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The benefits of living intuitively

May 13, 2021 | Soul Purpose

Living intuitively is something that can enrich anybody’s life, no matter where you are in the world, what your circumstances are or how much money you have in the bank. It’s completely free and can be a huge support when it comes to your happiness and wellbeing.

I first came across the idea of living intuitively back when I was trying to lose weight, I was hearing a lot about intuitive eating and this was long before I embraced my spirituality and started reading tarot. To me, being intuitive was just being mindful, but I soon discovered it could be so much bigger than that.

What does it mean to live intuitively?

Your intuition is a powerful, spiritual tool that every single human on the planet has access to. Some have a stronger intuition than others and that’s only because they exercise that muscle as often as possible. For example, since starting to read tarot, my intuition is the strongest it’s ever been because I use it multiple times a day. It also requires you to trust yourself and your natural instincts. However, if we have low self-esteem or confidence issues, then this can be a tricky thing to do.

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“Intuition is seeing with the soul.”

— Dean Koontz

Living with intuition means to live your daily life always touching on that gut instinct and unconscious knowing. When you get a feeling that someone is going to text you and then they do, that feeling is your intuition. It’s information that is given to you that doesn’t stem from the physical brain.

What are the benefits of living intuitively?

It’s about so much more than being able to ‘predict’ when things are going to happen, it’s about forming a connection with the universe and our own higher consciousness. The physical and external world is completely out of our control and it can all get a bit much sometimes, but if we can live intuitively then we can navigate the world in a way that protects our wellbeing and mental health.

Living intuitively helps to create a stronger and more trusting relationship with the self, which in turn helps us to feel more supported, protected and confident. A big change in myself that I’ve noticed over the last few years, is that my anxiety isn’t getting in the way of simple daily activities. I still have anxiety don’t get me wrong, but the way I manage it has become so much more natural and instinctive. I have the ability to quickly tap into my emotions and how my body feels so that I can take action before I start to spiral.

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“I believe in intuitions and inspirations…I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.”

— Albert Einstein

Other benefits you might spot once you start inviting intuition into your daily life are:

Being able to make clearer and more definitive decisions
Organically putting your wellbeing first without having to ‘make time’ or schedule a self-care session in
Being more open to questioning the mind when it throws up negative emotions or thoughts
Being able to handle low moods in a healthier and more manageable way
Being able to identify vices or bad habits faster and being open to different ways of working to heal these things
Feeling ready and more capable to heal deeper trauma
Increasing feelings of self-love and self-worth
Being more compassionate towards the self and towards others

How to invite more intuition into your daily routines

Now we know how beneficial living intuitively can be, the question is how can we live more intuitively in our daily lives? There are plenty of ways you can start to strengthen your intuition, but here are the easiest and most common:

Acting on your intuitive feelings when they arise – don’t push them away or ignore them for more logical ideas, accept these feelings and allow them to play out naturally.
Pulling daily tarot or oracle cards and allowing yourself to think about the energy – a daily card pull can be a great way of sparking off that intuition at the beginning of the day. See what feelings or ideas come to you once you’ve pulled the card and sit with those to allow them to wash over you.
Listen to your body and give it what it needs, not what it wants – this can apply to food, rest, exercise, meditation. Remember that the brain is also part of the body, so if you feel mentally exhausted, that is a physical need that needs your attention.
Make decisions from the gut – instead of choosing the most logical choice, put the brain to one side and see which option your gut prefers. I do this when it comes to choosing what I want to eat, what I want to listen to, what exercise I want to do, whether I want another coffee or herbal tea, what book I want to read or what TV show I want to watch.

Your intuition is yours alone, there is no right or wrong way to live intuitively as long as you are acting from a place of intuition, whatever that means and feels like to you.

The Art of Taking Things Slow When You’re Super Busy

Feb 18, 2020 | Soul Purpose

I know what it’s like to have a to do list as long as your arm, and be in full panic mode that you’ll never to be able to get it all done. When I think back to all those moments when I was running around shouting about how busy I was, I question whether I actually did have too much to do, or whether I was creating panic and stress with my perspective.

There is no doubt about it, when you are trying to run and build your own business, there is a never ending list of things that need doing. However, a lot of the time, stress and panic that we feel has been self-created. We haven’t been prioritising time for our brains to turn off and process everything from the day, so we keep piling more and more onto it, hoping it can carry the load.

*SPOILER ALERT* It can’t.

Are you creating your ‘busy’?

We desperately need to dispel this idea that you have to work yourself to death, in order to become successful at what you do. It is this mindset, that so many entrepreneurs have, that creates stress and poor mental and emotional wellbeing.

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“it’s the journey that matters not the destination. ”

Most of the time, we don’t even realise that we are creating our own busyness, we convince ourselves that we have strict deadlines that simply do not exist in reality. Our subconscious becomes the back seat driver and starts encouraging us to panic over things that we actually have complete control over.

Identifying when you are actually busy and when you just think you’re busy is the first step in finding a slower rhythm to your daily life. It’s important to make this distinction early, in order to find the most effective solution to your busy problem.

Slowing things down and giving yourself a break

When we are in charge of our own workload, we can be so hard on ourselves. Discipline is of course important when you’re a solopreneur, but it’s important to be disciplined but not restrictive. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re a few hours late with a project, acknowledge why you were late and accept that you are only human.

Slowing things down or taking things slow doesn’t mean that you have to move at a snail’s pace, it’s a frame of mind. Slow living should be about mindfulness and experiencing things as fully as possible, as we all know, it’s the journey that matters not the destination.

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“Remember that everything you do is for a reason.”

The first tip for slowing down your busy life is to schedule in time to do nothing. It doesn’t mean you have to do nothing, it just means that you have that time to do what ever your body and soul needs in that moment. If that is nothing at all, then great. If that is watching episodes on Netflix back to back, then that’s great too.

For example, I always give myself a lunch break that gives me enough time to eat a proper meal and give me some extra time to just sit and relax, read or go for a walk. I can rest easy knowing that I’ve blocked that time out for this purpose and I don’t have to feel guilty about not sitting at my desk.

Practice mindfulness and gratitude

I know that gratitude and mindfulness is something that is drilled into us, especially in the wellness community, but it is worth pushing that these two things can make a huge difference.

Instead of rushing through every task on your list, just so you can get to the next thing, practice paying attention to how you feel doing that job.

Are you happy doing the task?

Is there something specific that you really love about this task?

Is there something you hate about this task and is there a way you can make it more fun?

Remember that everything you do is for a reason. Remind yourself what that reason is and what benefits this will bring to your life. If it’s doing your tax return (nobody likes doing taxes), what does doing this mean for you? It might mean that you are a successful business owner that needs to do their taxes, it might mean that you’ve earned a specific amount in the tax year that you should be proud of.

Keeping a gratitude journal or an achievement journal is also a great idea to help slow things down. It doesn’t have to take forever, it could literally be five bullet points of things at the end of the day, that you are particularly proud of or grateful for. It could be that you do it once a week or once a month!

Start thinking of life a bit like being on a treadmill that you can’t stop, you can slow it down, you can choose the incline. You have more control over your life than you realise, even if you can’t stop it, there are ways to make it easier for yourself.

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