Engage Your Intuition – Instantly!

Dear Reader,

Last week I invited you to check in and see how fully you are accessing your inner wisdom. This week, as we stride into the next six months of our Year of Excellence, I am calling on you to put your intuition to use!

First, look back at the beginning of the year, the goals you set, the dreams you aspired to for 2011, and ask yourself if you are on track. Do you feel happy with your experience so far? Have any of your goals changed, or have your priorities shifted?

If things are going pretty well, you may only need to make minor course corrections to continue living a truly wonderful year. If that’s the case, you can still put your intuition to use in the way I am about to suggest.

If instead you are wondering where the time has gone, and feel as far from your goals as ever, you may want to make more significant changes.

Either approach calls for flexibility.

Flexibility is crucial if you are seeking a quick shift. By a quick shift I don’t mean scrapping everything and starting over, although – you never know. No, I am really talking about a quick shift in mindset that will allow you to take very different actions in the second half of this year.

The key is imagination.

Seriously. Take a second and think about how often, how freely and how deeply you are willing to engage your imagination. Imagination is the gateway to your intuition; if you activate your imagination, your intuition will not be far behind.

Here’s a specific tool for engaging your imagination as you take your next steps, big or small, for 2011.

Take a few seconds to sit comfortably, and breathe deeply a few times to relax your body. Also, allow a few seconds to feel gratitude for all the good in your life right now. When you are ready, ask your intuitive self what role you need to step into in order to create the kind of year you would like. You might consider yourself an actor taking on a part in a play, or you might find yourself considering one of the universal human archetypes, such as the wise one, fool, artist, magician, scholar, lover…

You might instead experience yourself in a role from the world of careers – lawyer, athlete, teacher, scientist…

You might even envision a famous person, living or dead, who embodies the very energy or attitude you need – Fred Astaire, ready to dance through life, or Albert Einstein, able to vision outside-the-box solutions, or Mother Teresa, gifted with endless compassion.

The most important thing is to be open.

Let your intuition speak to you however it will, whether with a visual image, a thought, a feeling or a voice. Allow yourself to be surprised. What is the energy you most need to step into for the rest of this year – or even for the next month? You might change roles several times before New Year’s Eve arrives! For myself, I have shifted in early July from the Student to the Creator, and so far I love it!

Allow yourself to see through your character’s eyes, and think with his or her mindset. Constantly ask yourself what your character/role model/archetype would say or do in any given situation. What choice would he or she make?

This particular way of engaging your intuition is very powerful, because it allows you to shift fully out of your habitual mindset and take on a whole new perspective – potentially in an instant. If this seems a little scary to you – have no doubt that no matter what image your intuition sends your way, it is unquestionably a part of you, as much as your eye color and your sense of humor. We all have a little of the wise one, the lover, the warrior, princess or movie star in us. Don’t we?

So activate your imagination, engage your intuition, embrace the part of you that steps forward – and put him or her to work immediately!

And if you would care to share who or what energy showed up for you, I would love to hear about it.

I honor your loving heart,

John