Welcome to the world of intuition. Whether you know and recognize what intuition is or not, believe me, at some point in your life you have experienced its miraculous powers firsthand. Intuition is a sense, just like sight or smell, a perception which brings you information. It comes to you as a still small voice, an instinctive action, a flash of creativity or a moment when you are one with the world. You suddenly know something without the use of analytical processes, the knowledge is just there. You know it. While the word itself comes from the Latin intueri, meaning to consider, to look on, intuition implies something deeper than simple perception and is best described as apperception, the ability to "take hold of" knowledge in one glance. Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary sums up intuition as "the immediate knowing or learning of something without the conscious use of reasoning; instantaneous apperception." Simply stated, intuition is direct knowledge. It tells you what to do.

In my work as a teacher, coach and intuitive consultant, I’ve seen intuition touch many lives in amazing ways. For example, Susan and her husband needed a new home for their family because in a few days they had to vacate the old one. Mentally distracted by the problem, she wasn’t paying much attention one day as she walked her son to pre-school. Suddenly, her whole body knew that her son’s teacher, a relative stranger, had the answer. She instinctively asked the teacher if he knew of any available properties and his answer provided her family with a wonderful home for the next twelve years.

Similarly, Tom, had experienced several business failures and was wondering if he’d ever succeed. An inner voice urged him to apply for a routine government job. At a loss for the next step, he reluctantly decided to listen to that voice. Within 2 ½ years of obtaining the government job, an after hours interest group he formed blossomed into a full time position in the highest offices of the land. He knew success beyond his wildest dreams.

We all have it: the power of intuition within us and by learning to tap into your intuition, you can take care of your pragmatic needs as Susan did, realize an inner dream like Tom’s, and achieve a more fulfilling life. This is because intuition arises out of your richest resource-your soul. Intuition is the language of the soul. When you are called by intuition to make a different decision, follow a greater vision, or make a creative breakthrough the voice you hear is that of your soul guiding you to what is deeply right for you. One woman who was attending a talk given by my Intuition Network colleagues and myself summarized this by saying, "Now I get it. Intuition is ‘soul speak’."

We are just now beginning to recognize the power of intuition. As the spot light of traditional scientific research turns onto intuition, it’s become more and more acceptable for us to talk about intuition and our intuitive experiences. Daniel Goleman, researcher and author of Emotional Intelligence, has proven that your gut is "intelligent"; it knows things ahead of your rational mind. Dr. Antonio R.. Dimasio of the University of Iowa College of Medicine and his colleagues have actually identified the part of our brain-the frontal lobe-which specializes in intuitive decision making. Their researcher shows that we intuitively know what isn’t working "best" for us and have the power to heed this inner advice.

This book tells you how to bring this power, the power of ‘soul speak’ in your body, mind, and spirit, into your life right here and now. While most books on intuition treat this unique power as primarily a tool or a technology, I take a different approach. Twenty-eight years of working with intuition have taught me that intuition thrives best as a way of life rather than just a tool one picks up and puts down. Intuition’s value extends far beyond simple problem solving, decision making, or creative breakthroughs. Intuition serves our deepest purpose and places us in harmony with what the universe and our soul intends.

Patanjali, writing thousands of years ago, provided a model which helps us understand why intuitive knowledge flows best at these deep bedrock levels. Briefly, he stated these four different ways of knowing something: (1) you know what it looks like (its form), (2) you know how it makes you feel (its quality), (3) you know its meaning (its purpose) and (4) you know its soul (its essence). Intuition, which makes random appearances at the first two levels, thrives at levels three and four. This is why life automatically becomes more intuitive when you seek to put meaning or purpose in your life. Meaning feeds intuition and vice versa.

Let’s go back to Susan and her housing dilemma. Note that she was not alone in that situation: although it was her intuition that first identified her family’s future home, it was through her husband’s subsequent visualizations and trust that the home became a reality in 24 hours. The partnership of Susan and her spouse clearly illustrates what collaborative intuition can accomplish. This incident highlighted a potential meaning for their partnership-united spiritual action-which they had the ability to actualize or not depending on their choice and awareness.

