How to Access Your Intuition (and how to practice doing it)

Who says you can't bottle up motivation?

Or put inspiration in a pill?

Actually..they're right. You can't. You've actually got something even better.

Yes, I'm about to tell you something that you may have never realized.

In fact, you may experience a lot of resistance to this idea.

Your ego may begin to throw all sorts of ideas at you:

"Too good to be true". 

"Yeah, it's just not that easy". 

"That sounds great, but I don't have that!"

"This is a crock of new age b******t!!"

Yes, I get it. I know exactly what it feels like. I'm also on a first name basis with tons and tons of ego thoughts that have gotten in the way of accessing this part of myself.

I also was never taught this growing up or even in young adulthood.

Soooo I'd like for you to practice this resistance antidote for the next few moments.

Resistance Antidote

Pause for a Moment Right Now + Get Centered

Take in a deep breath, exhale.

Do it again.

Ask yourself, “would you be able to listen without judgment for the next few moments?”

Ok... Here we go:)

So what is this magical place that we each have unlimited access to?

That contains all of your drive, all of your passion and all of your purpose?

Well it's literally been right in front of you all along.

Actually it's even better than that. 

Your inner drive, passion, and motivation is literally located in your body. It is tangibly located.  

You, just by the nature of being a human being, are born with a visceral  experience of your INTUITION.

My experience with tapping into this place inside

Years ago, I heard a snippet of an energy exercise from Kristin Morelli where she was leading everyone to tap into the magnet in their stomachs. 

While I missed most of the exercise, it gave me a hit and instantly drew me  deeper to the physical experience in my body that I am literally being pulled by something inside me to the next moment, level, and energy in my life.

When I checked in, I could feel a motor running, a solid energy source that was intently and gently, pulling me from a gut place into the next course of action in my life.

This force was strong in a solid, dependable, secure and safe way. And really deepening my awareness of this core energy gave me that always beautiful aha recognition that..ahh yesss... Here I am. This is Me.

For some of you, this may be a bit far out right now and that's okay. 

Everyone has intuition and if you are feeling frustrated or confused right now about how to access this know that is completely normal.  Because this skill is experiential, practical, and real. And you will be able to tell this by practicing to it over time, getting to know it better, and watching how it guides you in your life.

There is a catch

The key though is that this drive, passion and motivation cultivated by your intuition does not work for just everything.

It works when what you are experiencing and moving toward is aligned with you.

No amount of tapping into this inner place within (The True Self) will make any difference if what you are trying or forcing or convincing yourself that you “should” be doing is not really what is resonating and aligned with your heart and your intuitive higher self.

The good news is this is a positive thing! This means there are certain things and experiences and passions and people that are aligned with us and as we keep fine tuning this radar, we will flow into what is meant for us more and more.

How does this apply to life and biz?

Once we understand that we have an internal guidance system inside, an inner radar, we can use it to our advantage. We can use this place within us that we have unlimited access to as a compass that can guide us. We can depend on it. We can use it’s intelligence and 6th sense.

When we start feeling stressed, burnout, anxious or doubting, we can check in and see what our internal guidance is saying.

Do we just need some rest?

Do we need to change directions?

Is our daily schedule in line with our values?

Permission to Practice

It takes practice. Despite having heard this exercise years ago, I still am training my mind to let go and allow access to this guidance within me. I use to think I could just do one exercise and instantaneously “I’d get it.”

Ha! Boy was I wrong, It was even harder for me because growing up I wasn’t allowed to process things, or learn things, or grow. Judgment and shaming comments and lack of awareness kept me trying to push forward into adulthood when what I really needed was permission to breathe and course correct and fail and then learn as a child does.

I needed to be nurtured in a way that allowed me to access my own inner guidance. To trust myself.

This is root cause of self doubt. Learning we can’t trust our internal guidance, our reactions and responses to life.

A Quick Meditation Practice for Accessing Your Unlimited Guidance (Your Intuition)

So I am going to guide you through a little experiential practice: 

Take a moment to sit back and relax your body.

Create a willing posture with open arms, feet flat on the floor, palms open, and taking in a deep breath in and out.

As you continue breathing, start to bring your attention to the place a couple inches above you belly button.

You can even touch it lightly with your fingers for a moment or rest the palm of your hand there.

Start to generate a feeling of warmth there that feels like it is directly inside the center of your body.

Allow yourself to notice a solid feeling right in that spot and notice that the more you put your attention on it, the more solid it becomes.

