Intuition is a way of experiencing life. Intuition is an elemental and central capacity of the human body and brain. It has the power to transform experience, to open the most difficult aspects of our lives to reveal their hidden dimensions, revealing meaning and purpose.

Intuition is the language of the unspoken interior-ness of your life. Authenticity and wholeness cannot be fully experienced absent this lived sense of knowing. 

Does the following scenario sound familiar?

You have an insight about yourself or about someone else close to you. 

You learn that your life needs to change in some way. Maybe it's as simple as needing to stop a habitual pattern like smoking or changing a habitual way of thinking and talking to yourself (being too negative or critical, for example) or maybe you realize it’s the job that feels stale. Something inside of you says clearly: “Pay attention. If you make this change you will be happier.” The experience is very clear and vivid. 

There is a sense of certainty in it.

But soon after your insight you think up all kinds of reasons this insight doesn’t stand a chance. “I’ve tried to quit smoking before and it didn’t work.”  Or: “The job market is so poor right now, it makes more sense to stay where I am.” And before you know it, you’ve talked yourself out of even starting down this new road. Your intuition gets drowned out before it can ever be taken seriously.

Do you recognize yourself in this situation? If you do, you’re not alone. It's an example of a very common encounter with intuition. In this case you’re able to hear the inner guidance which says “make this change” (we can use many words to describe what this is: intuition, knowing, inspiration, or if you are religious: divine guidance, and also where this information comes from: the Undisturbed Awareness, Higher Self, God, Spirit, the Unconscious, just to name a few). But where we run into difficulty and get bogged down is when we attempt to “make sense” out of what we’ve glimpsed.

And that’s where I come into the picture.

You may know that I offer intuitive sessions, something I’ve done for many years, but you may not know I also teach people to work with their own intuition. I’m glad to say that more and more, many of my clients come not for my insights, but to encourage their own. They stop being clients and start being students of their own inner life. I tell them that gaining trust in inner knowing, and acting on this knowing, is essential for real success, well-being or happiness.

It's not uncommon for a client to come to see me seeking to verify an insight they aren’t sure they trust. The question they want me to answer is: “Now what? Now that I’ve seen this, what can I do with it?” This question is asked any number of ways:

“How do I know this information is reliable?”

“What makes this different from fantasy or imagination?”

“How can I make sure I haven’t mixed up what I see?”

In the beginning, by asking a few important questions, I can help them figure out if they’re listening to their intuition or focusing on a fear or fantasy. With practice they learn to ask these questions of themselves.

1) If you pursue this calling, is it likely to encourage greater growth or call on underdeveloped aspects of your personality to grow stronger?

2) Was there an “A-Ha” that came with the intuition? Something that helped you make greater sense of some part of life (i.e.: an experience which says to you: “Ah, now I know why this area of my life has been this way.”)

3) Could this new intuition simply reflect some basic fear or nagging anxiety that you’ve had in your life for some time? For example, is your anxiety about finances expressing itself as a hunch?

If the answer to the first two questions is yes, and the answer to the last is something like: “Not much,” then chances are this is an authentic intuition.

With an overemphasis on the “two-plus-two-equals-four” side of our thinking, it can be hard to understand the watery way of intuitive insight. The problem for many individuals is that intuition just refuses to be logical. Intuition’s language is similar to that of poetry or painting or music. Its vocabulary is one of nonlinear knowings about the world, coming in the shape of myths, metaphors, symbols and dreams. It comes as a shock to many of my students when I tell them your inner life isn’t reasonable. It doesn’t care about making sense. When we listen to this inner voice and consciously attempt to explore its meaning, we find a deeper meaning. Unfortunately it is often harder to see it and follow it after it has been hidden from us for a long time.

That’s what happened to Annie, a smart and bright woman in her mid 40’s. She came to see me after receiving a diagnosis of breast cancer. In the midst of her treatment and after we had been working together for four months, she told me about a surprising change in her. “For the first time I am sailing my boat by my own star. I’ve tried sailing it by everything else, and allowed everyone else to take a turn too. All of my life I’ve headed against myself, against my own direction. Ignoring the voice of my own wisdom which I thought of as too much of a dreamer to be listened too. But now I have a deep sense of my way, and I’m becoming loyal to it. This is my boat and it was made to sail in this direction, by this star. You ask why I seem so much more peaceful now? Well, I am living out my authentic life.”

Each one of us has such a star to guide us. 

There are many practices we can use to help us awaken to and deepen our sense of intuitive awareness, among them: meditation, prayer, chanting and artistic expressions of all kinds, such as painting, writing and singing. Any approach which teaches us to value our non-conceptual knowing can encourage greater intuitive awareness.

I’m happy to report that more and more people are seeking genuine contact with their own authentic awareness. Many of my clients and students report their experiences of intuition have given them an encounter with life that has allowed them to be more assured of their own authentic path. Looking out at the world through their eyes of intuition, they find a wisdom enabling them to live better. It is possible to glimpse a view of ourselves and of life that is both true and unexpected.

(This essay originally appeared in Kaleidoscope Magazine in September, 2003.)

Kelly Powers has utilized his intuition to help others for over 50 years.

His valuable insight and guidance has been sought by members of several White House administrations, members of Congress, members of the Canadian parliament, as well as cabinet members, artists and celebrities. Kelly's remarkable work in the Theodore Bundy serial murders case is described in the book: Theodore Bundy: The Killer Next Door by Steven Winn and David Merrill. His extremely accurate and detailed readings have been the subject of research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the original parapsychology labs at Duke University, the University of South Carolina and many others.