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In her book The Soul Of Money, Lynn Twist tells the tale of a Muslim village in the Sahel Desert that was facing death or relocation away from their spiritual center and livelihood. The water supply was about to run out, and time was of the essence. Lynne, a global activist and accomplished fundraiser, arrived with 17 others from The Hunger Project to see what could be done. After traveling miles and miles into nothing but orange dust, they were greeted with a wildly wonderful reception of drumming, songs and laughter.
Yet Lynn couldn’t help but notice that when things got down to business, the women were not invited to the discussion. Sitting in a separate, second circle off to the side, they could listen, but their ideas and opinions were not included. Since there were no obvious solutions to the issue, Lynn’s intuition led her to ask special permission to meet with the women. This move went against everything her training would have dictated, since she was asking to break some serious cultural and religious taboos. It was risky, but the situation was dire.
When Lynn spoke with the women, she found that they already had a solution to the problem. They knew where the water was—it was flowing beneath them in an underground lake. They could feel it.
But They Were Only Dreaming
The women had no proof, of course. In their culture, women’s gut feelings were not paid attention to. Yet for the sake of a village at risk, Lynn helped the women be heard. After much talk, the women were given permission to dig for water.
Often, they used only their hands or simple tools. And though the women never wavered in their belief, the men were less certain.
After a year of digging (a year!), water was in fact found, just where the women had intuited it. With this water, the women saved not only their own village, but also 17 other villages in the region. As a result, many offshoot businesses were created and nurtured through feminine leadership. The entire region began to flourish.
We’ve Come A Long Way Baby?
The women knew. The women knew. But without power and respect for such “knowings,” what good was that?
It may seem this is a story about someone else’s politics, religion, region and sexist biases. But it is not only that. Chances are, if you are an average everyday American woman, the last time you said something you “knew” but could not prove, you were also pushed aside. In fact, chances are, you never spoke what you knew at all. Chances are, you yourself pushed away that knowing as unlikely or unreliable.
We women, living in the land of the free and the home of the brave, still shy away from what we know unless there is a linear path to proving our position prior to the outcome. We are free to say anything we wish, to stand up to any institution we desire—but we don’t. We ourselves often don’t believe our own still small voices within.
My Own Research
When I was researching a character for my novel, Venus For A Day, I ordered several business books written for women, by women, about how a woman could make it big in the modern business world. It is not the kind of book I usually read, since I don’t play “Hardball For Women” and I don’t think much about the idea that “Nice Girls Don’t Get The Corner Office.” But my character had lived in that world, so I needed to know what women were teaching each other.
Again and again, I read that bringing the feminine to the boardroom was a total no-no. I reached for more books, sure I had picked up the wrong ones. Same message: You want to play to win with men, play by their rules.
At First I Was Shocked
Then it all clicked. No wonder the world is not substantially better off, even now that so many intelligent, savvy and hard-working women have taken their place at the top of our corporations. The women who have made it have had to shapeshift their thinking and align themselves to the male ideals in order to do it.
As one writer said, the men made the rules when the game began, and they still play by those rules. You can bring your own rules, but the game is not played that way. You may keep your dignity, and make a nice statement in the process, but you will still lose the game. (I’m not making this up—you go read the books.)
The Most Positive Thought I Could Find
About the most encouraging thought I came across was at the end of one book that suggested that once a woman made it to the top, she could begin to introduce more feminine ideals such as using intuition in making decisions. But that was to be only after she’d made it—and she should expect that those odds were stacked against her.
It made me think of the several doctors I know, both professionally and personally. After years of hellish medical schools that beat every ounce of genuine care-giving out of them, and insurance practices that make sure they have only minimal time with each patient in order to call a case perfectly (lest they loose their career over a misdiagnosis), they are now free to be truly compassionate and connective men and women.
Possible, yes. Likely, no.
Turning the Tables
Learning to trust and live by our intuitive inner guidance systems is not about developing fancy party tricks to impress our friends. It is about learning to return to a life of balance that is guided from a deeper source of wisdom than our current culture has to offer.