Start to be aware of a "motor" running inside you. You may even notice a pulsing.

Breathe.

Just notice this, allowing any thoughts or judgments to be there and gently guide yourself back to this solid feeling inside your core.

Breathe.

Try this several times throughout the day. Maybe throughout the week.

Practice checking in with it as well and seeing how it feels in different situations.

Get to know it, patiently. With curiosity.

Let me know how it goes! Now that I’ve rediscovered my intuition I love geeking out on it :)

Love, Jen 

P.S I hope you enjoyed this article! Please like and share with those who will find it helpful :)

And if you’ve found yourself doing the continuous head nod during this post, you may find my Confident CEO Assessment helpful.

It will assess the 4 areas where Imposter Syndrome shows up, one of them being TIME!

P.P.S. We’ve got a lovely group of women already invested in the November Confident CEO Mastery 4 week class “Let go of Self Doubt + Step Into Your Calling”.

We begin first week in November and it’s such an important course I’ve created.

You have gifts.

They are meant to be shared.

Period.

If you are finding that second guessing yourself, indecision and fear of visibility are affecting you from rising up into your full self, check out all the details for this November here: bit.ly/CEOMasteryExperience ⭐️🙌🏼

How to recognize + let go of self consciousness while running a business

As a teen, I always felt like I needed to prove myself. 

I didn’t see myself. I didn’t believe in myself. I felt safest being useful, hypervigilant & stoic.

I was confused and self conscious with a need to fit in and compare myself with others.

Can you relate??

All of my clients eventually crack into their inner teenager at some point. 

Why? 

Because it's a super difficult age where everyone is self conscious but pretends not to be. 

Because most teens don't know that adolescence is awkward and uncomfortable.

And because we all end up storing this experience in our nervous system because we most likely didn't receive guidance ushering us through it .

Or weren't given the skills and understanding on how to navigate it.

Did you know the teenage brain doesn’t have a fully formed complex thinking capability to step back from intense emotions?

In addition to the normal discomfort that came along with being a teenager, I actually wasn’t being seen. Many of us aren't. 

I didn't have anyone to talk to about my feelings. 

My brain was processing things developmentally at a new level and I didn't know how to interpret all the information (boys, self doubt, shame, depression, family expectations, progressive family dysfunction). 

And I wasn't supposed to know how! 

I would be nominated for the gifted & talented program, win awards, have boys asking me out and because what was on the INSIDE wasn’t being seen, I couldn't absorb any of it.

I became a shell filled with worry, overthinking, shame and doubt. It didn’t matter how many successes I had or how things might have looked on the outside, it wasn’t possible for me to see myself clearly.

The doubt & shame were like big funhouse tinted mirrors that distorted my entire world. And yet, simultaneously, they kept telling me it was my fault.

You might be wondering...

What does my teenage self have to do with showing up and being confident in business?

It actually has EVERYTHING to do with it. 

I carried these ways of thinking for decades and found that these same patterns showed up in my jobs, in my relationships and definitely prevented me from getting visible earlier.

Long after my teenage years, I still felt like that same young girl who kept trying to show up, yet felt unfulfilled, stuck and trapped. 

"What if I try this out and no one cares or wants to participate in my courses and retreats?"

"What if I keep spending money on trainings and I still get nowhere? "

"What if I get my hopes up again? There's probably no point because I'm just going to be disappointed"

"I'm just not cut out for this."

"I'm never going to figure this out."

The thoughts felt like an engine constantly running and sputtering beneath the surface.

The questions and the worries went on and on. I was caught in a self doubt cycle that I didn't know how to stop.

How do I stop feeling this way?
Why am I still thinking about that conversation?
How can I possibly share that?

What would it be like if I could just feel comfortable in my own skin?

Of course, then I’d burn out and have an emotional hangover of exhaustion, because I'd run out of fuel due to high intensity obsessive thought exertion and there was no adrenaline left to keep my body going. 

It wasn't until:

I learned how to take care of her, how to release those old rules and fake lies about needing to hide that things started to shift.

I found a mentor who got me, who saw me, when no one else could see me and showed me the way to heal and the freedom to be myself.

I was given a clear step by step path to follow and the support to take me through the spiral of healing I would revisit continuously.

Take a moment to think back to your teenage years . . .

What are some common emotions and themes you experience during that time?

Did you ever have anyone to talk to about your feelings?

If you did, were there certain topics that were left unspoken?