Tom’s story also goes deeper than professional success. Tom was seeking his place in the world, a place which would release his passion and inner purpose. Ever since he embraced intuition as a way of life, he has lived a highly synergistic and connected existence where everything works in harmony with his illuminated soul mission. As busy as his days get, he is always able to stop and drink from a subsequent well of inner peace. This is because Tom knows who is: an embodied soul.

When we know who we are at the core of our being, we know what to do. So when basketball superstar Patsy Neal describes this basketball performance by saying, "I know what people mean when they speak of a ‘state of grace,’" he is speaking of flowing with intuitive knowledge. When business man Jagdish Parikh speaks of creating a "synthesis…beyond selfishness and selflessness, beyond collectiveness and competitiveness, to a cooperativeness based on selfness," he is calling on intuition. In the early 19th century, when writer Samuel Taylor Coleridge awoke with the "distinct recollection of the whole" of "Kubla Khan," he demonstrated the effectiveness of intuition.

Intuition takes us beyond our small self into our best self, into our soul. The bottom line is that your soul knows what to do in every situation. All you need to do is identify and follow its suggestions. You achieve this through practice, but unfortunately, for most of us this is not as easy as it sounds.

The first challenge we face is inexperience. Intuition is a language unto itself, and you probably have not had more than a few hours of intuition training in your life if that. It’s very difficult to follow the guidelines and suggestions of any language you do not understand. A second challenge is trust. Anyone who learns a new language doubts his or her skill at first and intuition is no different. As our intuition develops we have to learn to trust our skills and, ultimately, our soul. This is true even when, like Tom, we think intuition’s suggestions take us away from our goals. A third challenge is transformation. An intuitive way of life changes us forever. Most people tend to choose the status quo, the familiar patterns, or the lesser callings and skip basic training rather than risk confronting an inner urge to change.

Our work together in this book addresses each of these issues as well as the difficult challenge of separating authentic intuition from projections and wishful thinking. Projections are inner images or ideas we construct, often unconsciously, on the basis of a past interaction. We carry these images or ideas around with us and literally project them onto the "screen" of present circumstances. Think of this as a double feature at the movies, but the projector is running both features-your past and present- on the screen at once. It is hard to figure out what is going on, so most of us choose the most familiar image-the past. Whether this past movie is a good one, bad one, or something in between, it keeps us from having a clean interaction with the present. Wishful thinking functions in a similar way, although it focuses on the future. Your inner movie projector busily cranks out ideas or images of what you hope or fear will come true, rather than staying with the truth found in the present moment.

When the subtle plane of intuition, which can appear as images or ideas gets activated, it challenges us to stay in the present, to bring our unconscious projections and wishful thoughts to light, and to recognize what we already know to do. One simple criteria for distinguishing authentic intuition from ego projections or wishful thinking is that the real stuff is delivered as invitations, not demands. The words "You should do…" or "You must do…" are not part of intuition. Rather, intuition is your soul saying, "Please consider.…" or "Will you …?".

Your soul is kind, gentle, and patient. It doesn’t give up, or, as my colleague and friend, Nancy Rosanoff, author of Intuition Workout, says, "Your intuition is not going to go away." Even if you’ve denied your intuitive experiences in the past, rest assured: your invitations will continue to come.

I’ve designed this book around what I consider to be ten basic "invitations of the soul." Each invitation establishes an aspect of your intuitive development and builds a foundation for the next invitation. An overview of what you have to look forward to follows. As you read it, remember what the purpose behind each invitation is-your soul wants you to be fluent in intuition, so that you know what to do in every situation.

Each invitation is explored in a chapter containing background information, stories, challenges you may face, and practice exercises, which are the cornerstone of intuitive development. There are many, many exercises in this book. You do not have to complete all of them! If you don’t want to do a particular exercise because you are tired, bored, not committed, or avoiding issues that particular exercise evokes, trust yourself. Skip it. The time will come when you will want to do the very exercise you are skipping now.

