Intuition
I'm wondering more about intuition. There is something "deep inside" myself that feels like a quiet, soft pull in a certain direction. It's a feeling I should follow a course of action. I'm going to do what it says today. I'm going to trial my intuition.
I can't see the reasons why right now. I think more accurately, I can't see definitively how things will end from the course of action today. Perhaps that is what intuition is: the feeling a course of action is right or wrong without reasons to explain.
The source of "reasons for action" is itself something that takes allot of explanation and conjecture. Our actions are driven by allot of influences, and the "reasons" we give for those actions are perhaps reassuring explanations, rather than true reasons. Said another way, the actual reasons and the explanatory reasons may not be the same. But, knowing this means you can predict your behaviours. Knowing you are a stimulus-reponse machine and the "reasons" you do something may not be linked at all to the actual reasons is a workable model. If I am smart about this, then I know that with the "right" stimulus I will produce the "right" action, regardless of the "reasons". An example of this is tracking. If I count actions I am more likely to modify them, and this becomes more and more true the longer a streak of counting goes. For example, I will work out more if I count how many work outs I've done in a row. This has nothing to do with the "reason" why I am working out which is fitness or aesthetics.
Where does intuition fit into this model? It means without a definable stimulus, more accurately, without a stimulus that I am cognitively aware of, there appears to be a course of action that I feel drawn to. It is this lack of a cognitively aware stimulus that makes the call to action quiet. It doesn't mean the call to action is wrong because it lacks explanatory reasons. In fact, it has a seductive "rightness" to it, because the emotional call of the action "feels right". It has an emotionally appealing feel. The lack of a cognitively aware reason means that it feels the source of the call to action is "deep" inside me. "I" feels like it resides in my cognition. Something that arises without clear cognitive correlates feels other than "I".
The corollary of not having a cognitively aware reason for the call to action is that the environment might result in clear cognitive reasons why the course of action is not a sensible action. It may make "no sense", in deed, not having a cognitive explanation for the call to action is exactly that: a course of action that makes no sense. The brain might be interpreting the environment as evidence against the call to action. Intuition will be pulling me toward an action that makes no sense and flies against the evidence. It might be appear to be the "wrong move".
I don't have a personal example yet of an intuitively guided action that has resulted in a good outcome because I have lived very much in my cognitive experience. What I have at the moment is the converse: Internal psychic pain that arises from not having followed my intuition. The story that runs through my mind is that I had a different course of action I should have pursued 15 years ago that was based on intuition. But instead I followed the "sensible, safe" path that was cognitively reassuring, and didn't follow my intuition. "Imagine how far you would be if you had followed the other path" is the refrain.
Why do I not follow my intuition then? Because it feels like taking an uneducated risk. But, to parse it a little finer, what are the risks of a course of action that "does not make sense"? It depends on the course of action, not the reasons. At one extreme, I might feel that I intuitively shouldn't eat a particular piece of food. The risks of not eating the food because my intuition is giving me a bad feeling about it are extremely low. On the other other extreme, quitting my job because my intuition is tell me to, is extremely high risk.
The origin of the feeling of risk is that there is no emotionally reassuring reason to allay my anxiety. If anxiety is rumination on possible negative outcomes in the future, then one strategy to allay anxiety is sensible reasons for the course of action. Reasonable reasons for an action feel like they predict the future with a certain reliability. Without a reassuring reason, the anxious internal weather can dominate.
Perhaps following my intuition more regularly will allay that anxiety. I might find that following my intuition tends to result in positive outcomes. If I leant this lesson, I would follow my intuition with less anxiety. It may also start to soothe the psychic pain of not living authentically. "Living authentically" implies to me that my actions follow from some deep set of values within myself. They themselves are not easily explained, and instead feel like "resonating" with the "core" of myself. One can see how following intuition then feels authentic, because it fits with the idea that "deep" within myself there are drivers for behaviour that "I" cannot explain. Following my intuition feels authentic for this reason.
I might find that following my intuition results in bad outcomes. But it is likely that an intuitive call to action is resulting from an assessment of the environment that is not resulting in a cognitively reassuring reason, but nonetheless, is an assessment of the environment that is correct. Especially if it is also "resonating" with the values of my self that are looking for a pathway and for an expression through my environment.
It’s a very physical process, as I think more of what I do is than I routinely realise. I've been aware that I've had an "intuition" that needs attention for a long time, perhaps years. I've realised the work and family are the two loudest noises in my environment that drown out my intuition. And, so I have taken leave from work over the school holidays, knowing that I take a week to unload, and a week to relax, and now being at my lowest intensity, and my furthest distance from work, the kids have all gone back to school. I have a week without work and kids to drown out my intuition. I've set up the structure of the environment to allow me to listen to my intuition. I then started today with a meditation with biofeedback. I monitored my autonomic nervous system using heart rate variability whilst I meditated today, and that allowed me to clearly let go of something I was angry about, further clearing my emotional environment. I then, in a deep state begun the conversation internally with my intuition, asking what it is that I am being called to do by the "deepest" parts of myself. In all this, I feel like I am following my intuition when my breath relaxes me deeply. I have a meditative state in which the music playing disappears from my consciousness. This is all reinforced when I check my resting heart rate and find it is the lowest since I have been measuring it for the last six months. The physical correlate of following your intuition appears to be high vagal output. A breath that feels like a deeply relaxing sigh, and a low resting heart rate. All correlates of low intensity, and of being in flow and of following my intuition. It’s a physical manifestion of my body feeling safe, assessing the environment and finding few threats.
It’s a curious state in which the most "spiritual" I feel, in which my cognitive awareness is paying attention to the non-cognitive assessment of my environment and actions results in a very physical nervous system reaction.
It feels like the answer that comes back to my anxiety about following my intuition is that, "The answer will come". Once again, like allot of things I ponder, the key role of time comes back into play. Following your intuition is about taking an action that feels right, or avoiding an action that feels wrong, trusting your deep environmental assessment that the reason will appear to your cognitive "I" at a later point. There is a time order to intuition in which the reason appears later, at "some point in the future". Follow the intuition, take the action and the reason will come, hopefully.
