Reclaiming Intuition

RECLAIMING INTUITION

By Lori MacKinder, M.A. 2001

Spiritual wisdom or intuition is supersensible cognition derived from human inner development. This spiritual wisdom, Dr. Rudolf Steiner lectured in the early 1900s, is achievable by anyone with the desire to step on a path of initiation. Through intuitions, our soul receives messages from above, from the spiritual world, just as we might receive messages from the physical world through sensations. (Steiner, 1994, p. 53) This path to supersensible cognition is commonly referred to as spiritual development or inner work. Spiritual leaders purport our intuition is key to actualizing human freedom. Many gurus present detailed instructions on a course of action to be taken to attain spiritual wisdom through spiritual development in their books, CDs, workshops and courses. Briefly, there are commonly three stages of spiritual schooling: Preparation, Illumination and Initiation.

White Eagle, a Native American Indian Spiritual leader, describes intuition in this manner, “The way to truth is through the spirit. In the outer world are turmoil and chaos and unhappiness. You think with the mortal mind, with the mind, which is part of the substance of earth. You should think with your inner mind; you should approach problems through the inner self, through intuition. The very word explains itself. In-tuition -- training inside our self. You are looking outside for help, and all the time the help you want is inside. The world of spirit that so many of you talk about and believe in, and long to touch, is all within." (1995, p. 60)

In his book, What We May Be; Techniques for Psychological and Spiritual Growth Through Psycho synthesis, Ferrucci (1982) describes two levels of intuition in this manner: “…the ordinary and the superconscious. At the ordinary level, we can have, for example, an intuition about a person. More than just a feeling of empathy or a sudden intellectual understanding, such an intuition may reveal the present life situation of a person, with its many ramifications and implications. We can also have problem-solving intuitions, as when a student sees the solution of a mathematical problem, or in general when one jumps directly to understanding rather than slowly with the aid of reasoning. At the superconscious level, the intuition gives access to vistas usually unimaginable by our ordinary personality. Thus we can have a direct intuitive realization of a psychological quality, of a universal law, or the interconnectedness of everything with everything else, of the oneness of all reality, of eternity, and so on.” (p. 221) However, many students of inner work paths or spiritual paths have trouble getting going with their intuition. It seems that many spiritual teachings lack the fundamental steps we need to undergo before the advanced teachings can take hold or propel us into altered states of consciousness.

Pre-Preparation Stage

The first step towards progress in anything is to hold an internal willingness to proceed. In other words, choose in and choose in fully! This step is a reminder to self to stay focused on the journey and to choose the process out of free will. As Goethe wrote in Faust, “…The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.” Additionally, Tatelbaum (1989) wrote about such a commitment in her book You Don’t Have to Suffer. “A commitment is a stand we take that we will create or cause a change to actually occur, that we will affect our lives, not merely that we hope to effect a change in our lives. Committing ourselves means keeping our word day after day, and this commitment provides us with a structure from which to manage our lives”. (p. 25)

The second step is to create an honesty commitment with self. This is a call to be an objective self-evaluator. It is so easy for many of us to be either overly critical or languorous with ourselves. A balance between the two of these extremes is important. You may need to be more truthful with yourself than you ever have been before.

Additional Work

Before the Preparation Stage can be taken up, there needs to be a level of soul equanimity. Modern day humans are typically full of negativity, judgments and criticisms, which throw soul equanimity into soul chaos. Our busy and clever minds are loud with chatter that clutter up our inner tranquility. This mind chatter and other undesirable was of being are commonly caused by emotional wounds and reinforced by our fast paced modern day society, and media. This inner soul chaos is like a roadblock to hearing intuition. Transforming undesirable characteristics such as those mentioned and thus quieting the chaos to perform the tasks is not an easy or fast task.

Walls and Wounds

A wise healer I often received advice from in my early years of my own journey explained to me that this the mind chatter or inner negativity or outward criticism, was simply a picture of the human condition as it is today in our world. I learned that these undesirable human attributes are simply protective walls that were erected to protect emotional wounds lying underneath. A fortress so to speak, to safe guard the emotional wound from being poked again by life’s circumstances. (Schade) Humanity today has great wounds and thus great walls of judgment and criticism as protection. Kuhlewind (1984) writes in his book, Stages of Consciousness, “Modern humanity’s most difficult task is to become aware of, to see and to overcome the threshold of mirrored consciousness.” (p. 21) One form of mirrored consciousness is that of negativity and criticism.