In general, consistency is more important to intuitive development than thoroughness. You have not "failed" because one or more exercise(s) is not completed. Do the ones which attract you. You can always go back later and complete the ones you skipped.

When you’ve finished these ten invitations and their exercises, you’ll know that you do not need to be a mystic, channel higher entities, believe in God, abandon your logic, or be rigorous in your discipline to achieve an intuitive life. Curiosity and intention are the only requirements.

To increase the long term benefits of these attributes, purchase a spiral bound, composition, or loose leaf notebook. Some people prefer a loose leaf notebook because it allows them to insert new pages as they wish. The advantage to other types of notebooks is that the pages are bound and, thus, more secure with frequent use. Whatever you choose, be sure you are comfortable with it because it will be your Intuition Journal. Your Intuition Journal is very important: you may use it the rest of your life.

Label your journal. "My (year) Intuition Journal". It is important to label the year of your journal, e.g. 1999, because over the years you may build up a collection of intuition journals and need to distinguish them. As you work with this book, you’ll fill your intuitive journal with guiding images, the results of your practice exercises, records of your intuitive experiences, flashes of insight, and wild intuitive possibilities. Your journal will become a gold mine. Its pages will contain the wealth of your intuitive development, ideas for new projects, moments of truth, insights into relationships, strategies, and entertaining stories. You’ll mine its nuggets for years to come.

In addition to all of this, an Intuition Journal provides the objective record necessary to assess your intuition’s accuracy. Although the purpose of such a record is not to "validate" intuition, you have every right to expect pragmatic results from your inner work. Sometimes the meaning of a journal entry won’t be clear for months or even years to come. You deserve a tangible record of your intuition’s wisdom.

One last tip: it is rich to work with this book in a group setting. Every person develops his or her own style and short cuts to knowing. When you work with others, the pool of your intuitive skills is available for all.

Whether alone or with others, you will learn that intuition is always at your fingertips. For example, try this short experiment right now. Ask yourself, "Why is it important for me to invest in my intuition?" When you are comfortable with the question, flip randomly through the pages of You Already Know What To Do until you want to stop. Next, let your fingers or eyes identify a phrase or sentence on the page which has relevance to your question. This simple exercise may or may not reap results right at this moment; if it does not, be assured that your capacity for receiving quick guidance and making decisions will flourish as your intuitive adventure progresses.

* * *

My own adventure with intuition began many, many years ago. My formal training and work began when I was twenty-eight, but my earliest intuitive recollections are bound up with the sights, sounds, and smells of childhood.

Fortunately for me, I received permission from my mother to know what I knew. One day after a particularly vivid night dream came true precisely, I sought my mother’s advice. I was nine years old at the time and assumed everyone had such experiences. From my perspective, all I lacked was the ability to categorize and talk about what was happening. My mother was the perfect person to ask because she had told me some of her dreams which later came true.

"Mom", I said, "I had a dream that came true at the bus stop this morning. What is this?"

"Tell me about it," she responded.

"In my dream I saw the other girls and myself talking to a new girl. This morning the same girl I saw in my dream came to the bus stop. Her family moved to our neighborhood this weekend. I recognized her immediately and we started talking. I knew exactly what everyone was going to say before they said it. Everything moved in slow motion. I felt like I was watching a play I had already seen."

My mother was silent for only a moment and then said, "This is a natural part of life. Many people have these experiences. Don’t be worried."

Many years later, after I had become a university professor of intuition, I asked my mother if she remembered this crucial conversation. She had no recollection of it at all, but the abiding comfort her words gave me that day were an effortless inheritance for my life to come. They told me, "Sharon, intuition is a natural part of your inheritance."

This book is about that inheritance. Borrow the meaning of my mother’s words. Say to yourself as often as necessary, "Intuition is a natural part of my inheritance." Claim your inheritance. Let yourself know to do this. The harvest of a more passionate, purposeful, and powerful life awaits you.