Do you notice any similarities to what you didn’t get to talk about when you were growing up and how you think about yourself today?

Give it a thought or a quick journaling and see what you come up with!

xo Jen

P.S.

The story above is a culmination of why I’ve created The Confident CEO Mastery Group Coaching Program.

It’s a 4 week group coaching experience designed to help creative, talented, heart-centered women CEO’s, just like you, go from feeling self doubt + imposter syndrome to being the confident, successful bosses of their dream businesses, while experiencing massive fulfillment & freedom in their everyday lives.

In short, I want to support you in the ways that have transformed my life so you can go from self doubt to confident, starting now. Take a peek and just hit reply and leave a comment and let me know if you have any questions :)

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Discover Your Intention for the Year with This Art Journaling PDF!

Happy New Year My Friends!

This year I've decided that TRUST is the word and experience I am choosing to embody for 2018.

I am choosing to deepen my trust in the process and allow things to unfold exactly as they are meant to. This means trusting my Higher Self and the inner wisdom within that feels peaceful, calm and centered. 

I am also choosing to deepen my trust in others. This isn't the haphazard throw-caution-to-the-wind type of trust that I use to experience years ago.

It's not the impulsive, spontaneous, fear-based decision that reinforced my doubt in myself and avoided the confusion about who and what to trust.

This is the type of TRUST that is based on a gentle curiosity over time about those people in my life who keep showing up for me and I for them.

Those people who share many of the same similar values that I do.

Those people that I can be my authentic Self with and vice versa.
 

• PRACTICE 

If you are interested in finding out what your Intentional Word of the Year is, I've created a little PDF for you where you can do some free writing, doodling and/or art journaling.

Click the image below to download your free copy! 

P.S. Do you want to fine tune your Inner Radar with crystal clear clarity for Love, Wealth + Freedom? My Free Start Up Guide Includes my 5 Star Process To Become the Intuitive Rockstar of your #5StarLife! This process transformed my life and is the foundation of everything I do in my life & biz! ⭐️🙌🏼👯‍♀️

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No need for perfectionism

'Be content with learning, and not impatient. We will not be, and cannot be "abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality" (ACIM T-16.VI.8:1). It would terrify us, like a child in kindergarten abruptly being made President, or a first-year piano student being forced to do a solo recital in Carnegie Hall.

Each of us is exactly where we belong, learning just what we need to learn. Let us, then, enter wholeheartedly and joyously into the process, practicing our holy instants, receiving our little glimpses of the real world, each one assuring us of the reality of our goal, and the certainty of its attainment.' ~Allen Watson

I love this. So often in sessions, clients dismiss those special moments of shifts and love, waiting to only give themselves credit when the goal of everlasting happiness is DONE. I do this too. With my own personal work. With my art. Jonesing for an outcome when the fulfillment comes in the now, regardless if it's a beginning, middle or end. 

 Knowing that we are exactly where we are meant to be and that these glimpses of joy are strengthening our capacity to accept this love is a beautiful way of looking at the process of being patient with where we are at.

Do you want to fine tune your Inner Radar with crystal clear clarity for Love, Wealth + Freedom? My Free Start Up Guide Includes my 5 Star Process To Become the Intuitive Rockstar of your #5StarLife! This process transformed my life and is the foundation of everything I do in my life & biz! ⭐️🙌🏼👯‍♀️

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The Most Important Conversation You Can Have

SACRED CHAOS- 8"x8" ACrylic on LINEN CANVAS

Sometimes life doesn't meet us with the conversation we so deeply crave. To be seen, heard, received. We're craving connection and interaction and support and to express. Yet, we are in that place of "can I truly get what it is that I need from the outside?"

9"x12" GEM RICH ACRYLIC on CANVAS

It's painful. That gap. Tormented at its grittiness, confusing at its best. And it can feel as if it's lasting a verrrry long time.

That need is truth. It is a yearning that is meant to be responded to.

And that gap represents all the suffering, neglect, abandonment, and minute fibers of where we didn't get what we needed when we needed it.

I believe this transition is the conversation growing within us...to be seen, heard, and received by our greatest inner genius and creative aliveness.

From this place we have cleared out enough space, and for some of us that's taken years (and do we ever completely finish? I don't know). And that space is the embodiment of our own seeing, hearing, being...loving, holding, appreciating.

DETAIL of STAINED GLASS (ACRYLIC PAINTING ON CANVAS 20x20)

I don't believe this is a spontaneous experience for most. It is a culmination of in the moment choices to keep loving ourselves bit by bit, loss by loss, burden by burden because really...we've gotten to a place where there is ABSOLUTELY nothing left to do, nothing else we can do.

