Thankyou ! This is a wonderful, thought provoking read. I very much appreciate your cited resources and will delve into these more. I look forward to more excellent articles from you.
"One of the reasons that intuition is so valuable is that it not only often provides us with an answer about how to move forward, but delivers a felt sensation of joy accompanying the continual process of finding our way that is not only incredibly satisfying but necessary for our sanity and well-being. The corrolary is that one of the reasons we get wrapped up in addictive patterns is because they deliver intense feeling so easily, and even more specifically because they deliver a simulacrum of the real feeling of successful wayfinding, which we’re often missing entirely."
This was pertinent and insightful (and even a bit frightening).
I find it difficult to tell the difference between intuition 'guiding' me in one direction versus 'fear' guiding me away from another. I find it difficult to listen to my intuition generally, and often doubt or repress whatever I feel it might be. I was glad to hear (for my own sake) that you started to "find your feet" so to speak with your intuition in your forties. I'm approaching mid-30's and worry that I've been acting on fear and impulse for so long not I don't know if I can ever break free.
I would love to be able to feel that sense of knowing I'm on the right path you mentioned, of "successful wayfinding". It honestly feels like a dream at this point. All I really feel is confusion.
Confusion is exactly where I was at in my 20's and 30's. I had a sense something was missing, and even that I was sometimes ignoring something, but that's about as far as it went.
I feel that I could have found my feet much earlier if I had heard more about how intuition works, and I can pretty much assure you that there is something huge waiting for you as you follow this desire. That's a big part of what inspires me to write, and also a big part of the thrust behind this new project that I'm just launching now. You can get there, and although it may seem like a foreign language now, in practice it's not that hard. It's not something that requires effort as much as simply doing (differently).
Something I've learned about intuition, creativity, and drive is that if it occurs to you that X might be possible for yourself, that is in fact your intuition speaking up to say that it would like to move in that direction, and that it is indeed possible. Successful wayfinding is one of the things that we evolved to do, almost unconsciously, without much effort. For me, the best way to get in touch with this has been to spend time on the trail, walking, hiking, and most of all trail running. The physical effort of moving and wayfinding on the trail builds an embodied skill that bolsters intuition. Many books about walking, running, etc refer to this correlation.
Thankyou ! This is a wonderful, thought provoking read. I very much appreciate your cited resources and will delve into these more. I look forward to more excellent articles from you.
Best wishes.
Thanks so much Heather, glad to have you here!
"One of the reasons that intuition is so valuable is that it not only often provides us with an answer about how to move forward, but delivers a felt sensation of joy accompanying the continual process of finding our way that is not only incredibly satisfying but necessary for our sanity and well-being. The corrolary is that one of the reasons we get wrapped up in addictive patterns is because they deliver intense feeling so easily, and even more specifically because they deliver a simulacrum of the real feeling of successful wayfinding, which we’re often missing entirely."
This was pertinent and insightful (and even a bit frightening).
I find it difficult to tell the difference between intuition 'guiding' me in one direction versus 'fear' guiding me away from another. I find it difficult to listen to my intuition generally, and often doubt or repress whatever I feel it might be. I was glad to hear (for my own sake) that you started to "find your feet" so to speak with your intuition in your forties. I'm approaching mid-30's and worry that I've been acting on fear and impulse for so long not I don't know if I can ever break free.
I would love to be able to feel that sense of knowing I'm on the right path you mentioned, of "successful wayfinding". It honestly feels like a dream at this point. All I really feel is confusion.
Confusion is exactly where I was at in my 20's and 30's. I had a sense something was missing, and even that I was sometimes ignoring something, but that's about as far as it went.
I get what you're saying about fear vs intuition. There are some great rundowns on that distinction, e.g. https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/anxiety/understanding-the-difference-between-fear-and-intuition-trusting-your-inner-voice/ and in Joel Pearson's book The Intuition Toolkit https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197712960-the-intuition-toolkit (some of which is very useful, and some of which I totally disagree with).
I've also discussed that distinction in my own writing here
https://bowendwelle.substack.com/p/what-is-intuition-a-whole-and-open
I feel that I could have found my feet much earlier if I had heard more about how intuition works, and I can pretty much assure you that there is something huge waiting for you as you follow this desire. That's a big part of what inspires me to write, and also a big part of the thrust behind this new project that I'm just launching now. You can get there, and although it may seem like a foreign language now, in practice it's not that hard. It's not something that requires effort as much as simply doing (differently).
Something I've learned about intuition, creativity, and drive is that if it occurs to you that X might be possible for yourself, that is in fact your intuition speaking up to say that it would like to move in that direction, and that it is indeed possible. Successful wayfinding is one of the things that we evolved to do, almost unconsciously, without much effort. For me, the best way to get in touch with this has been to spend time on the trail, walking, hiking, and most of all trail running. The physical effort of moving and wayfinding on the trail builds an embodied skill that bolsters intuition. Many books about walking, running, etc refer to this correlation.
More of my own writing on the subject →
https://bowendwelle.substack.com/t/intuition
and my intuition reading list →
https://bookshop.org/lists/intuition-bowen-dwelle