Innovative Self-Care Practices: The importance of honoring your intuition

 It's that time again to explore innovative self-care practices that assists crime victims in their healing journey. This information on honoring your intuition is great for anyone that finds themselves encountering that reoccurring feeling in decision making. When we go through our day managing life and making decisions, we sometimes have that sudden hunch, gut feeling, or suspicion about something we are thinking about. What do you do? Do you listen, feel, observe? Do you ignore? Everyone has intuition but we all don't honor or listen to it. Our intuition often gets ignored because it is not considered logical. We often ask, " How can I make a decision or listen to a feeling if it's not based on fact? In order to understand our intuition let's first explore the concept.

What is intuition? Honoring your intuition is the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning. Your intuition consists of those unconscious hunches and gut feelings that your brain wants you to react to. Psychologists believe that the intuition is the brain's need to prepare for what will happen next. I personally believe, much like instincts, the intuition can be based on past experiences or behaviors that trigger a gut feeling response. For this reason, I ask crime victims to pay attention and honor their intuition. During my career as a crime victim advocate, I went to many a crime scene and have spoken to many victims of violent crime, neighbors, witnesses, and families and I cannot remember how many times people would tell me, "I should've, could've, would've... I knew this was going to happen.” or “I should've listened to my gut!" People recognize their intuition as a warning sign but often ignore it, because they have no basis to back up the feeling. In order to embrace our intuition on a regular basis, we have to be aware of self and in our power. What I mean by this is intuition is directly tied to self-esteem and when you are confident with you and your actions, your intuition is heightened. If you get anything from this post, understand that decision making doesn't have to be all about the logical mind. As a culture, we have been taught thinking outside the box is risky. When we make decisions, we should base them on rationality. I read an article in Psychology Today, which the author referred to intuition as, "Bridging the gap between the conscious and non-conscious parts of our mind." We have to begin to open our minds to allowing the use of our intuition as a guide in the decision making process. Shame or fear should not silence our intuition. Studies have indicated that our intuition is quite accurate in several circumstances especially in detecting deception or danger. 

So, how can we honor our intuition and get int touch with it so that you are confident and trust the feeling? I suggest the following:

Meditation- sitting in quiet solitude and practicing mindfulness. Such practice balances the brain, mind, and body.

Yoga

Outdoor activities- hiking

Journaling- a helpful activity to organize your thoughts.

Albert Einstein once said: "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." There are so many benefits of opening up to our intuition. When you use your intuition, you recognize your true self, get better at making decisions, and don't fall into the patterns of overthinking. Overthinking causes unnecessary delays and decreases your confidence. Many experts in spirituality believe that when you tap into your intuition you are opening up portals of creativity. Self expression is high because you are in tuned to other aspects of life and you are not confined to the societal box. For these reasons, I ask crime victims to listen and honor their intuition because it is empowering and can help them maintain safety in their situations. Especially, victims of stalking and domestic violence should listen to their intuition and respond appropriately. Never doubt. Your intuition is your friend. Get to know it, embrace its authenticity and honor it at all times. 

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