Intuition is a powerful kind of inner wisdom. It’s not necessarily rational or logical, and it’s often no more than a hunch or an instinct. Sadly, many of us were raised to shut down these messages with a flippant “I’m being silly,” or we override the flashes with a derogatory “I must be crazy.”

This is a common problem I encounter during Goddess Playshops (workshops I run for women's well-being). That is why I conduct specific exercises in "trust" in these workshops, to help women listen for their inner voice and to trust it's their own innate wisdom. It's also why I dedicated a chapter to it in my most recent book, The Goddess DIET, See a Goddess in the Mirror in 21 Days. Herewith is an excerpt.

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A modern goddess always consults her intuition – her ultimate source of wisdom – to work out what’s right for her. Mindlessly repeating, absorbing or believing ‘facts’ without question isn’t always in your best interests. Here’s an example of how my intuition screamed “What?!” when I was presented with a supposed truth from a reputable source recently.

This particular source is an online initiative that exists to boost self-esteem and opportunities for youth. It may be a fabulous cause with noble intentions, but I was very surprised one day to surf onto their website and read on their home-page, “Only about five to 10 percent of women are in the height and weight range of models.”

Alarm bells rang for me straight away. This ‘fact’ was credited to an Australian author whose work I love and believe to be credible, yet I found this statement very hard to swallow. For one thing, I have hundreds of friends in my network and maybe one or two would be in the height and weight range of a model. If the statistic were true, five to 10 percent of my 200 friends (that is, 10 – 20 women) could be strutting a catwalk for a living.

Five to 10 percent of women are in the height and weight range of models? What a dangerous and unsubstantiated statistic – it is basically saying that one in 10 to 20 girls should be tall and slim. Or, in a classroom of 30 girls, three are model material. REALLY?

When you ‘see’ a little red flag over an issue, or you ‘hear’ alarm bells about a situation, this is your intuition giving you the heads-up that the truth being presented to you may be incorrect. This is where Trust comes into play… Trust your intuition, your inner knowing, at all times.

More often than not, women in my generation were educated in left-brain dominated curricula – maths, science, and in my case, even religious instruction was taught by formula. Art, drama and other right-brained pursuits were generally considered electives, or not as essential in real life skills. But what this style of education did was teach us to think logically rather than foster creativity. We learned to live in our heads and we lost touch with our bodies, our signals, and our receptors to the greater environment. We became disconnected with our authentic and powerful selves – our primal connection to Mother Earth and her nurturing gifts. Learning to trust your own wisdom begins with re-connecting to your authentic power. This power is your birthright, your god/dess-given gift, and your most effective guide for your beautiful journey.

The first step in trusting your intuition is learning how to hear or feel your intuition. For some people it is a voice, for others a sense, and for others a physical reaction. Sometimes it’s all three at once.

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One simple technique for kick-starting your relationship with your intuition is to toss a coin. Yep, tuning in to your intuition can be that easy. Here is how to do it:

Ask yourself a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ question. Assign ‘yes’ to heads, ‘no’ to tails (or vice versa). Toss the coin and consciously register, heads or tails?

When you see your answer represented by either heads or tails, feel what your body is doing. Is your gut churning? Is your heart jumping with excitement? Is a voice wailing “noooo!” or singing “yes!”? Or perhaps you are itching to toss it again until you get a different answer?

If you’re feeling disappointed then you know the true answer to your question – the opposite to how the coin landed. But if your head is singing “yes!” then you also know the true answer to your question – it is according to how the coin landed.

Now listen… the coin didn’t give you your answer. You did. You simply used the coin as a tool for channelling your intuition, and from your intuition you got your direction. Keep practising techniques such as this, and soon your trust in your Self will be soaring.

Anita Revel is the creatrix of igoddess.com, a resource portal for women's wellbeing. You can click here to read more of her columns with United Press International. © copyright 2008 by Anita Revel.
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