Whether in my college classes or in other settings, people want me to tell them more about intuition and repeatedly ask me to answer these five questions:

1. Can I really improve my intuition?

2. How can I keep my logic from putting down my intuition?

3. Doesn't this stuff make you weird?

4. What is the difference between psychic and intuitive events?

5. In the big picture, what purpose does intuition serve?

These are excellent questions and, although they might appear superficial, they address deep issues in human experience. Throughout the centuries philosophers, scientists, Indigenous cultures, psychologists, and spiritual people have asked themselves these question and, as a result, have developed a variety of ways or models for understanding what intuition is and how it might work. In fact, questions 2-5 are best answered by exploring four of these ways. This exploration is important for two reasons: (1) the models move your understanding of intuition from a flat dictionary definition to a four dimensional perspective and (2) you’ll discover which of the ways is most natural for you and be able to turn to it whenever you need to throughout this book.

In addition, exercises which help you apply the ideas behind the models follow each discussion. Important hint: If you find yourself by-passing the exercises, examine the answers to these two things questions. (1) Am I so left-brained oriented, that I invalidate intuition by not investing in the exercises? If you answer "Yes" to this question, practice by acting "as if" you believed in intuition. Invest in a new adventure. (2) Am I so right-brained oriented, that I am reading the text for moral support, but think the exercises are unnecessary for me? If your answer is "Yes" to this question, humble yourself and recognize that there is always room for growth and improvement.

Application is everything in intuitive development. In both cases, give yourself over to the experience by doing the exercises.

In contrast to questions 2-5, question number one doesn’t require any model; it is easy.

"Absolutely!" I always answer, "You are designed to know what you know."

Unfortunately, many people don't realize this. They accept their analytical skills can be improved upon, but believe their intuitive abilities are limited at birth to some kind of intuition allotment. Some people are born with lots of intuition, some with less, or some with none at all. Or, they believe if you are born a man you don't have much, but if you are a woman, you have a lot. Both these beliefs, in my opinion, are nonsense. Regardless of your gender, you have plenty of intuition, although it may be true that you are not using it. And, like any other skill, intuition is strengthened by use, stays dormant with disuse, and varies with expertise.

It is not surprising people believe in an intuition allotment theory because, unlike analytical skills, public school curriculums do not try to improve their intuition or identify their particular area of intuitive expertise. Multiple choice questions which help students evaluate when and how they intuit best, rewards for essays such as "My Greatest Intuitive Experience", or college courses labeled "Intuition 101" don't exist. People have to decide to do these things for themselves. When they do, they don't regret it because intuition is part of healing. Most people raised in Western culture are divided within, separated from their deepest knowledge and wisdom. Our long and fruitful journey into science and technology now begs for an end to this inner division and a return to ancient knowledge methods which are not bound by superstitions, but revealed by expanded consciousness. It is important that we journey to this consciousness as a species not simply out of fear for our collective survival, but because we love and are committed to all Life. Commitment requires changes and, while changes motivated by fear are fleeting, changes impelled by love last.

Intuition is an ancient friend. Although its meaning wears different hats in each culture, the best of its presence is always associated with illumination. Ironically, the English word intuition is not very illuminating and many people wonder, "Precisely what is this thing called intuition?" When I use the word intuition, I am referring to a specific skill in consciousness for obtaining knowledge. I believe intuitive awareness exists on a continuum within us, although we use different words to describe it. For example, we call non-rational knowledge in our bodies, "instinct," in our emotions, "psychic," in our minds, a creative "Ah Ha," in our vision, "precognition," and in our experience of the Absolute, "mystic or spiritual." Naturally, people get confused because like the mythic Prometheus our right to know what we know changes forms according to our present awareness.

