Are you new to intuitive development? How can you supercharge your psychic sensitivity? You aren’t limited in options! The sheer volume of information on strengthening clairs, meditation for opening chakras, and processes to cleanse your aura is staggering. Perhaps, you’ve partner-practiced boosting your ESP, taken workshops on mediumship, or cleaned up your diet to clear your channeling abilities. While some practices become part of your daily routine, others likely go right into the bin.
Gold Mining
Discovering meaningful intuitive practices that hone your psychic sensitivity can be fairly random. You may have a list of things you’d like to sift through; like silent meditation, implementing juicing tips from the hottest New Age figurehead, or digging into old knowledge, esotericism, and philosophy. And maybe you’ll get lucky to discover a gem in there!
However, walking the path of psychic development is often trial and error. Occasionally you stumble on something that rocks your world for a little while, and then maybe it no longer holds the same value it once did. Then you’re back to grasping at the next shiny idea or promise made by your best friend’s brother’s step-uncle’s spiritual guru’s latest IG Reel.
This isn’t meant to imply that all intuitive development practices are bad. The journey to gold is a true gem in and of itself. It is likely you will find some beautiful practices to treasure for a long time. However, it is important to remember that as learners, especially those new to developing their intuition, that much New Age content is common material that has been recycled and repackaged into something that looks shiny and new. Of course, while pyrite isn’t gold, it still has value. It all depends on what you’re looking for.
Take it Personally
We’re unique individuals; our collective uniqueness can make intuitive development tricky because we have such disparate experiences and abilities. There is no one size fits all approach to personal intuitive development. What works for your best friend (or your best friend’s brother’s step-uncle’s spiritual guru) may not work for you.
Mentorships and workshops can be a great place to begin digging into your growth. However, it’s important to check out the leadership before laying down your life savings for a healing weekend in Costa Rica. While good intuitive teachers lean into best practices, they likely rely on their own internalized belief systems and the lens of their personal intuitive abilities. This could pose problems for the relatively uninitiated New Age learner. For example, a newly awakened clairsentient or claircognizant may struggle to find their place in a classroom where the mentor leans heavily into a clairvoyant context. This bias can leave fresh faced learners doubting their abilities and unsure of where to turn to next. to continue onward and upward? Or is it time to get out?
Go with the Flow
In addition to the plethora of choices in what we learn, how we learn, and who we learn from, we want to keep in mind that as sensitives, our abilities ebb and flow depending on the context of our lives. One day we’re pure magic, tuned into the universal flow, and the next, we wonder where any trace of our spidey sense disappeared to.
When you’re new to intuitive development, and your abilities waffle from a white-knuckled breathless intensity to feeling into the void, you might experience confusion, worry that you’ve permanently lost something, or at the opposite end of the spectrum-hypersensitive and overwhelmed.
If you are feeling a bit frustrated, hypersensitive, doubtful, or burned out, it’s OK to take a step back from all of this- because your intuition isn’t going anywhere! It’s something you are born with.
Pause and remind yourself that there is no one single correct recipe of precisely measured exercises and attunements (prepared by a must-know guru) that will absolutely guarantee success in honing your intuitive sensitivities. (You’re too special for that.)
Accelerating Growth
There is a practice that can bring us all, the unique individuals that we are, back to center, to homebase, and prime us for accelerated intuitive growth.
While it may sound cheesy, trite, and reductionist, it’s worth a bit of reflection. (Did I mention it’s free?)
You’ve heard the saying that we are spiritual beings who are having a human experience. And one of the best ways to grow spiritually is by being human.
One of the simplest ways to hone your intuitive abilities is through living life. By being completely present in your physical senses, and by feeling your feelings. This likely sounds a little boring, especially if you are in the early stages of your intuitive journey. But I’ve found the results of this practice to have profound effects in my life.
How To
Firstly, check your balance. Are you too focused on becoming something? Clairvoyant or clairsentient? Is everything about mediumship for you at the moment? Does every little thing have to have meaning? If so, you might take a step back from an intense focus on intuitive development. Dilute your interest and time with other things. Try other hobbies with friends. Stop getting psychic readings for a little while as you come back to center. Get outside. If every thought you have is connected to an intuitive goal so you are ousted from your own life, it’s time to pause that hustle.