The conversation is in YOU. Between your own body and mind. Between you and your highest power. Between you and the space around you that is yours and yours alone to explore. Just like any relationship, there's ups and downs, a struggle to understand when communication is misunderstood, and possibly years and years of resentments and not being heard. Maybe even deep soul crushing loss that has to be waded through.

This is your battle ground. This is where your deepest honesty is required of you, because, just like in any good relationship, that honesty is what brings you through the battlefield and into the land of intimacy and closeness.

And then from this place, this sense of being and fullness and aliveness, of being heard, felt, seen for all that we are, we become like the waterfall. Receiving from the circulating source and overflowing onto those who wish to bathe, dabble and play right along with us.

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How I Realized I Was Painting Parts of Me

It's been a healing time and a blessing to share my art these days. 

I've been fortunate enough to be able to share these therapeutic art practices with clients as well, many of whom were skeptical at first to even go to this nonverbal place and now they are creating pictures every week!

There is a large epidemic of creative wounding in our culture so when we are asked to draw, paint, or create, there may be parts of us that want to shut down. Interestingly, art and creativity can be the very thing that help us to open up more!

I have been creating several bodies of work, one of which has hundreds of little paintings that I just felt compelled to keep creating...and I still do.

The above mandalas (Mandala means Sacred Circle in sanskrit) are just some of the many circular forms I have been captivated by for over the past 5 months. I see each mandala as a mini world. Sometimes they look like moons or planets.

 But what stands out to me the most is their organic nature. How when I use the inks and water, they each become unique and expressive. How each image has so much movement even though they are in two dimensional form.

I realized something more deep and meaningful was going on here after laying out all the pieces. They are like a gigantic tapestry of my life and all of the experience I have had to heal from. 

After really sitting with the feelings of familiarity, adoration, fascination, and attraction to these little minis, I have realized that they are mini me's.

Each one represents a wound I have experienced. When each wound comes through artistically to be expressed, the finished piece often represents their healing. Sometimes the very act of painting them finalizes the Healing. Some show that they are still in the healing process.

Once I shared with my boyfriend about the meaning behind these paintings, he told me he became sad because he was visualizing my child self looking like a slice of swiss cheese.

All these holes where the daggers that had poked and prodded and penetrated my vulnerable child skin. I feel emotional too when I contemplate this work, a deep grief when I think back through my journey.

However, simultaneously, now I feel deep gratitude. Gratitude that I can feel. Gratitude that I have climbed mountains and hurdles that I never thought I would.

Gratitude that healing is possible.

Gratitude that I went from a hole to a box to a place unknown, until I finally could see a horizon line. Many times over.

That now I am not only seeing a horizon line...I am being offered long stretches and moments to sit back and bask in the sunrise.

That's what's so powerful about the mandala. The circular nature just breathes movement, the cycle of life, and connection.

Which is also similar to the model of Internal Family Systems which I use that says we each have True Self and we each have parts that have become disconnected from our Self.

When we can give these parts attention, they start orbiting harmoniously within our internal system receiving the love of our Inner True Self (the bindu/center point) of our being. 

Just like the celestial bodies that inhabit our universe, these paintings portray the parts of me that exist in my personal universe, my internal system and each one has own it's image, thoughts, and experiences. 

If you would like to get to know your parts better, I am releasing a new Expressive Art Journaling course at the end of this month that will specifically address the topic of releasing relationship wounds. 

The beginning of a new year is a great time to deepen our mindfulness and compassion of any past hurts and resentments we may be holding onto (family, romantic, work, friendship etc.)

Writing and simple art practices will be used to deepen the release by connecting mind with body. Beginners and people who deem themselves are "non-artists" are encouraged to join*!

(*Not only do I think everyone has a creator within, these are not technical practices. They are journaling practices to help assist you with witnessing the parts of yourself that need attention.)

Click here for the free signup!

Some examples of the Many Parts of Me

Lot's of Love, Jen 

P.S. Do you want to fine tune your Inner Radar with crystal clear clarity for Love, Wealth + Freedom? My Free Start Up Guide Includes my 5 Star Process To Become the Intuitive Rockstar of your #5StarLife! This process transformed my life and is the foundation of everything I do in my life & biz! ⭐️🙌🏼👯‍♀️

Grab By Clicking on the Image Below!!