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Setting Intentions and Listening to Intuition

flower essence for clarity and intuition

In my practice, I collaborate with each client to create a healing intention to frame the flower essence formula to best serve them in the month ahead. A well crafted intention can guide a formula, and help her maintain focus on her desire for growth, change, and healing.

Recently, I was consulting with a client who had suffered a great deal of loss in the previous few months. A major relationship had ended, entailing a move and disruption to her work life. She was really struggling with intense feelings of grief and sadness. As we talked, I shared with her how normal it is for her to be feeling this way, and how flower essences could give her support, and soothe her through this painful passage.

As we wrapped up our conversation, I asked for her ideas on an intention for the flower essence formula. She had recently been introduced to the practice of intentions, and a friend had suggested an intention for her of “joy and gratitude”. She had been saying this intention to herself several times a day, as is often recommended.

When I asked her how this intention resonated with her, she burst into tears.

Obviously.

My practice towards intentions is to set an intention that is a little bit of a stretch, but does not feel a million miles away from current reality. The problem with a lofty intention is that it sets off our inner bullshit meter.

Your bullshit meter is an important, even vital, part of your safety equipment. It lets you know when someone is lying to you, has bad intentions, or can’t be trusted. It also lets you know when you are lying to yourself.

So many of my clients express a wish to enhance their intuitive capacity, which I wholeheartedly encourage. But the notion of intuition being like Glinda the good witch descending in a bubble of light…while that may happen once in a while, more often our intuition talks to us in a grounded, visceral way. Developing your connection to your innate, embodied intuition can absolutely save you from all kinds of misery. And everyone can learn to listen to their bullshit meter.

I think everyone has experienced doing something that they later thought “I knew I shouldn’t do that”. The trick to life is to listen, and not do it! This is your intuition, your everyday, mundane, life-saving intuition. Ignore it at your peril.

How to Hear Your Intuition

To learn to listen to your embodied intuition, I encourage students and clients to simply test how statements feel to them. Sitting quietly, tune into your body, particularly the sensation in your belly, solar plexus and chest. Then, make a statement that is absolutely true, such as stating the name that is on your birth certificate. Follow this with a statement that is absolutely false, such as “my name is Meryl Streep”. Try a few options with this and feel into your body. In almost every case, people have expressed surprise how clear and unmistakable it is once they knew the significance of the sensation. There is a lot of variation in where you will feel the true or false sensations, so it is best for you to practice and see where it is for you. Many people feel a tightening in their solar plexus for false, and a warm or tingly feeling in their chest for true. But everyone is different, you have to learn what it is for you. Regular practice can strengthen your skills and you will learn a great deal of refinement with the technique.

Setting an intention that has no basis in your reality and repeating it to yourself is a fine way to short circuit your intuition, because you are silencing your bullshit meter. Much better is to set an intention that is just one or two steps from where you are presently, to set your direction and create an attainable goal. For this client, for whom “joy and gratitude” provoked tears, I suggested something closer to “I am healing and feeling better each day”. You want to feel encouraged by your intention, not shut down by it.

Flower Essences To Develop Your Intuition

One of the first steps to hearing your own intuition clearly is to clear the clutter in your field. As we go through life, we pick up energetic debris from people and environments. A regular clearing practice will help you let go of all the stuff that isn’t your own, and help you start to identify your own signal in the midst of all the noise.

There are many options and practices for clearing. A wonderful way is to get out in Nature and simply take a walk, breathe in fresh air, and move your body. Bathing in salt water, whether the ocean or in your bathtub, can clear your field beautifully. And of course, there are many crystals you can carry or have near you that have clearing qualities.

One of my favorite ways to quickly clear my field is to use Centered Floral Mist. I spray all around myself, filling my “bubble” with clean fresh energy. The Himalayan Cedar essential oil is cleansing and protective, and helps me ground into the earth.

Flora of Asia Flower Essences for Intuition

Blue Corydalis flower essence for intuition

Blue Corydalis is one of my favorite flower essences to build trust in the process of personal development. The dramatic cases of awakening tend to get the attention of book publishers, but for most people, developing spiritual awareness is a slower, organic process. Blue Corydalis helps you trust in your own process, and have faith that you are going in the right direction.

Delavay's Tea Olive flower essence for intuition

Delavay’s Tea Olive flower essence helps you slow down and notice more. The world around us is noisy, chaotic, and fast moving. This can prevent you from seeing and feeling the still, small voice within you that is key to accessing your knowing. This flower essence helps you connect to a deeper rhythm and the wisdom that arises from stillness.

Illicium flower essence for intuition

Illicium is the perfect flower essence for self-development practices. It helps you gain clarity and awareness of what is really true. This essence clears the clutter and noise, helping you build patience and calm. For the most part, inner wisdom does not come in sound bites as we rush around. We have to slow down, center ourselves, and listen deeply.

Little Cerato flower essence for intuition

Little Cerato guides you into connection with your higher self, while helping you keep your grounding and roots. Opening to the world of spirit can help you set your intention and course of action on this plane. Learning to bridge the worlds, so that we can act from our highest selves in an embodied way is an important practice in personal development.