While the more "masculine" thought processes (remember, I’m not bashing individual men here) dominate every aspect of our culture, honoring only the linear and rational ways of thinking, we find ourselves swimming in massive debt, experiencing disharmony and dysfunction in the majority of our personal and global relationships, and finding millions of the most educated, gifted and resourced people in the world dependent on anti-depressants. All that, and at the same time we face the very real and eminent potential of an environmental disaster that could be beyond repair.
Learning to trust the more “feminine” thought processes of intuitive knowing, including proving its validity again and again and again simply by bravely following it, brings legitimacy to the non-linear and irrational thought processes that may well save us all.
Our Ace In The Hole
Those who enter the next era with practiced and proven intuitive living skills are going to have an ace in the hole like no other. When information gathering is not reliable, either because there is too much to sift through or the systems are not available when needed, the intuitive knowing that is practiced and trusted will be a beacon of light through the darkness. That may sound dire, but have a look around. See how far down the rabbit hole we have come, and how fast. See how many systems are simultaneously at risk. As my friend and fellow shaman Dr. Eve Bruce has said, “If you’re not at least somewhat depressed, you’re not awake.”
Call it a wild card, but it is my hope that intuition will save the world. It is my hope that rational people—men and women—will begin to act irrationally, following a thread of inspiration just because they know, deep inside, what they know.
Even if you are not trying to save the world (or if—wisely—you understand that saving the world starts at home), you will find that living by intuition for yourself alone is a worthy pursuit. To find an inner guidance system that tells you when and where to turn left, or right, or to stop, or to get going fast, is to begin to walk in true beauty. It is like stepping on one newly emerging lily pad after another, amazed that you really can walk on water with minimal obvious support.
What An Intuitive Life Looks Like
Living by intuition, you begin to leave fear, doubt, immobilization and frantic action behind. Why hurry-worry? When you realize that you will know what you need to know, when you need to know it (and very often not a moment sooner), you begin to see there is no need to live in the imagined future. There is no need to plan out ten possible outcomes you don’t want, one you do, and then spend precious time and energy making sure those things do or don’t. You have the time, space, energy, and faith that you can simply enjoy the now in real-time.
Of course, you’ll lose a lot of the drama in your life. People will come to see you as peaceful, maybe even serene, and there won’t be overly much to complain about. The old friends, stuck in their old ways, won’t know what to do with you. So they will likely leave as you begin to attract new friends who have also left a good deal of the drama behind. This drawback is like complaining that someone has dumped gold on your fresh-cut lawn. But you will learn to deal with that.
Living By Faith
Where the mind will play a thousand tricks a day on you, the intuitive knowing—which you cannot always summon on your personally preferred time table, but which is completely trustworthy when it does come—never fails. Never.
Even if the road that rises up does not take you where you thought you were going, in the end it takes you where you most wanted to go. I call this “Smart Reliability” because when I dream big dreams, but plan my route to accomplishing them in ways that are limited to my current understanding, my intuitive drive makes the needed adjustments so that the bigger dreams can actually come true.
Yes, Bad Things Can Happen
It is true that living by intuition does not mean that bad things will never happen. That would be to go against the nature of life (at least until you are able to transcend all of duality and truly live out the “It’s All Good” motto on a daily basis).
Like the day I left my eight-year-old daughter alone at her school in the woods on an icy morning. Knowing she was a twenty minute walk from anywhere, why didn’t I sense that the doors were locked and no teachers were planning to arrive? Why didn’t my intuition grip my gut as I drove off without realizing that just because my son’s public school was open, my daughter’s private one might not be?
I wasn’t overly preoccupied. There was nothing else calling to me back at home. I trusted my intuition would give me a head’s up on small matters, so why would I even consider it would let me down on bigger matters? I also had learned to check even the smallest of intuitive hints—there were absolutely none that day.
