The Dark Power of Intuition

I would love to confidently distinguish the voice of my intuition from the voice of my ego.

Seriously, understanding the difference would make my life easier.

This weekend, I met someone at church who said to me, "I just want to be around positive people.  There's so many dick-heads and assholes out there.  You know?  People who don't know shit.  I just want to be around peaceful people.  That's why I'm here.  I don't want to hang around assholes."

Then, inside fifteen minutes of conversation, this same guy told me what I considered intimate details of his life.

When my husband and I were home later that day, I told Charlie I thought this guy had some issues.
"Who doesn't?  Come on, you barely know him."
"I know, but I get this feeling about him."

As I attempted to explain to Charlie what this feeling was, by repeating the conversation the two of us had, I realized it wasn't what this man said, exactly, but the energy around him.  I made a case, to my husband, that this was my intuition, some deep knowing, that was responding to this person.

This is an important distinction.  Because if it's my ego, than I'm "just" not liking this guy because he's different than me.  This isn't particularly noble. In fact, it makes me look petty and insecure.

However, if it's my intuition, then I can claim a kind of "spiritual knowing" and lord it all over town: "No, Charlie, it's not me being threatened by someone with different boundaries and ideas than I have.  There's something not quite well about him, it's an intuitive thing."

It's a conversation stopper. Don't challenge my intuition, bro. There's no way to challenge it because it's not about science and it's not rational.

Intuition can give me carte blanche to justify any perspective I have.  Without requiring facts to back it up, I can say just about anything and chalk it up to intuitive knowing.  "Going to work today doesn't feel right," "I have a sense monogamy is not my path right now," "My intuition is telling me that spending $5,000 on that new skin revitalizer will make a positive difference in my life."

I can see why people like prefer facts over intuition.  Let's face it, how do we know someone has a good sense of their intuition, anyway?  For all we know, they don't know their intuition from a hole in the wall.  I can say it's my intuition that this guy isn't altogether well, but it also might be my complete resistance to his energy.  Seriously, for all I know he's doing the best he can, aiming for the good life, and occasionally latches on to people and tells them stories that are disproportionately long relative to the length of time he's known them.  My ego doesn't like that because it wants to circulate the room, get to know more people, not get stuck in a conversation with some guy who doesn't seem particularly consistent or stable.

So, what to do?  Do I honor that voice, that feeling something is not quite right about this guy (I don't feel threatened, by the way, so there's no issue of safety as far as I can see) or do I challenge my ego and practice acceptance?  How do I know?

One of the greatest pieces of advice I ever heard was from Carolyn Myss, renowned medical intuitive, writer and teacher.  She said, everybody is connected with intuition, we just don't listen.  The voice that tells you, "Don't eat that second cupcake, you don't need it" - Intuition.  "Why don't you give your great aunt a call?" (and she dies two days later) - Intuition.  "I keep thinking that if I start exercising more, I'll feel better" - Intuition.  How often do we listen to that voice, value it, heed it's advice?  The more we listen to it, the more it'll speak, and the easier it will be to distinguish it's sound from our ego.

It's simple, really.  Intuition isn't advanced spiritual science, it's practicing what you know to be true.