Think of a destination you are used to getting to by a very particular route. Imagine that as you approach the offramp, you see there is another road that might take you there is a more direct way. You don’t really know, so you decide to go your known route even though you have an intuition it takes longer. Exploring our set patterns in any area of our life activates our internal GPS. We can then press the ‘-‘ button to look at the bigger picture to see if there is indeed a more direct route to our fullhearted goals. In doing this, we both create options in case the route we are familiar with fails us and we may discover a more direct, more energizing path to achieve our dreams.

Being intentionally car-less for over a year, I had been forced to open my phone GPS numerous times when a bus didn’t show up or I misread the ferry departures on Super Bowl Sunday and had to find another way back to Marin from San Francisco. When this happened early on in my car-less journey, I would freeze and decide I needed to buy a car, my “go-to” pattern for 40 years. Each time, I was forced to open up my thinking as I did not, in that moment, have a car. Yes, I went on some crazy public transportation trips and often called Uber or Lyft.

Failing Forward
Yesterday I knew the “plan” (God/dess is laughing) and I knew my other options from so many previous “failing forward” experiences. The first bus never arrived so I called Lyft to get to the ferry. Heading home, I didn’t read the fine print on the ferry schedule that the later ferries added for Super Bowl festivities DIDN’T run on Super Bowl day until I was at the ferry building and there were no ferries to be had. Ni modo. I found a new bus to Marin I didn’t know about and got home safe and sound.

Every time I wanted to rant, I switched the channel to “what can I do?”, which was to read a memoir by Benilde Little called: Welcome to my Breakdown. No pun needed. No breakdown needed. Just gratitude for every moment of clarity and commitment to well being which buddhists call bodhicitta, defined as the complete wish to overcome our emotional afflictions and delusions to realize our full potential to bring all beings to an enlightened state free from suffering. That is a more direct path my internal GPS loves to point out, again and again.

Who in your life told you not to trust yourself? Usually it was an authority figure in your childhood. If you can find the cause, you can interrupt the effect of not believing your intuition, which is an internal guiding system we all have. “People usually experience true intuition when they are under severe time pressure or in a situation of information overload or acute danger, where conscious analysis of the situation may be difficult or impossible,” says Prof Hodgkinson of Leeds University Business School. In my experience, that is also when we are most likely to ignore our intuition.

Feeling overwhelmed and anxious can become an unconscious habit that separates us from our intuition. When frozen with fear, a healthy response is to breathe into the pain and remember we deserve protection and support. Instead of zoning out, we can ask: “What is the real or perceived danger?” This helps me go from effect (overwhelmed) to cause (when did I first begin to zone out?)

A Light at the End of a Tunnel
There are always many options to any situation and that is where our intuition is so critical. It is like the light at the end of a tunnel, giving us guidance as to where to begin seeking the best option. We trust we are good enough and know enough to simply take the step in front of us and pause. This pattern of action and reflection allows us to take in small pieces of information with both our heart and our mind so we aren’t rushing forward without our innate wisdom.

Often we jump headlong into actions and reflective activities geared toward spiritual and emotional growth “have” to be canceled. The idiom of having a “hair up your ass” is a hyperactive discomfort that drives us into obsessive actions to avoid our intuition.

Pema Chodron synthesizes this perfectly:  “Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.”

Our intuition is raw, unfiltered truth and it is helpful to see fear as a step in the right direction rather than a sign to turn away.