How to Develop and Manage Intuitive Abilities

Intuitive abilities manifest in many different ways, and most people have at least one intuitive gift. Discovering and managing these abilities involves a great deal of effort and focus. For example, if you or somebody you know wants to learn how to awaken their intuition, psychic channeling skills can be developed over time. And once they’re developed, it’s possible to learn how to manage intuitive gifts.

Learning to Receive Intuitive Knowledge

When it comes to receiving and interpreting intuitive information, people have different aptitudes at varying levels of expertise. Though intuitive abilities manifest in different ways for different people, you can learn to receive intuitive information. Some people are clairvoyant and channel information as things that they see. Some are clairaudient and channel psychic information from the things they hear. Some are empathic and experience others’ feelings as their own. All of these methods, along with many others, are types of intuitive abilities that you can cultivate.

Everyone is Intuitive

All people have “gut instinct,” an innate system of psychic intuition that provides helpful information from outside the realm of rational, logical thought. One example of these intuitive hunches is the ability to sense danger, which all people and animals can do. Research into intuitive abilities has been performed and proved that it exists, though the processes are not fully understood.

Working with Instincts

Many psychics believe that a great way to cultivate intuitive ability is to learn to work with your instincts. In all the busy comings and goings of daily life, it’s common to start ignoring intuitive instincts either because it’s hard to discern when intuitive hunches occur, or it can’t be rationally explained how intuitive premonitions manifest so it’s easier to just ignore them. But dismissing intuitive instincts can prevent further development from occurring.

How Are You Intuitive?

A crucial step in cultivating your intuitive abilities is to identify the particular way you receive intuitive information. There isn’t a generally correct or incorrect way that this happens. Some people experience intuitive hits throughout their day, but they don’t acknowledge them because they’re too busy or they’ve conditioned themselves to ignore the extrasensory mental input. Intuition can occur at any time, so you may notice it as you go about your day, or it may come to you in your dreams. For some people, the information comes to them quite literally—for example, they may think of their sister just before she calls them. For others, it’s more symbolic, such as hearing the bang of a gavel just before they discover a jury duty summons in their mailbox.

Here are more examples of ways that people receive intuitive information:

• They see pictures in their mind or with their eyes.

• They suddenly know things or have thoughts pop into their mind.

• They hear words and other sounds in their mind or with their ears.

• They experience physical sensations.

• They notice tastes or scents that aren’t related to anything they’re currently physically experiencing.

• They feel other people’s emotions.

Identifying Intuitive Information

The most important way to cultivate intuitive abilities is to pay attention and identify them. But it’s often difficult for some people to discriminate between their ordinary thoughts and intuitive information from the psychic realm. These seven tips will help you learn how to make this crucial distinction.

1. Don’t dismiss thought flashes. Quiet the distractions in your mind and learn to pay attention to your intuition. Thought flashes occur for a reason. Tuning in to your abilities is a crucial step toward developing your latent intuitive abilities.

2. Don’t ignore persistent thoughts. If you find that a thought is lingering even after you’ve repeatedly attempted to release it or expel it, slow down and pay attention to it. It may be an important intuitive message.

3. Tune into physical impressions, especially if the feelings are not in context with your specific physical situation. For example, if you’re perfectly healthy but suddenly feel lightheaded or overcome with dizziness, if you smell cigars when nobody’s smoking nearby, or you sense the earth shaking but there’s not an earthquake occurring, you’re probably receiving intuitive information.

4. Take note of the information that may accompany these physical impressions. For example, if you’re experiencing a gut feeling, a chill down your spine, or the hairs on your arms raising and a thought also pops into your head, you’re probably receiving an important intuitive message.

5. Be alert for symbolic information. Impressions that seem like nonsense upon initial consideration may actually have intuitive qualities and are likely rooted in the psychic realm. This is especially true of images and figures in dreams.

6. Pay attention to digressions in the way you think. Learn your normal thought patterns, and be alert for thoughts that occur outside that pattern. For example, if you usually think in words but abruptly perceive that your thoughts are occurring as symbols, sounds, or pictures, you may be channeling intuitive information.

7. Notice emotions and thoughts that aren’t related to your current physical experience. If you experience such emotions and thoughts, you may be receiving intuitive information. For instance, if you’re having a great time at a party but feel overcome by a sudden wave of anger or sadness, you may be empathically channeling an important intuitive message.

Intuitive Channeling Exercises

Once you become adept at recognizing intuitive information, you can start working on the cultivation of your abilities. Generally speaking, the more attention you pay to your abilities and the more often you perform the following exercises, the more powerful and reliable they will become.