Ask yourself: am I stretching myself too thin? Am I prioritizing my own needs? This intuitive development skill asks you to focus on your own life, to be present and oriented toward your daily experience.
When you’re juggling too much, and you don’t have enough time for a simple practice, or breathing room, you won’t have enough time for yourself. You can’t be present. This will impede intuitive development. Take some time to prioritize self-care, to slow down, or to speak up. Take care of mental health in a way that is safe and healthy for you.
Also, be honest in the inventory of your daily activities. Are you pushing away or muscling out difficult feelings? Do you treat life like a simulation where you compartmentalize your beautiful humanness? How are you numbing yourself in the manic frenzy of life? Do you bury yourself in work, alcohol, shopping, gambling? Are you partying to the detriment of your health? Do you cut out others? Intuitive development as a feature of our humanness is about paring down extremes and moving from black and white to shades of gray as you come to your center.
Presence & Processing
This is also about being absolutely present in your body, by being still, and feeling what is difficult. Especially if you are going through an emotionally challenging time. Some of the most gifted intuitives I know have experienced incredible hardship and loss. Many of them put their intuitive development to the side as they worked through what they needed to. These are also some of the most reflective and loving individuals I’ve ever met.
A gifted sensitive once told me that you need to feel and handle your emotions before they handle you. He meant that things come back again and again until you’ve processed them. It’s like that old proverb, a stitch in time saves nine. When it comes to feelings, stitch early and often.
Many intuitives awaken to the spiritual side of life after undergoing tremendous loss and doing the hard work of grieving. This is often referred to as the Dark Night of the Soul. These individuals emerged from the other side of this experience seeing or hearing deceased loved ones, found they could suddenly feel their guides all around them, or sense the energy of other people and places. And did they do any kind of traditional intuitive exercises during this time? Most often, the answer was no. They did what they needed to do to feel better, and to integrate their loss into their life going forward.
These individuals are the warriors who listened to their hearts, discovered what they needed, and honored that boldly. They were and are present with their emotions and therefore emotionally present with others. They have a way of making everyone feel seen, even those who are hiding. Their own presence becomes healing. You heal yourself by sitting with them. It is easy to spot the light and feel the warmth emanating from fellow intuitives such as these.
You don’t have to experience a Dark Night of the Soul to grow intuitively. You can accelerate your intuitive growth just by living life. By sitting and feeling any grief or loss or uncomfortable feelings, and allowing them to exist. Embrace a willingness to go there. Don’t shame yourself for feeling what you do. It’s your experience. Don’t allow others’ perceptions of how you should be behaving or feeling cloud your process. If you do feel lost, please lean into your trusted connections or a skilled therapist to help you manage your experience. You can grow from this, and perhaps in some instances, even more so as you have loving and helpful support while you process your experience.
Rumi is often quoted,” the wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
It’s up to you whether you invite that light into your shadow, to illuminate where you want to look next. Will you investigate those places where you feel a little low? A little wary? When you look into the ways in which we sabotage ourselves, when we look at outdated defense mechanisms, ingrained patterns and habits, or unprocessed feelings, we create the much needed space to become more clear.
You know what else becomes more clear?
Your intuition.
Choose Your Own Adventure
There are a million routes to intuitive development. You can go all-in for nude yoga, explore yourself during month long silent retreats, or pick up a pen and notebook for dream journaling. Any of these things are valid tools for self-exploration (and intuitive development) if they work for you! If you find a teacher or mentor who feels right for you right now, then trust your gut and go for it. If it works, keep it up!
However, if it doesn’t and you feel yourself stalled or in the endless rut of reaching for the next intuitive shiny thing, or you feel at the mercy of an intuition that seems to ride mercurial tides, remember that you can take a step back, and live life.
Investigate your focus and balance. Dig into those places that need a little extra attention from you. The bonus with this is that you aren’t missing out on your own human experience, you’re creating beautiful future memories, and your connections with others will deepen as a result. And with time, you will likely find that you are much more intuitively sensitive than you once were, sans naked goat yoga-unless that is your jam.
In what ways has life opened up your intuition naturally? How has processing challenging emotions impacted your spiritual connection? Have you noticed a difference with your intuition after the fact? Let us know in the comments below!