Um…maybe it’s not your intuition.
How to tell true guidance from mind chatter
Have you ever sat down to do a bit of meditation, journeywork, or intuitive practice…and as soon as you close your eyes, your mind is flooded with images?
Images that go by so fast you don’t know how to interpret them. Images that seem frightening or stressful. Images that are just plain confusing…
While assisting Sandra Ingerman during one of her workshops on intuitive development, I facilitated a breakout room for folks to explore their journey experiences.
One woman shared that when she entered the journey, dozens of images flashed through her mind, and she didn’t know what to make of them. She wondered if she could trust what came through since it was so immediate.
First thought, best thought, right? 🤦🏼♀️
This was the consensus of the group. Everyone piped in with “Yes! Trust yourself, trust what you see. Maybe you work fast. You can do this!”
I expected this reaction. In nearly every shamanic or intuitive development course I’ve attended, the refrain is the same: Trust your intuition. No, you aren’t making it up. This is how spirit communicates with you!
And this messaging makes sense to an extent…
Probably the number one hurdle when it comes to cultivating your intuition is doubt. Our society values evidence-based results, the scientific method, and logical explorations of our challenges. Most of us live in our left brains and have been enculturated to doubt anything beyond our ordinary 3D reality.
It truly is an ongoing process to rewild ourselves back into right relationship with our inner knowing.
But…. (you knew this was coming, right?)
This approach ignores the fact that our minds constantly create millions of thoughts all the time that have absolutely nothing to do with our intuition.
We do our students and ourselves a disservice when we ignore the very real possibility that it actually might not be your intuition this time.
Of course, this makes intuitive development tricky. How do you know the difference between mind chatter and true guidance?
There’s no simple answer to this question. Like I said, it’s a process. Fortunately, understanding just a bit about what might be happening instead of intuition is a good first step.
Is it intuition, or a purge?
Let’s go back to the woman in Sandra’s workshop. Maybe her intuition really was coming in quickly. Or maybe, she was experiencing a “purge”.
Our minds are so full and capable that they have a hard time shutting off. And we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by information.
If you don’t create space for all this input to flow, it’s almost as if it gets dammed off and stuck in your mind. Then, when you finally do sit down for some sort of meditative practice, it bursts through the floodgates all at once.
The result? You’re immediately bombarded with quickfire images and thoughts — even if you’ve set the intention for spiritual communion. Generally, once this influx if mental activity has a chance to move through your awareness, your mind can calm down enough for true insights to arise.
This phenomena is really easy to take care of by — you guessed it — meditating.
The more often you create space for thoughts to flow through your awareness, and the more you cultivate the ability to focus and quiet your mind at will, the easier it will be for you to access your intuitive guidance.
Related to the purge above is a different kind of purge — a purge of psychic material.
Just as we all pick up on physical gunk as we go throughout our days, we pick up on energetic and psychic gunk, too.
A lot of this is your run-of-the-mill dense energy, negative thought forms, and collective psychic activity that gets lodged in your own energetic fields.
When this happens, the first images you receive are often the result of psychic processing. Just as information needs to move through your mind, foreign energies need to move through your psyche.
This is totally normal, and as before, simply allowing it to happen usually creates space for you to receive true information.
Just as meditation helps keep our minds ready for spiritual practice, a good energy hygiene routine can help keep your psyche ready for intuitive insights.
(Do you have any tips for energy hygiene? Let us know in the comments!)
Remember your negativity bias.
Humans were gifted with a lovely little mental trick called the negativity bias. And thank goodness! The mind’s natural tendency to focus on and remember negative experiences has played a major part in the survival of our species.
I’m pretty sure that my personal negativity bias is on steroids. 😬
Every time a loved one simply goes to the grocery store, my mind creates a story that they’ll get in a horrible crash, or there will be an active shooter, or the apocalypse will suddenly happen and they’ll have to trek back to me (without groceries!) while I wonder if they’re alive…
Seriously — that’s just a taste of the amazingly awful stories my mind creates for me.
(As my partner once said, in response to another one of my disproportionate fears about daily life, “If that were true, every other person would be an ambulance driver.” He’s good for me.)
Learning how to discern a fear that’s been programmed into your mind from a real intuitive warning comes down to understanding your own nervous system. This takes time, practice, and a lot of self-knowledge.
When it comes to spiritual practice, however, you have an advantage: Effective spiritual practices usually have nervous system regulation built in.
Make time for a body scan, breathwork, or visualizations that help you come into a state of calm. Practice bringing your brain into a meditative state with binaural beats, a drumming track, or even sacred fragrances.
When you combine this somatic work with clear intentions and prayers, you are much more likely to receive true guidance rather than fear-based stories.
Does this mean you’ll never receive scary guidance? Not at all. But when it comes through, you will feel your own power to respond in a healthy way, rather than the panicked kind of response you’ll get from the negativity bias.
To really trust your intuition, you must know yourself.
Everyone has different intuitive strengths and weaknesses. Different ways of caring for their nervous systems. Different ways of receiving and discerning information.
The more you get to know your own uniqueness, the more you’ll naturally know when to trust what arises intuitively.
Whenever I teach on this topic, I share a few keys for unlocking your intuitive gifts:
Know your clairs. The “clairs” are different sensory ways we can receive intuition. You need to learn not only which ones are strongest for you, but the unique ways they work together for you to really understand your intuitive guidance.
Know your symbolic language. Sometimes we’ll get lucky and intuitive insights come through like a how-to guide for your life. Quite often, however, insights come through symbols and metaphors. The more you know how to interpret your personal dictionary of symbols, the easier it will be for you to receive intuitive messages.
Know that you actually are imagining everything. And this is a good thing! Imagination is absolutely one of the languages of spirit and our own subconscious. When you’ve done the prep work to tend your nervous system, clear your mind and psyche, and set your intentions, you may very well “imagine” the intuitive guidance you need.
Resources
If you’re just getting started with shamanic journeying, I go into more depth with all of this my mini course, The Art of the Shamanic Journey.
This course is included with paid subscriptions to this Substack. Subscriptions are only $5 per month, and you can totally binge the entire 7-lesson course in one month if you want :)
The absolute best way to go deeper with these teachings and more is to join me in person this June!
I’m offering a 3-day immersive workshop all about spiritual rewilding, shamanic practice, intuitive development, ritual, ceremony, nature communication…all the good stuff.
Early bird registration ends April 19th and there are a few spots left!
Even more resources…
If you already have a journey practice and want to go deeper, you need 144 Shamanic Journey Prompts.
If you’ve met your spirit animal and want to go deeper, The Spirit Animal Workshop will help.
If you want personal support for your own shamanic practice, you might be a good fit to work with me.
If you just want to real lots of awesome free shamanic content, head to this section of my blog :)
Thank you once again, Juniper, for reminding me of that my brain and thoughts have multiple sources. Whew! Usually when I have true inspiration, it’s more of a slow process of realizing it over time. It really sticks more clearly than the chatter. And your writing just inspired that realization!