Nearly all of us are emotionally wounded beings. Our childhood may have been littered with broken hearts, poor nutrition, abuse or neglect. Our adolescent years may have tempted us into alcohol, drug or sexual experimentation or misuses. Our adult lives may have busied us with failed careers, divorces, lies, loneliness, over-eating, addictions, deaths or worse. These various blows or traumas in our life are labeled emotional wounds. Dr. McGraw (2001) writes about emotional baggage in this manner, “You accumulate certain life experiences that you react to and interpret. The result is a set of beliefs about yourself: judgments about competency, worth, lovability, acceptability, and strength and power. Based on that self-evaluation, and the assignment to self of certain attributes, you adopt a consistent persona that you present to the world. Based on that bundle of self-revealing and self-generated identifying characteristics and its presentation to the world, you make a statement to the world and everything that happens. Every success or failure, every result in terms of love, money, achievement, recognition, peace, and harmony, flows from that self-determined identity.” (p. 70)

There is a way in which our negative qualities at one time were really our ally, protecting us from feeling the uncomfortable. To transform the negative feelings meant healing the underlying wounds. Improving upon self could lead to improving upon the whole human condition or a redefined state of human being. How exciting this all is! Can you see what we have to look forward to now? How nice the world would be to be free of the wounds and the negative qualities. So, in the short run, love these negative qualities knowing that they are serving a very important protection purpose and in the long run work at healing to transform them. Steiner wrote, “We must eliminate any standards of attractiveness and unattractiveness, stupidity and cleverness, that we apply as a matter of habit. We must try to understand people purely out of themselves. It is best to practice on people to whom we have an active aversion, forcibly suppressing this aversion and letting everything they do work on us without bias.” (1994, p. 180)

Clearly, wounds in general are a block in our path of attaining spiritual insight. This is true is because in order to gain spiritual wisdom, an inner listening must occur. One must listen to hear the intuition that many claim will guide us into spiritual knowing and wisdom. Wounds are very loud, much louder in fact than the quiet mysteries of the world and our own inner wisdom. It became obvious to me that healing the emotional wounds in order to quiet an inner space so that the inner listening could begin was paramount. In White Eagle’s words, “Wisdom comes to those who are calm and tranquil in spirit….” (1995, p.59)

In my early search to personally transform, a friend of mine suggested an organization that advertises doing just that: Personal Transformation. Personal transformation organizations can help sometimes with the certain types of wounds through seminars designed to create immediate self-change and self-renewal. These organizations, through a series of exercises and assignments can assist in discovering what wounds may lay within and support movement through and out of them. The seminars are generally short and compact and designed to move quickly, usually in 2-4 days. After attending a seminar set, I found the fast paced environment to be well suited for old baggage type wounds that one might have a commitment to uncover and heal. Each person has a unique timing to find. Some are able to work fast, others need more time and space to heal. Find your own timing and follow that. It may be that a Personal Transformation course is right for you and it may not be.

Individuals can of course do this work without such organizations as well. One way to uncover the wounds and get to know self is to stay present to the physical body. Gentle, non-judgmental attention on the sensations that our physical body has, is a way to heal as well. Our bodies will show us what lies beneath in suffering if we simply listen and gently notice without the tendencies to fix, hide or judge whatever physical sensations are present moment to moment in our daily life.

Some of our underlying wounds can still be active wounds versus old buried wounds. By terming them active, I am pointing to the fact that these are current issues in our lives that are still reoccurring and still causing new pain. For some, an active wound can be uncovered by revisiting how one feels about themselves: too fat, too tall, too short, to dumb, ugly, etc. Then asking self why this is. Many times our active wounds are those things in life we keep as secrets. This becomes a great time to hone up on our commitment to self honesty and dig deep inside self for any active wounds that may be festering in there that we might be in avoidance of. Commonly, we do not like to look at what hurts us knowing the pain lies so close to the wound. In addition, many parts of our society support the holding on to emotional wounds. Avoidance mechanisms such as fast food, addictive substances, commercial media, computers and shopping malls are frequently used namely for this purpose.

