For more on how to listen, enjoy, and trust your intuition, check out the Clear Channel Course here.
Mindful Gastro Challenge
May 2018
Can we be intuitive without being mindful?
Our intuitive guidance tends to be fluid and responsive to what happens around us. If we’re mentally wandering off into the future or stuck in the past, we can’t possibly be listening properly to what our intuition is telling us at the same time. To be intuitive, we need to be mindful of what our intuition is saying right now.
While our intuition does occasionally seem to ‘yell’ at us to pay attention when it’s urgent, more often than not it comes across as a sort of calm, soft voice rather than a clear shout. To listen to this quiet voice requires us to slow our thoughts down enough so that we can become aware of what it’s saying in the here and now – not what it said last week or 10 minutes ago. Sometimes information that wasn’t accessible to us even a few seconds beforehand is all of a sudden there for us now.
Mindful gastro
Last week, I got sick with gastro. I suspect this was the result of eating some dodgy salad at a shopping mall food court. If you’ve ever suffered food poisoning or gastroenteritis, you’ll know that it’s nasty!
I often try to look on the bright side when I feel ill. I see it as a way of forcing myself to rest when I need it, with the opportunity to think more about life and various issues from a new perspective while I heal. Gastro, however, is one of those illnesses that make looking-on-the-bright-side very difficult.
In between the fever dreams and time spent curled up in a foetal position or hovering over a bowl, my moments of lucid thought were only fleeting. I nonetheless tried to use those lucid moments to be mindful and listen to my intuition, though I wasn’t entirely sure that it’d be worth the effort. What would be the point of mindfully focusing on the pain I felt, and what benefits could possibly result from listening to my intuition under those circumstances?
Coincidentally perhaps, the day before I got sick I’d been watching a TED talk on mindfulness. According to the speaker of this talk, Matt Killingsworth, research shows that people who are mindful of what’s happening in the moment are happier than people whose minds are wandering. It didn’t matter if people were drifting off to think neutral thoughts, negative thoughts, or positive thoughts. People whose minds wandered to positive thoughts still rated themselves as slightly less happy than those who were mindful of their current situation, even when that situation was mundane or not particularly pleasant (such as commuting to work), You can watch the talk here: https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_killingsworth_want_to_be_happier_stay_in_the_moment
This suggests that when suffering something like gastro, we’d be happier by paying attention to our discomfort rather than zoning out to an imaginary happy place … crazy, huh?
Mindfulness on the other side
In my experience, the more severe an illness, the more transformed I feel after recovering – not just physically but mentally and emotionally as well. Still, after getting better this time around I noticed a heightened level of awareness that I don’t remember having before, one that hasn’t completely left me yet.
Perhaps my feeble attempts to be mindful during those days of unpleasant physical symptoms had some effect on my capacity to be mindful after I got well. I remember how walking outside and seeing sunshine again reminded me of watching Dorothy in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ as she stepped outside the black-and-white world she’d been in, and into a new one full of vibrant colour and music. I felt so aware of everything, including the sounds around me, the things I touched, the taste of food, and each little step I took.
Taking one mindful step at a time is a great approach for building up our intuition as well. As much as possible, it’s worth staying in the here and now in order to hear and fully embrace our intuitive guidance, even during unpleasant situations. Hopefully, you’ll be able to do this without having to become violently ill first!
Special bonus coming up during (and shortly after) MBS festival
The Sydney Mind Body Spirit (MBS) Festival is coming up between the 24th to 27th of May. I’ll be offering a special bonus to anyone who comes to visit the Whole Body Aura stall, where you can book a consultation to explore your aura and chakras. This special will also be up for grabs for everyone on my mailing list, so I’ll provide more details soon.
This year the festival will be held at the International Convention Centre, Darling Harbour, and you can register for a free ticket here.
Until then, be mindful and happy :)
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