To get around this nomenclature problem and capture the breadth of intuitive abilities, I often use the phrase, "intuitive intelligence" or what I call your InQ. We are all familiar with IQ (intelligence quotient), a number which represents people’s ability to provide predetermined correct answers to questions focusing on a variety of analytical skills. In contrast, your InQ (intuition quotient) reflects your ability to go inward, respond to a variety of intuitive skills, perceive connections and thrive in the unknown. While IQ is associated with the brain, your InQ is distributed throughout your body because we literally do know with our minds, emotions, and bodies. In short, your InQ describes a huge piece of inner territory. This can complicate people's confidence in the learning process until they realize what their intuitive long suit is. Working with this book gives you an opportunity to know where your greatest intuitive abilities lie (in your body, emotions, visions, silence, or joy) and to begin mapping your InQ strengths.

Another problem people encounter is the multi-tasked nature of the word intuition. The word is a noun, yet, it is used to describe a process (the arrival of knowledge in unique ways) much like a verb is used. The real verb, intuit, is rarely used. So, most people choose to say, "I used my intuition to know the answer" rather than "I intuited the answer." This subtle distinction robs intuition of its action in the world and makes it a thing to understand rather than an action to take. By the end of this book, I hope you are as comfortable with the word intuit as you are with the word intuition.

You will also notice that I frequently refer to intuition as a living force, saying things like, "Intuition is calling you." Whenever I say that, remember it comes from a belief that this "living" intuition serves as a communication bridge, a language, for the soul. Therefore, this book engages you in enhancing a skill (intuition as process,) making friends with your intuition (as a living force,) and learning the language of your soul. All of these things begin when you turn on your intuition (Invitation One) and I'll do my best to lead you through a step-by-step acquisition of intuition's inner wealth.

One last thing about your entitlement to know what you know. Fortunately, the wealth of intuition flourishes in the context of purpose and soul. This provides an ethical dimension to its information which is often sadly lacking in the domain of knowledge. Take for example, this story of a man whose inner development had a magnetic effect on others. The man, a salesperson, liked the money he earned, but wanted more. On one sales call, unhappy not to have met his financial goals, he decided not to correct one of his customers when she mistakenly thought an item cost $150 more than its actual price. Driving home with the extra money in his pocket, he was mentally distracted by justifying his decision to himself and accidentally bashed in his front bumper. When he later received a repair bill for precisely $150, he recognized the folly of his thinking and its inevitable outcome. Intuition is powerful, and a sincere commitment to intuition makes it impossible for you to abandon ethical behavior for long. This is a bonus in your development package.

As people begin to work with their intuition, often their inner analytical voice, berates them saying things like, "This isn’t real" or "You can’t trust this stuff. It isn’t logical." This voice can be so destructive that it cripples or invalidates intuitive information before you are even able to completely receive, act on, and evaluate your intuition. Logic appears to love checkmating intuition. An answer to why logic puts down intuition is found in the first of our four ways of understanding intuition: The Scientific Model.

Important background for this model comes from philosopher Alfred North Whitehead who in 1925 declared the absolute dominance of the scientific revolution, which he defined as "a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts." Intuition, which is not an irreducible stubborn fact and is experimentally unreliable, non-repeatable, and uncontrollable, went out as the scientific tide came in.

The tide didn’t start turning until 1972 when Robert Ornstein popularized scientific research on the differences between the left and right brain. The research, which was based on studies of people with severed connections between the two hemispheres, suggested that each hemisphere has its own area of expertise. The left brain is an expert at verbal, linear, detailed processing. The right brain excels at non-verbal, spatial, wholistic and symbolic processing (see diagram.)

This discovery partially, but not entirely, sanctioned intuition which usually uses non-verbal, symbolic methods to communicate. The sanction remains partial because most Westerners have been educated about right brain expertise in a left brain manner. Immersion in right brain learning styles is rare and, in fact, the few educational subjects which emphasize right brain skillsart, music, dance, some aspects of sportsare considered optional or eliminated first in a budget cut. For most of us, the right brain remains the technical, but silent partner of the left. It is this silence and little direct experience with intuition which foster logic’s ability to put intuition down.