannot think. All of us have both parts to us, but we prefer and are energized by operating on one side of the spectrum. To operate on the other side takes more energy, effort and conscious intention to learn and utilize those underdeveloped skills.

From what I have seen energetically and spiritually, this is true not only about personality, but about ANY quality on some level a person thinks or feels they do not have. For example, a client came in for an appointment obsessed about a new woman. He said, “She’s a real friend, but I’m not ready to jump into a relationship with her, but I can NOT stop thinking about her. What do I do?”

“Well,” I queried, “What does she have in her personhood or what quality is in her that you don’t feel you have?”

He thinks a moment and says, “She’s so self-confident. I wish I had that self-confidence.”

“When you claim self-confidence for yourself, rather than thinking subconsciously that you need her in order to get that self-confidence, your obsession with her will stop.”

“OH!” he said, very surprised.

The next time he came to see me a few months later, I learned that his obsession with this particular woman had ended quite soon after I had suggested he claim his own self-confidence. He had also recently begun a relationship with someone else. Much less intense, perhaps more balanced.

I could go into why our hormones respond to the “opposites attract” rule but it really comes down to the same thing. We are looking for our wholeness, looking for a way to develop all of who we are. That is a pretty tall order and we need others to show us through either direct teaching or example, what it looks like to develop our underdeveloped qualities. When we can acknowledge a sexual attraction though, as our body’s way of trying to tell us to pay attention to what we think we lack, it can be a fantastic tool for spiritual transformation.

I should note that we can also be attracted not just based on qualities we desire, but also qualities we don’t want to acknowledge in ourselves. If we have a shadow that is repressed we might find ourselves attracted to a mate who lacks integrity. Or if we have an aggressive shadow, we might find ourselves attracted to someone who is very passive. This, too, is a matter of the soul’s need to integrate all of its parts and find balance and heal within. There is also the larger karmic question of soulmates. With souls we have traveled with through many lives, we may have some unresolved issues that attract us to them in this life. Yet, this attraction is still based on finding our original wholeness.

How does our spirit (the part of us that is divine and is always in union with all that is) answer this question? Our spirit is already whole. Every one’s spirit is whole. However, we are all healing back into our original wholeness by reintegrating all of our forgotten parts. The more inner integration work that is done, the more choices can be made consciously through thoughts and feelings of love and security rather than subconsciously through thoughts and feelings of lack, limitations and fear.

I should clarify that I am using the word “soul” as the layer over our divine spirit that has traveled through life times. In these manifested “travels” our souls experience duality: light and shadow, extroverted and introverted, etc. until our souls can embrace it all, hold the dualities and the paradoxes and transcend them into non-dual unity and wholeness. It’s all a holy process, no matter who, what, or how we choose, consciously or subconsciously. So no worries! Just claim the best, learn from the worst, and LOVE it all!

The Health and Wealth Gospel?? Um, No.

However…

The so-called “Health and Wealth Gospel” is a version of Christianity that espouses that health and prosperity are what God desires for all of us. The shadow side of this is 1) you will only truly prosper in the material world (let alone the spiritual world hereafter) if you are a Christian, and 2) if you are therefore sick or in a financial slump, then you are sinning or doing something terribly WRONG. In other words, guilt, guilt, and more guilt be heaped upon thee for daring to be, you know, human.

In my shift into the world of energy healing, a similar version of this gets bantered around A LOT. In this Guru–version of the Health and Wealth Gospel, if you are not living in alignment with divine or universal principles, it will show up as sickness or poverty or some other kind of something you really don’t want and never in your right mind would have asked for. Donna Eden, a pioneer in the field of energy medicine, states in her book of the same name, that she has seen a number of clients who carry around with them what she calls “new age guilt.” They know the right things, believe the correct beliefs, keep clearing the heavy emotions, eat healthy, set the proper intentions, and yet, here they are in her office, sick, poor or both. And they BLAME themselves for not “getting it right.”

So are we healers, teachers, counselors and coaches setting people up to fail? “Do this and you shall be healed. Do this and you shall prosper.” Shadow side: “If you are still sick or not prospering, you didn’t follow the teachings correctly or with enough energy/purity/whatever.” You are therefore to blame. (And I hear this in my head said with the same accent of the mad doctor in The Princess Bride played by Billy Crystal, when he says, to blathe. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, well, you are to blame. Just kidding.)