• Start writing in a journal. Record any impressions you experience throughout the day, and record details of the dreams you had the night before. Notice how these impressions and dreams correspond to the circumstances in your rational experience. Consider working with a reliable dream interpretation system to help you decipher the possible symbolism in intuitive communications.

• Try working with Zener cards, which were designed to test and expand intuitive abilities. You can do similar exercises with a regular deck of playing cards, or even a children’s memory card game. Simply close your eyes, choose a card, and try to discern what picture or symbol is on the card. Try to determine a general color, then check if you were correct. When you become proficient with general, try envisioning the suit or picture. Finally, try envisioning the specific card or other distinct details. Remember that the intuitive information you receive might not be visual. You may feel like you just know, or you might hear information about the answer. Accept any information that comes to you and work with it appropriately.

• Play hide-and-seek with items. Ask someone else to hide a specific item. Then simply close your eyes and try to visualize the item. Mentally back up from the item and visualize the surrounding environment. Continue backing up until you intuitively know where the item is. This can also be an effective method to find a lost object, such as your reading glasses.

• Use psychometry. Hold an item or a closed box that has objects inside it. As you hold it, visualize and share the information that you receive. This can also be done with a gift. Hold a wrapped gift, and try to guess what it is. Just don’t attempt this when the givers still there—they may not be very happy when you spoil their surprise!

• Meditation is a very effective way to calm your mind and focus on intuitive information. You can any meditative method that works for you. This includes any activity that quiets your mind—going for a walk, doing yoga, completing a creative project, journaling, or whatever pursuit that serves to remove distracting thoughts. You may still experience negative or distracting thoughts as you go about these activities. Acknowledge them, then consciously release them. Later, record any significant intuitive information you may have received.

• Explore and test your abilities with the Institute of Noetic Sciences at noetic.org. This is an interactive and fun way to contribute to research and work with your abilities at the same time.

Managing Intuitive Abilities

Some people don’t need to work very hard to cultivate their intuitive abilities. Instead, they have what’s known as an intuitive awakening. They just suddenly start receiving intuitive information out of the blue, even though they haven’t had such capabilities before. Intuitive awakenings can be very dynamic and unsettling experiences. Some people may have a more gradual onset of intuitive abilities with not much effort on their part, while some must work long and hard to procure and develop their abilities.
No matter which way your intuitive abilities begin working, it’s important for you to learn how to manage them. This will allow you to use them only when you want to, protects you, and maintains your energy as you go about your daily life. Managing your abilities will give you the ability to receive intuitive information when you’re ready for it, instead of receiving it at random times of day or night.
No exercise is completely effective. Intuitive information will sometimes come through regardless of what you do because it’s important. But the exercises are helpful when it comes to keeping yourself in control and grounded.

Center Yourself

Before intentionally engaging your intuitive abilities or working to cultivate them, you need to center yourself. This helps keep you grounded in your physical incarnation, and helps modulate information so you’re not overwhelmed by it. You can also use centering after you meditate, or whenever you feel an energy deficit or just physically “off.” Here’s a simple five-step exercise you can use to center yourself.

1. Sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed and your feet on the floor. Relax your neck and shoulders. Set your hands on your midsection, just above your navel.

2. Breathe deeply, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. Be sure you’re pulling the breaths all the way down into your midsection.

3. Imagine that you have roots growing out of your feet and down into the ground. Imagine that the roots are spreading underneath you into the ground and extending all the way down to the center of the earth. When the roots reach the earth’s center, visualize them wrapping around something to anchor themselves there.

4. Imagine that there’s loving and nurturing pink energy moving through the roots and up into your body. It radiates up from your feet and moves through your spine up into your midsection. hands. Feel the pink energy as it pulses and grows in you beneath your hands.

5. Move your hands up the center of your body, gathering the loving, nurturing energy in your heart. Now visualize pure white light shining from above and passing through the top of your head into your body. Draw the white light down the center of your body into your heart to merge the purity with the loving, nurturing pink energy. Concentrate on the combined energy until it centers you.

Blocking Negative Energy

There are many different ways to block negative energy and to protect yourself from undesired or energetic input. Here are three examples.

1. Raise an energy shield. Energy shields protect people from overwhelming or negative energy. This is a great block to perform if you feel overpowered by negative energy, or whenever you just don’t feel like dealing with psychic energy. When you’re

in the early stages of developing your intuitive abilities, you’ll have to raise your energy shield more often than you will when you become more proficient—later, your shield will have the potential to stand for hours.
You can raise an energy shield any place or time you feel like you need metaphysical protection. Stand or sit comfortably, close your eyes, and breathe in deeply through your nose and out through your mouth. Focus your energy on your heart chakra—the center-left area of your chest.
While focusing on your heart chakra, visualize a shield pushing out through it and surrounding you. The shield can be composed of whatever makes you feel safe—a bubble of light, leather or mail armor, stones and bricks, or any other suitable material. Push the shield out from your heart chakra until it completely surrounds you. Make sure you don’t build it up around yourself. This would trap any negative energy that may be lingering near you inside your shield with you. Push your shield out from your center so you’re pushing negative energy away. Whenever you feel you need to, you can reset your shield in the same way you first raised it.