It was only after I got home, and received a call from a neighbor to the school, that my stomach went haywire. As it turns out, my daughter had not waited for someone that might or might not come. Instead, she started walking. Though it took longer, she passed a house that did not look safe, and went to one that did. The woman was kind, gave her a snack, and called me.
Though I felt like I deserved The Truly Bad Mother Of The Year Award, I put on a good face and went to get her. She was angry, and scared. But after all that was talked through, and I told her how beautifully she had handled a terrible situation, she said something amazing. “I guess being strong isn’t only about having muscles,” she said proudly.
It Was Then That I Understood
I was not warned of this bad thing happening because it wasn’t my day to follow my intuition—it was hers. I was not warned because I would have prevented her from learning an important life lesson, which for whatever reason needed to be learned at the ripe old age of eight. Today, that experience is part of what makes her who she is. As a teenager, she trusts herself in a way few of her peers can.
I still don’t like what happened, and I don’t know if I could feel at peace with what I did if something terrible had happened. But given the outcome, I was able to come to terms with my supposed failure as a mother. I was also able to come to terms with my intuition failing me—for a greater good. Though it was not my plan, the bigger picture was served.
So yes, bad thing happen, and sometimes, terrible things happen. But sometimes they are supposed to. That is the world we live in. We live and grow by these things. And trusting that, we again are pointed toward enjoying today in all its beauty.
An Intuitive Education
Learn by doing. With intuition, it is the only way. Catch the still small voice that tells you to bring in that CD from the car. Even though you know you are going right back out in an hour, and want to listen to it again. You’ll be glad you did when someone e-mails you asking for the name of that CD, and you can’t recall without going out to get it. It’s a small thing, but it’s training. Start small, and see how well it works.
If you can’t catch the small voice until after you ignored it, don’t worry. Just imagine turning up the volume, and ask your intuition to speak what you need to hear with more urgency. Just as an acupuncturist is able to train to hear ten things by putting two fingers on a patient’s pulse (when the rest of us are glad to hear a simple thump-thump-thump), we can learn to listen to a variety of levels of the intuitive voice. Practicing on the small things, the bigger things are easier to trust.
A Few Helpful Hints
If you are new to following your intuition, here are a few things that can help.
First, realize that most of our trainings come in the form of irrational impulses. They are designed to conflict with our brain. So if you find yourself saying “That’s stupid, why would anyone do that?”—do it. It’s a telltale sign.
Second, realize that in addition to piping up to steer us in a new and better direction, at times our intuition is also going to tell us something we don’t really want to hear. Perhaps we are going in a direction that won’t work, even though we are sure it will, or is wrong for us even though we want it so badly. When we have our heart set on things going a certain way, it is natural not to want to hear it’s not going to work out that way. But there are times when that won’t change things.
I don’t know any other way to get people to actually deal with this except to let them experience the rough road rising up again and again. But, after not hearing what you don’t want to hear enough times, and hitting yourself after, trust that one day you will start being willing to hear it. You will start trusting that following your intuition into this small disappointment is going to lead you away from a bigger disappointment, or toward a much bigger happiness than the one you have planned. After all, our intuition is on our side.
Your July Shapeshift
It’s summertime and the living is easy. Imagine yourself enjoying the long days of fun in the sun, enjoying your yard or maybe the beach, trusting that you are guided by an inner radar system that is so clear, and so reliable, you really don’t have to worry about anything. You sip your ice tea, you listen, you enjoy a friend, you make plans, you listen to see if those plans are likely to work, and you move forward based on that knowing.
When a problem arises, imagine that you automatically tune in to check on a solution. You know it will come to you, if you let the muddy water settle. You know that something good is in the works. You see yourself smiling (which automatically tells the rest of your body there is no need for alarm), knowing you will know what you need to, when you need to. Smile even bigger as you feel the assurance that you will follow that knowing to create a beautiful life for yourself and a better world for us all.
You imagine the fall will bring changes, and you will be ready for them. And so it will be for the winter, and the spring, and after you graduate, or change jobs, or….
At this rate, retirement will be easy.
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