How to build intuition and learn to trust your gut.

Our intuition can only be heard if we can listen.  To listen we need to quieten the mind and body and we can use meditation for this.  In this quietened state we learn to recognise the inner nudges of wisdom. 

We need to allow these nuggets of wisdom to surface and travel up into the mind.  Meditation and mindfulness help us notice the nudges.  Meditations around listening to the body and scanning for sensations/emotions help us.  We need an attitude of Beginner's Mind to ensure we allow ourselves to be open to and to feel these sensations/emotions. Feeling emotions and not pushing them away is another key skill we learn in mindfulness.

Stimulating the Vagus nerve can also help us to open the channels to hear our intuition. The Vagus nerve takes messages in the form of electrical signals from the body and sends them up into the mind.  It controls the parasympathetic nervous system and when stimulated  the Vagus nerve activates the relaxation response, reducing your heart rate, blood pressure, decreasing anxiety, stress and inflammation.

 Stimulating the Vagus nerve can help get the heart into a coherent state (stable pattern in it’s rhythm) then the brain and body experience greater mental clarity & intuitive ability including better decision making.

Ways to stimulate the Vagus nerve:

Exposure to cold

Deep breathing

Meditation

Singing/humming/chanting

Yoga

Practicing gratitude & kindness

Massage

Fasting

Eating omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA and zinc

Journalling is another way to learn to listen to intuition. Write freely each morning or use some journal prompts then note down what has transpired to keep track of how accurate your intuition is (there may be a need for some leeway as things often happen in a different way to what we envision before the event.)