So, let’s go to the opposite extreme and see what lies there. The critics of “Health and Wealth” point out that the care of the poor and the sick, and seeing God/the divine/the Self in the least of these is mandated by the highest ideals of all the world’s religions. Yes. This is true. And yet, I question this opposite extreme as well because it begs the question: what do you serve the poor/the sick for? To secure your own spiritual satisfaction now or future reward later for helping them? Maybe, but I think the true aim of most bleeding heart activists is to get people out of sickness (if possible) and out of poverty (if possible) into thriving and well-being. You see, if you can’t say that you want people who are sick and in poverty to get out of it (if possible), and that’s one of the main reasons why we who are relatively healthy and prosperous are to serve them, it’s like saying you believe God prefers people to be sick and poor so spiritually mature/healthy/wealthy among us can help them so we can feel better about ourselves and they can simply be happy about their poor, sick, state of being until they transition to the afterlife, which doesn’t seem too right either. Even the critics who desire social action aimed at reconstructing society so the more don’t keep getting more at the expense of those who keep getting less, must say that what they want is for everyone to have a decent chance of thriving and prospering.

But what does thriving and prospering mean? Can everyone be as filthy rich as many have become telling the rest of us how to get filthy rich? Adapting my publisher’s comment: “if every writer met his/her sales goals, civilization would collapse because nobody would be doing anything other than reading,” it is also true that if everybody were as rich as say, Oprah or Bill Gates, society would also come to a halt because societal economic well-being is dependent not on rich people/corporations who have and hoard and keep millions and billions, but on the majority of people sharing and circulating.

So what is true health and true wealth?

It is interesting that the origins for the words health and wealth are related and inter-changeable. Health is from “hale,” and the word “whole” also derives from “hale.” Wealth is from “weal” or “well” another version of “whole.” So it’s not too surprising that in our modern English, the words health and wealth share 5 of 6 letters and therefore rhyme. In the root meanings they are inter-related and connected. Energetically they are too. When do many people lose what wealth they have? When they get chronically sick. Conversely, if one is continually sick, it is difficult to work enough to make ends meet. But I do want to distinguish between them, too, because though they are inter-related, they are not the same. We can all think of people who though wealthy, would not meet our definitions of holistically healthy, because their souls are languishing forgotten in the dungeons of their consciousness or their hearts are as hard as the gemstones they collect. We can also think of people who are holistically healthy: body, mind and soul, and live very simply, even in poverty, whether chosen consciously or not.

So what do we want for people who are suffering? What do we want for ourselves? Our children? Our planet? How do we achieve true thriving and prosperity for most people keeping it all in balance with the earth and each other?

These are all important questions to keep asking ourselves. However, I do want to turn my stream of consciousness here in a different direction. Though this veer may look similar to “the health and wealth gospel” it really isn’t because of one fundamental difference. I believe this difference may help us all shift into the new paradigm the Spirit is trying to create out of the chaos of the old breaking down.

In this shift we are aware that at the core of each and every person is wholeness. This wholeness is the divine spark, the core star, the piece of the Creator, whatever you want to call it. But this is the Truest Self and is therefore whole (and well, healthy, and wealthy). This is true already of each of us. We are not separate from God’s beingness. We are it. Therefore, we are already whole at our core no matter what our circumstances.

We can this live from this awareness regardless of what state of being our body or our bank account is saying to us. It means we live from the place of total assuredness of what is True. The odd thing is that when we live from this awareness, indeed our circumstances do in fact start to shift. They may not shift into our ego’s idea of “health and wealth”. In fact, you can probably bet they won’t. But it will begin to bring into reality something awesome beyond our wildest dreams. Health and wealth of all truly good and beneficial things begins to emerge in our life. And we take responsibility for what does come without blame for where we are learning and growing.

Blame and responsibility. It sounds like a bad Jane Austen novel. But when we can shift out of blame and thinking that something is inherently wrong with us into the wholeness that ever was with us and in us and working through us, we are offered a treasure beyond measure. We are given the conscious choice to use the infinite Source of all well-being responsibly and even magically to help create a new way of being human, a way where we are sharing and circulating and giving and receiving without greed and hoarding, and without fear and suffering for we know who we are. We know we are whole and well and wealthy and healthy, no matter what. And if you are familiar with the mad doctor in The Princess Bride, you know that when he was saying to blathe, he was really covering for true love. Ah yes, that is what all true health and wealth is sourced with, Love. Be rich in Love today!

I just finished a great book, The Intention Experiment, by Lynne McTaggart. As a journalist, she has been following and working with physicists and other scientists to study if and how consciousness impacts life. In this book, she summarizes the results of many experiments showing that, indeed, our intentions can positively and negatively affect our daily and global life. Mind over matter is a little too simplistic of a summary of the studies, but as a healer I often see how a client’s beliefs and thoughts directly impact every aspect of life, from health to relationships, and from finances to the earth’s environment.

However, setting an intention is a little more challenging than just wishing upon a star. Based on the experiments detailed in her book, McTaggart gives some great tips that significantly affected the outcomes of intentions. I’m going to combine her suggestions with my own non-scientific and somewhat biased observations, along with other teachings from healers.

To demonstrate how intentions work, let’s use the metaphor of a balloon.

If you have ever entered a party supply store in recent years, you know that the types of balloons you can choose from are practically endless. The party store in my town has an entire wall numbering up to over 100 types, and that’s not counting all the traditional latex balloons they offer, available in the myriad of colors and sizes they come in as well.

