For far too long we have been seduced into walking a path that did not lead us to ourselves. For far too long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. And for far too long we have said no when we desperately wanted to say yes. . . . When we don't listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't, others will abandon us.
Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out. A child can't do that because it has had so little experience. A grown-up person knows the word because they've seen it often before.
How often people speak of art and science as though they were two entirely different things, with no interconnection. An artist is emotional, they think, and uses only his intuition; he sees all at once and has no need of reason. A scientist is cold, they think, and uses only his reason; he argues carefully step by step, and needs no imagination. That is all wrong. The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers. The true scientist is quite imaginative as well as rational, and sometimes leaps to solutions where reason can follow only slowly; if he does not, his science suffers.
"Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who'd take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, "Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times," and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man's boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he'd been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!"
When I look in the mirror, I see a woman with secrets. When we don't listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't, others will abandon us.
Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition.
For us to deem a work of architecture elegant, it is hence not enough that it look simple: we must feel that the simplicity it displays has been hard won, that it flows from the resolution of demanding technical or natural predicament. Thus we call the Shaker staircase in Pleasant Hill elegant because we know--without ever having constructed one ourselves--that a staircase is a site complexity, and that combinations of treads, risers and banisters rarely approach the sober intelligibility of the Sharkers' work. We deem a modern Swiss house elegant because we not how seamlessly its windows have been joined to their concrete walls, and how neatly the usual clutter of construction has been resolved away. We admire starkly simple works that we intuit would, without immense effort, have appeared very complicated. (p 209)
When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can't explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn't happen very often. But I obey it. And this afternoon I had a feeling that I must come over to the haunted house. That's all I know, kid. I'm not holding anything back. Maybe it's because I'm supposed to meet you. You tell me.
"8 second hug: Yes, eight seconds is a long time, and no, I am not recommending giving everyone an eight second hug. The shell we put up or mask we hide behind is made up of what we think logically think will keep us emotionally safe. Intuition is not fooled by shells or masks, intuition which is non-verbal communication bypasses whatever facade we put up, so that hearts can connect. This makes us feel vulnerable, because we can't hide out hopes and fears from being seen from other people's intuition. We may not remember the last time we felt an overwhelming feeling of belonging, but likely it was when we were the most vulnerable; like being held as a newly born infant, not aware that we were naked, and nothing we could do about it even if we did know, being held tightly in someone's arms who completely loved us. It may not have been a parent or grandparent holding the newborn us, but if it wasn't, for sure it was the nurse there at the delivery, responding to our cry to be held. We resist the one thing that allows someone into our life--vulnerability, by cutting off the intuitions communication which is non-verbal. We often avoid eye contact, avoid letting people see us cry, and avoid allowing ourselves to be held. I wish I had known earlier in life, what C.S. Lewis put so well in his book The Four Loves, "There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." We live in a world of alphas, where we all want to prove we are worthy to be held by proving we can hold ourselves. When we hug what is said intuitively is, "I will hold your pieces together so you don't have to worry about falling apart. Take a rest in my arms for a moment and remember that you are loved." When we hug someone, at about eight seconds on average there is a deeper breath in and then an exhale as our body actually relaxes. You can definitely feel it, we are rigid, and then we melt. Don't count while you are hugging, but if it is longer than about eight seconds before the other person relaxes, then they are really stressed out, and scared everything will crumble if they relax. If it is less than about five seconds, that means something else, not something consistent enough to be able to diagnose similar to taking longer to relax. You'll just actually have to communicate and figure it out with the person. The non-verbal communication of a hug or eye contact should precede the verbal communication of words. I would venture a bet that most marriages struggling don't meet each other after work with at least an eight second hug before they ask how their day was. We shouldn't expect words to be able to describe emotions, especially when we can just look someone in the eyes and then hug them and feel their emotion for ourselves. The part of hugging that is the best, is after we relax and allow ourselves to be loved, and so if our hugs with those we really love aren't at least eight seconds, we are totally missing out."
We learn from pain that some of the things we thought were castles turn out to be prisons, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can't find the door. Yet maybe if you ask God for help in knowing which direction to face, you'll have a moment of intuition. Maybe you'll see at least one next right step you can take.
He was invaded by an unreasoning calm, which he interpreted as an omen that nothing new was going to happen, that everything he had done in his life had been in vain, that he could not go on: it was the end.
In its failure to value differences in the way people learn, the educational process often suppresses intuition, creativity, and your sense of identity.
Crucial decisions are made, today as thousands of years ago, in terms of the intuitive guesses and preferences of a few men in positions of authority...[it is] quite likely that the fate of entire societies may be sealed by a series of avoidable mistakes committed by their leaders.
"Perhaps that was just a hunch." Barbee shivered again. He knew that he himself possessed what he called the "nose for news" - an intuitive perception of human motivations and the impending events that would spring from them. It wasn't a faculty he could analyze or account for, but he knew that it wasn't unusual. Most successful reporters possessed it, he believed - even though, in an age of skepticism for everything except mechanistic materialism, they wisely denied it. That dim sense had been useful to him - on those summer field trips, before Mendrick turned him out, it had led him to more than one promising prehistoric site, simply because he somehow knew where a band of wild hunters would prefer to camp, or to dig a comrade's grave. Commonly, however, that uncontrolled faculty had been more curse than blessing. It made him too keenly aware of all that people thought and did around him, kept him troubled with an uneasy alertness. Except when he was drunk. He drank too much, and knew that many other newsmen did. That vague sensitivity, he believed; was half the reason."
Whether you are at play in the fields of the Lord or standing next to home plate squinting at the popping pitcher, that sudden, immediate knowing can also help you envision the outcome.
Whether you job involves chasing criminals, crouching numbers, or wrestling with paperwork, learning how to recognize and rely on those hunches and gut feelings can dramatically improve your job performance.
"I don't know why I keep asking you these questions. It's not like I expect you to answer, and even if you did answer, how would I know? But maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe when I ask you a question like "You doing okay?" you should just tell me, even if I can't hear you, and then I'll just sit here and imagine what you might say. You might say, "sure thing, Nao. I'm okay. I'm doing just fine." "Okay, awesome" I would say to you, and then we would smile at each other across time like we were friends, because we are friends by now, aren't we?"
The fact that establishment scientists say something doesn't exist doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It only means that science has no effective way to measure it.