Imagine being a child, and a parent or guardian asks you this question: “Do you want the red balloon or the green one?” To children, the answer is often natural—it’s whichever option first comes to mind in the moment. Yet to an adult, this instinctive, immediate choice, this intuitive flow, is often clouded by doubt. 

Think of a bigger decision: you’ve received two different job offers, each offering their own perks, advantages, and disadvantages. Your first thought may be to compare the two logically, making a pros and cons list for each. But this can often lead you to the exact place of indecision you first started from, leaving you just as lost as when you first started. How can you select the right choice? The answer might just be that, through the power of intuition, you already know the option you truly want.

Intuitive flow, a subconscious state of natural knowing, is something that can often elude us in our everyday lives. Most decisions in adult life feel so important and all-encompassing that just choosing the option that “feels right” can feel short-sighted. But sometimes, letting go of logic for a moment and just going with the flow can be a way of reconnecting with the subconscious feelings that can often pass us by.

What Is Intuitive Flow?

Intuitive flow can be described as a “deeper type of knowing”. Even if we can’t sense it on the surface, our subconscious is always reacting to stimulus from the outside world. It can influence our thoughts through our emotions, no matter how subtle these might be. Have you ever met someone and immediately liked or disliked them for no clear reason? Following that, have you then learned something about the person that justifies your opinion of them? Sometimes, your intuition can hold more power than you’d think.

The use of intuitive flow is a technique sometimes used in art therapy, the idea being that in order to draw out true beauty in a piece, you need to let go of conscious thought and just focus on where the art is leading you. According to this line of thought, in order to know if something is truly beautiful to you or not, you have to connect with your inner feelings, paying attention to subtle the subtle variations in emotion you feel while creating your piece. This can bring out a sense of order within yourself, called the authentic self, unclouded by the active thoughts of self-criticism that occur when creating something. 

Therefore, intuitive flow is not just about doing the first thing that comes to your head: it’s about pausing and considering what your subconscious mind is trying to tell you. It’s important to stop and listen to yourself. Remember that your emotions are there for a reason. If something feels unsafe, or like a red flag intuitively, it likely is in actuality. 

When Do We Use Intuition Naturally In Our Lives?

Decision-Making

Think back to that example of choosing between two jobs. In making that pros and cons list, we may think we’re using pure logic to divide aspects of the career choice into two categories. But in actuality, how are we making these decisions? Maybe one job has a slightly higher pay, which would logically be the better option, and the other has the possibility of offering friendlier coworker relationships. Having had a job in the past without these coworker relationships may lean your gut impulse towards the latter job, making you place more “pros” on that side. In other words, your intuition, based on past experience, is leading you to subconsciously make a less overtly “logical” choice. You already know which option you want for yourself before you can openly declare it to others.

When We Enter Creative Flow

Have you heard of the concept of “creative flow”? It’s a state we can sometimes access where producing something creative where we’re so thoroughly engaged in an activity that time begins to flow differently. For example, when writing a short story, a writer could be so laser-focused on their work that they forget to perform even simple bodily functions like eating or going to the bathroom. Creative flow is comparative to intuitive flow in that it activates based on our subconscious intuition. Free of the pressure to create something objectively “good”, we simply create, free of negative thought processes that can hinder the process. In this way, we’re connecting more completely with our inner selves, creating what we ourselves want rather than what would be deemed valuable by society.

3 Ways You Can Engage With + Develop Your Intuitive Flow In Everyday Life

1. Freeform Journaling

One way you can flex your intuitive muscles is by journaling. Now, this isn’t journaling with any particular aim in mind, or subject. This is simply creating a space for yourself to write down whatever comes into your mind. It can be about how you’re feeling at the moment, something that’s frustrating you, or something you’re proud of—the subject doesn’t matter as long as you’re putting words on a page. Try setting a timer, maybe just ten or fifteen minutes to start, and seeing where it gets you. The only thing that matters is that you’re continuously writing the whole time. 

2. Mindfulness Practices

Mindfulness practices, meditation being the most popular, are one of the easiest ways to get in tune with your power of intuition. There are plenty of ways to get started, including guided meditation apps, articles, and classes. For meditation, try starting with just ten minutes a day and eventually working your way up to 20. Using a guide is the easiest way to start, especially if the guided practice focuses on breathwork. But if you find that mediation is particularly difficult for you, there are lots of other easy ways to practice mindfulness. 

One grounding exercise, the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise, simply asks you to awaken yourself to the presence of the room around you. You name five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one that you can taste. Give each observation at least one sentence, such as “I feel the wooden floor below my feet; it is cool and smooth.”  Even though it may seem overly simple, this exercise is great for grounding yourself in times of panic or stress.

3. Listening To Yourself + Others

Take some time out of your day to really pause and consider yourself and the things around you. How are you feeling in this particular moment? Name simple adjectives to describe to yourself the reasons you’re feeling the way you’re feeling--these don’t need to be full sentences, and can just be loose descriptors for your feelings. A good resource for coming up with phrases can be a feelings wheel, like the one depicted here:

Intuitive flow is all about listening to your body and mind, and that can also extend to others. Help a friend with a problem, ask someone at work how they’re doing, then truly sit and be present in their responses. Chances are, you’ll intuitively react a certain way as you do.

How do you feel you exhibit intuitive flow in your everyday life? Do you feel that you’re a more logical or intuitive thinker?