1) This is akin to the first challenge of setting an intention: choice. We have an infinite supply of time and energy at our disposal (believe it or not, this is true, according to me anyway). This follows from my belief that we are, at our essences, eternal, infinite beingness. You may not believe this. That’s okay. Bear with me and join in the fun of experimenting with intention anyway. Even if you do believe this, you may not yet be able to access infinity and eternity in your body. That’s okay, too. Neither can I. Other than a few yogis, mystics, saints and shamans, most of us for the time being are limited to our bodies and 24 hours in a day (and even that isn’t quite true, but moving on…).

However, you still have a nearly infinite amount of choices and options in a given day. You may think your day is “set” and “pre-ordered” for you, given your job or family obligations, school homework, etc. but this is false. You have these conditions because you are choosing them. You can leave your job, relationships, school at any time, if you choose. You remain in them, because you are choosing to do so or at the very least choosing not to experience what would happen if you walked away from these experiences in your life. And choosing anything, anything at all, begins to focus the unlimited supplies of opportunities we have available to us in any moment. You begin to funnel the ocean of infinite possibilities into the pipeline of your life. Or keeping with my initial metaphor: you begin to narrow down the choices of balloons. Maybe a “have a great day” balloon is good for you today. Or maybe just a nice cherry red balloon.

Whatever it is: you choose.

So to set an intention, you must choose from an infinite supply of possibilities, what you want. To not be overwhelmed by this, start small. Make an intention for one day, either today or tomorrow.

2) Now that you’ve chosen what day, choose a specific intention for it: A “have a great day” balloon in silver or white background; Or the cherry red latex balloon in extra large size. So let’s say you’re setting an intention for tomorrow. "Tomorrow I intend to experience peace in all of my relationships."

3) Now that you’ve ordered up your intention, you need to energize it. So just as you would order up your balloon to be filled up with helium at the balloon store, imagine now that your intention you’ve set is fulfilled. What would that look like? Imagine it in your mind as vibrantly as you can. What would it feel like? Imagine this feeling. Feel this feeling. Feel it all the way from your head to your toes. Living in the energy of your intention having already been fulfilled, helps to bring that intention’s vibration into being.

4) Now you’ve got to go outside and let that balloon go! Rather than try to “make it happen,” which is a controlling and therefore fear-based way to go about life, instead play with the universe by sending it out into the sky and seeing what happens. Follow your balloon’s intention as it floats through your day. Observe it. Learn from it.

5) The universe communicates and responds to each of us uniquely. So as you observe and learn how the universe responded to your balloon intention being set free, alter or add, or delete as necessary to any of the above steps as they work/don’t work for you. Repeat and practice. Perhaps continue the same simple intention for several days in a row to get the hang of it and to see what variations occur.


I did this the other day to be my own guinea pig for this blogpost. I set an intention to have a joyous, awesome day and I did! The next day I set the same intention and bam! Everything that could go “wrong” seemingly did go wrong. Nothing had changed with my intention. In fact, I realized I was being tested on my intention: Could I hold a joyous, awesome state of mind despite my circumstances? Yes, I did pretty well and the next several days after continuing to set the same intention, I noticed a shift in the level of energy I was working with and a corresponding shift in circumstances.

Some other tips from scientific experiments:

*Set your intention in the same space every day. A regularly highly positive, energized space greatly impacted the effect of setting intentions.

*The timing of intentions is a little trickier, involving sun, star and planetary events. Rather than look it all up, I just say trust your gut and follow your intuition as to when during each day seems to be the best time to set your intention. It may be different every day and the best time may NOT be in the morning when you get up. Whenever it is, how you feel does impact the effect of the intention so make sure your body feels good and general health is well.

*Before you set your intention, calm your body and increase your mental focus by doing some conscious breathing or other meditative practice such as chanting or drumming that gets you into the “zone.” Also, have a sense of being one with the universe or one with another person if the intention involves that person or your relationship with him/her, helps as well.

*Focus on your heart and on feeling compassion when setting the intention in addition to feeling whatever feeling you believe you will have after the intention is fulfilled.

*Be as specific and positive in your wording as possible. Eliminate no’s and not’s.

*A group intention is stronger than an individual intention so you may want to start a group or ask others to join you in your intention. Make sure everyone is stating the same specific intention.

Final Advise:

If the intention you are setting is not working, it may be for the simple reason that while your conscious mind is all set to go, your subconscious mind is saying exactly the opposite. And it is a general principle that the subconscious tends to trump the conscious mind. Seek out friends, healers, therapists, spiritual directors, etc. you trust and ask them honestly where your own blindspots may be blocking you. Energy clearing and breathwork are very helpful in helping you let go of old energies that are keeping you from moving forward.

Many blessings to you as you use your intentions to move into greater creative expressions of your innate bliss!