Active wounds required a deep level of love, nurturing and patients. Active wounds are best healed with greater care. These are more sensitive wounds and create thoughts around our negative qualities like “this work is too hard” or “I am not ready to change” or “this is just who I am”. It is best to be gentle with self and the active wounds, realizing that healing happens in due time and when we are ready. Active wounds call for a greater commitment to balance coupled with a strong level of self-love and self-compassion. Because they often involve life changes, we have convinced ourselves that we are unwilling or unable in the moment to make. Due to this greater strain of life altering pressure, more often than not, active wounds also need an outside ally such as a therapist, healer, priest, counselor, or loving friend. Active wounds are strong and can send our brain crazy messages in the form of critical thoughts. Many times we fool ourselves into believing that we are comfortable and adjusted to emotional wounds being a part of who we are at the present moment. If we can see our own desperation not to look at the wound and understand our fear of change then we can recognize ourselves separate and free of the wound. Following this, we can return to who we are meant to be: beings of love and compassion. Tatelbaum (1989) claims that we hold on to our wounds because we want so desperately to be “right”. She wrote, “Telling people, ‘You can stop suffering,’ might leave them feeling seriously misunderstood or even ridiculous for how they had been behaving. We will make whatever we do ‘right’ to avoid being invalidated; to avoid feeling ‘wrong’, which for most of us is a terrible feeling.” (p. 34)

There are six keys to have in order to keep growing beyond this point. They are: faith, self-love/compassion, accountability, forgiveness, commitment to change and vision.

Faith

The first golden key to healing is faith. To believe in oneself is the cornerstone to believing that healing and change is possible. To believe in something higher than self brings omnipresent joy, love and connection.

So, the big question is how does one cultivate faith?

My own experience is that faith is a choice. Out of my own ego, I can choose to believe in a force greater than myself. I can choose to read the signs of my life and make it about something greater and divine. I can choose to remember the connecting and amazing moments that I had out in nature where the world spoke to me in a way that I heard without my ears. I can choose to turn my thinking to ways of love and joy and into a belief structure that supports me becoming a force of loving change in the world I live in. Or, I can choose not to focus my attention in this area and feel what that is like as well.

Have faith in your faith.

Self Love and Compassion

It is so very important to love self in spite of failings, shortcomings or wounds. As the bible says, “"For all the law is fulfilled in one word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. " (St. Paul to the Galatians 5:14) But if we do not love ourselves how can we love another? So it is easy to see how it is important for all of humanity that we individually have self-love. Learning to love self and healing from active wounds can be a long process. Learning to nurture self is so very vital to this type of work. In our world today, progress seems to take precedence over care. Moore (1994) writes of self love in his book Care of the Soul in the following excerpt, “The healing of narcissism, the fulfillment of its symptomatic hunger, is achieved by giving the ego what it needs – pleasure in accomplishment, acceptance, and some degree of recognition.” (p. 73)

This can be taken up with loving morning words to ourselves. Words such as, “It’s all going to be OK.” or “I love you” said to self in the mirror can go a long way towards loving self. Gentle face stroking and slow rocking can also be a healing form for self care when healing wounds.

Accountability

Many times it takes being fully accountable with self before healing from an active wound can take place. In his book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, Dr. Carlson (1997), a Lecturer and Stress Consultant, describes accountability in the following passage: “When something does not meet our expectations, many of us operate with the assumption, ‘When in doubt, it must be someone else’s fault.’ This type of blaming thinking has become extremely common in our culture. On a personal level, it has led us to believe that we are never completely responsible for our own actions, problems, or happiness. On a societal level, it has led to frivolous lawsuits and ridiculous excuses that get criminals off the hook. When we are in the habit of blaming others, we will blame others for our anger, frustration, depression, stress, and unhappiness. In terms of personal happiness, you cannot be peaceful while at the same time blaming others. Surely there are times when other people and/or circumstances contribute to our problems, but it is we who must rise to the occasion and take responsibility for our own happiness. Circumstances don’t make a person, they reveal him or her.” (p. 193 – 194) For example, our current state of human evolution loves the “victim”. It is a role many of us play well. The victim is simply a state of unaccountability.