2. Use an energy filter. An energy shield will block all energy from affecting you. If you want to allow specific types of energy to come through, consider using an energy filter instead. Nothing about an energy filter is complicated. It’s just a simple intention you set. As an example, if you want to block out all energy except the energy that comes from an object you want to read, you can set an energy filter to block everything but the energy of that object.
To establish an energy filter, set your energy shield as described above. Keep your eyes closed and continue breathing deeply as before—inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Next, simply affirm that you want to continue blocking all of the energy except the tat which you want to allow through.

3. Use volume controls. Volume controls are generally effective for nearly everybody, but they work especially well for people who are empathic. Using volume controls is a simple process that allows you to manage energetic “noise.”
Close your eyes. Inhale deeply through your nose and exhale through your mouth. Visualize two or more volume controls—knobs, switches, dials, or sliders. One control is labeled “me,” and the other is labeled “everything else.” You can visualize additional controls and label them according to the energy you want to control. So, if you want to read someone else’s energy, label three controls: one with “me,” the second with the person’s name, and the third with “everyone else.” But early on, work with only two switches until you’ve become proficient.
Picture your own volume control set at maximum. Set the other volume control or controls to zero, or whichever level fits your specific circumstance. At first, you’ll need to repeat this exercise every 30 minutes or so. As you become more experienced, it will hold for several hours.

Intuitive Ethics

It’s important to remember that as you cultivate your intuitive abilities, you must always act ethically concerning their use.

1. Don’t try to read somebody else without their consent. Sometimes intuitive information may be transmitted and received without intent. But generally, you should avoid reading other people’s energy unless they consent to allow you to do so.

2. Always supports the greatest good. Use your abilities in a way that seeks to serve the best interests of everybody involved.

3. Don’t share intuitive information with random people. While pop culture outlets show psychics approaching strangers and providing unsolicited information, it’s best to only read people who seek it. Sometimes you may receive intense information. It’s important to approach people with compassion and caution when you deliver such information, and always err on the side of caution. Ask yourself if it’s in the person’s best interest to share the information. Defer to your intuition and wait for an answer before you proceed.

4. Be open to mistakes. Don’t ever insist that you’re completely correct. If you perform a reading, always let your client know that psychics can be wrong.

5. Don’t interpret intuitive information. Share only the information you receive, exactly as you receive it, no matter how odd it may seem to you. Leave it up to the other person to do the interpreting. This avoids interjecting your own values and beliefs into readings. For example, one medium was doing a reading for a client, connecting with the client’s brother who had passed. The phrase “porn ’stache” kept popping into the medium’s mind, but she thought her client may find the term offensive. Instead, she asked things like, “Did he have a thick mustache?” The client kept answering, “no.” The phrase persisted until the reader finally heard in her head, quite clearly, “Just say it already! Say ‘porn ’stache!’” When she did, the client busted out laughing. Her brother used to joke with her that if his facial hair was as lush as her hair, he would be sporting a “porn ’stache!’”

6. Maintain confidentiality when you receive communication about somebody. Keep things to yourself and don’t ever gossip.

Tips for Intuitive Development

In addition to all the exercises and tips already discussed, there are some important things you should keep in mind:

1. No psychics, even the well-known and accomplished ones, are completely accurate. You will make mistakes and get things wrong. That’s just fine.

2. Be patient. Every person has a different type and level of abilities. So, comparing yourself to others is not constructive or helpful. You’ve been consciously rejecting intuitive information for years, so it will take some time for you to become proficient. It will help to work with your intuitive abilities as often as you can.

3. Set aside your critical brain and your ego. It makes sense that you hope to channel and share information that’s “correct.” But if you’re too focused on being correct, you’ll start losing touch with your genuine intuitive self and start filtering and interpreting information according to your desires and preferences. Let information come to you freely, then channel and communicate it exactly as you received it without attempting to interpret it.

4. Consider working with tools to help focus you, such as candles, a crystal ball, tarot cards, pendulums, or an oracle deck.

Channeling Intuitive Information

It’s important as you learn to use your intuitive abilities that you control them carefully to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Regularly using the above exercises can help you develop and manage your abilities, which leads to a fulfilling and rewarding experience.