Intuition – Why Me?

Dear Reader,

So far in my posts, I have only set the table as far as intuition is concerned. Before we dig into the meat and potatoes, I want to give you an idea of who is serving you the meal and let you know how powerful intuition can be in engaging all areas of your life.

I did not set out to be an intuitive. For a long time I was a dancer, although I didn’t make much money at it and ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches to keep doing it.  For work along the way, I have done everything from cleaning toilets to dancing in parks; from teaching dance to three year olds in New York City to facilitating meetings with writing experts in Washington DC.  I have been a bodyworker and a published creativity researcher.  I spent the first eighteen years of my life in a small rural town with one traffic light (they got a second one loooong after I left) and the next twenty four living in New York City, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.

Parts of my life have been dictated by fear and thinking small; other parts have been created in moments of courage and thinking big. I have always believed the best was yet to come for me, even though I have spent years at a time seemingly treading water. My point in telling you this is not to focus on the specifics of my own story as much as to give you an example of how intuition, and on a broader level how a balance of body, heart, mind and spirit can play out in completely changing and elevating one person’s life.  And if this path can elevate my life – it can elevate yours.

It is often true that the seeds of what we love to do most as adults can be found in the delights of childhood, and it is certainly true for me.  I just didn’t realize it until years later.  I spent hours playing with a rubber ball when I was a kid, either rolling it back and forth with my mom or bouncing it by myself – and I became a juggler later in life.  I spent hours marching around the room to Sousa marches that my sister would put on the record player – and I became a dancer later in life. I spent hours reading books about parapsychology, trying to guess which card would come up next in the deck, and in fact playing with a deck of gypsy fortune telling cards – and yep, I eventually became an intuitive.  If you haven’t tried already, you might want to look back and see what promising career seeds are scattered in your own childhood.

Many years beyond childhood, I found myself in limbo.  In a key conversation with a dear friend, that is how I described myself; I told her I felt like I was floating in life, looking for a direction.  She looked right at me and said “A man your age and with your ability shouldn’t be floating.”

Thank you, friend, for that wake-up call.

I threw myself into finding out what was going on.  I spent four years in therapy, and developed a much stronger sense of self.  I took a break from teaching and choreographing dance, and focused mainly on dance improvisation, which fed my body, heart and spirit and helped me be more open in life.  I practiced meditation, which focused my mind.  I found and attended a Sunday service, which fed my heart and spirit and gave me a sense of community.

Through all those experiences, I considered becoming a therapist, a teacher of meditation and an interfaith minister.  But each time something stopped me.  I felt like each of those careers, as traditionally approached, only addressed a piece of the puzzle. I realized in an experiential way, in my own life, that to be truly fulfilled, it is necessary to work with every area, with body and heart and mind and spirit – not just one.

That’s when I met my primary intuitive teacher, Sonia Choquette. An internationally known intuitive, teacher and author, Sonia talked not just about intuition, but about the heart.  And she didn’t just talk!  She got us up on our feet dancing and singing, with the help of her collaborator Mark Stanton Welch, a musician and sound healer. That approach helped me unlock a secret to my dancing that I had been looking for since I began: I dance because it engages my spirit. It’s that simple. Now, along with the other things I do, I teach a class to help others connect with their spirits and open their hearts in dance.

Again, I tell you all this to show you how “Intuitive Cartography” has evolved for me, why I believe so strongly in growing the whole person in all areas and why I offer these tools to you. In future posts, we will explore intuition, as well as what each of these four areas means, and we will grow together along the way.

I honor your loving heart,

John