Accountability is simply having the ability to find the way in which we have created something in our world, or allowed it to be created there either by permission or submission. As Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous quote goes, “It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself”. Finding our accountability in a wound can create great movement towards its healing. James and Cherry (1988) wrote in their book, The Grief Recovery Handbook, “This is absolutely the most difficult stage to move through. Accepting that we are responsible for our participation in any relationship during our adult lives is difficult. This statement is obviously true and easy to say yet no human being we ever meet could maintain this absolute acceptance 100 percent of the time. This ultimate goal is what growing relationships are all about”. (p.136) Getting accountable can look like going over all the wounds on the list and adding how we created or co-created the situation that caused the wound. This softens the grudges that are being held and allows compassion to enter in the space left by the leaving emotional rigidity.

Forgiveness

Without forgiveness, transformation of self is nearly impossible. Forgiving self is the most important step, but forgiving the other is a necessity as well. In Seeking Peace, Arnold (1998) wrote, “Each of us has been hurt at one time or another, and each of us has hurt others. And therefore, just as all of us must forgive, so all of us need to be forgiven. Without forgiveness, we will not find peace”. (p. 103)

When in the previous step it is found where a wound has been created, it may be easy to move into a self-punishment mode or guilt. To avoid this, move into forgiveness by thinking of self as a small child just learning the way in the world, or just becoming aware of what has been unconsciously building in life. Just as we would lovingly guide a child in its first experiences of the world instead of punishing, so we must lovingly guide ourselves instead of punishing. Remember that life is all just a series of great lessons . Realizing that to experience the hurt, or live though an emotional event to gain soul wisdom or soul strength moves us into love for the gift each lesson has to offer. Seeing the gift in each lesson brings immediate compassion and forgiveness.

White Eagle writes of forgiveness in this way, “You, your own self, your own personality, needs your forgiveness. Your spirit is divine, but until you have overcome, your personality remains human and needs the forgiveness of your spirit. As you forgive, as your spirit forgives your personality, so also you will learn to forgive your brother man for all his seeming errors. If you will train yourself to think in terms of love and forgiveness every moment of your life, a most beautiful healing will take place in you.” (1995, p. 35 – 36)

Commitment to Change

The next key to healing a wound is commitment to change. Once we can see how or why we created our wounds, gleaned any lessons there were to be learned, and have forgiven ourselves or others, we need a commitment to create something new in our lives; something other than the wound. This looks like staying in the discomfort for a while as we grow something new. It means staying with it, longer still and longer still until that new way of being becomes us effortlessly. That commitment, held steadfast, will bring strong change.

The commitment to change must also include a willingness to continually notice any old patterns that may still emerge from time to time and to realign self with the new way of living outside the wounds and walls. The co-founders of the Grief Recovery Institute, James and Cherry (1998) claim, “Without this willingness, it is impossible for you to move beyond this stage of your recovery”. (p. 131)

Creation of a Vision

One final step to healing wounds is the creation of a vision.

What would you like to have in your life? More love? More happiness?

Having a vision of what it is you would like to be surrounded with is the final step. Experimented with picturing yourself smiling and having a good time under a sunny warm day. Envision playing on the sandy beach barefoot and laughing while the sun was setting. Choose what works for you. Where do you want to end up? Where is your final destination? Imagine that now.

Conclusion

Wounds are roadblocks and they are like doorways. They have self given power to block our path of growth and they are like a beacon on the sea shore, showing us where are next step of healing needs to take place. They ca hold us separate from the world or they can connect us to all that is around us through compassion and understanding. There is a way in which we can follow our wounds into ourselves and find our path to intuition.

After working with the previous steps in the pre-work, we are then able to embark on the Preparation Stage. This stage consists of the following:

· cultivate reverence and respect for everything

· learn what others have to say about higher spiritual scientific knowledge

· cultivate living, vital thinking

· cultivate unreserved and unbiased devotion to what human life or the would outside us has to reveal

· make ourselves into a totally empty vessel into which the world we do not know can flow

· created complete inner selflessness by suppressing any derogatory, judgmental and critical opinions and eliminating standards of attractiveness and unattractiveness, stupidity and cleverness

· regard pleasure and pain or sympathy and antipathy as mere messengers

· self regulate all thinking and willing

· create moments in life to withdrawal into silence and solitude

· seek only for the benefit of whole humanity and never solely self

· be able to view self as one might view a stranger

· approach life energetically

· meditate on spiritual writings

· wait and work and wait and work

Once we work though our inner chaos and an inner quieting begins to appear, an inner wisdom can radiate into us from the spirit world. This “intuition” will guide us away from pitfalls and lessons that we may no longer need to feel the pain of. “At times insights flow into this receptive space we have created. In a flash we realize, with clarity, truths previously unknown to us.” (Ferrucci, 1982, p. 217 – 218)

In my life, at the very beginning of hearing my own inner wisdom, I did not always act upon the wisdom. I was unaccustomed to hearing the voice as a source of wisdom. I was more accustomed to hearing my wounds or external influences misguide me. Nevertheless, a day came when I was given the gift of an unforgettable lesson to help me on my path of hearing and acting! There came a day when I heard my intuition loud and clear but did not act as it directed. Had I listened to the wisdom, my day would have been wonderful, when in fact it became challenging and painful instead! Since I neglected to fully listen which includes the action necessary, I was given a wonderful lesson on what happens if I follow my lower nature instead of my inner wisdom. I don’t consider such events punishment but instead see the voice of intuition as the escape route out of a disaster I would have naturally created in everyday life. The voice is like an escape route found in a blazing fire.

Although I did not expect to waver with my own acting and listening in the beginning, I realized that without keeping an active ear on my intuition, I would quickly move back into my old patterns of being. I even doubted myself on occasion and wondered which voice was the wisdom or if there was any wisdom within me at all. This is where being patient became most critical. Just as a toddler learns to walk by falling and getting up again, so I followed the same process with my new ears for listening to my inner wisdom. When I did notice my inner noise rising from new wounds building or external noise interfering in my process from our technological media intensive life, I would just take myself back through the healing keys again and again.

Once I made it to this stage within the process, I was then ready to rejoin the guru’s esoteric path of initiation to the higher worlds. Feeling large amounts of happiness and gratitude for all that have helped me on my way. The final two phases of the journey to know higher worlds are: Illumination and Initiation.

In comparing my plateau with my expansions I uncovered a pattern. What I would like to offer through this article, is an accounting of my journey of inner development as a modified path of initiation to the higher world’s spiritual wisdom that anyone may follow in order to attain the same. My additions are offered as an antecedent to Steiner’s Western path of initiation and the other gurus that have helped me on my way through reclaiming intuition.

References

Carlson, R. (1997). Don’t sweat the small stuff…and it’s all small stuff. New York, NY: Hyperion.

Christoph Arnold, J. (1998). Seeking peace: notes and conversations along the way. Robertsbridgr, UK: The Plough Publishing House.

Ferrucci, P. (1982). What we may be; techniques for psychological and spiritual growth through psychosynthesis. New York, NW: Tarcher / Aputnam.

Global Harmony Personal Transformational Seminars. (916) 9BE-FREE.

James, J.W. and Cherry, F. (1988). The grief recovery handbook; a step by step program for moving beyond loss. New York, NY: Harper and Row Publishers.

Keen, S. (1994). Hymns to an unknown god: awakening the spirit in everyday life. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Kuhlewind, G. (1984). Stages of consciousness: meditations on the boundaries of the soul. Great Barrington, MA: Lindisfarne Press.

McGraw, P. (2001). Self matters. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster Source.

Moore, T. (1992). Care of the soul. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

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Steiner, R. (1994). Theosophy. Hudson, New York: Anthroposophic Press.

Tatelbaum, J. (1989). You don’t have to suffer; a handbook for moving beyond life’s crises. New York, NY: Harper and Row, Publishers.

White Eagle, (1995). The quiet mind. Cambridge, Great Britain: The University Press.