The Creative Momentum Podcast
The Creative Momentum Podcast
Three Practices to Feel More Intuitive
Join me this week as I share my three favorite practices to feel more intuitive:
- Writing daily-ish (and why I believe doing something every.single.day is not better)
- Mental rehearsal + how to do it (plus a free resource)
- Little nudges (and how to set up a day of following your intuition)
These three practices are simple and free, and build your intuition muscle. You’ll also learn that the goal is to befriend yourself in the process - befriending yourself allows you to hear more deeply + clearly.
If you want to feel intuitive in your creative practice, AND tap into your one-in-eight-billion perspective and contribution, head to www.jenmoulton.com/newsletter and get my Intuitive Creation Audio. You’ll receive an audio that teaches you a unique process to reliably tap in BEFORE you make any creative work so you can overcome procrastination, overwhelm, and where-do-i-start-itis.
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Welcome to the Creative Momentum Podcast. I'm your host, Jen Moulton, and I teach creative women how to make their passion projects real, things that make a difference in the world. If you're ready to stop letting yourself doubt, we'll do back and start doing the work. You are in the right place. Let's get into today's episode.
ATR USB microphone-1:Welcome to today's episode, Three Practices to Feel More Intuitive. Today, I'm sharing three of my favorite practices to feel more intuitive. And I also began today's podcast by sharing two quick PSAs that are top of mind for me and that I want everyone to know about. They're just like real life things that are helpful to know that I have learned, and that I want to tell everyone I know about. Let's get into today's episode.
I'm recording this for my car. Sometimes I'm out and about and I get an idea and I really like to capture an idea when it feels alive, that's something I talk about a lot. I think it's important. And so I sometimes record when I'm in my car, cause I'm thinking when I'm driving, and like today, we're having our house appraised because we switched homeowner's insurance. Side note, by the way, I just want, this is like my PSA right now. And also a disclaimer, I am not a financial advisor, so take this with a grain of salt, do your research. But if you own a home, I strongly encourage you to look into what's called an umbrella policy. Long story short, if you own a home, if you have investments, I'm not sure what the threshold is that it would be worth it for you, but if you have liabilities that you want protected, if something tragic were to ever happen, which hopefully, of course it doesn't, but if something were to ever happen, an umbrella policy covers you from the maximum insurance, I guess, ceiling that you have for your home, your car, whatever you have insurance for, up to your collective net worth. So it covers that gap between what your insurance actually covers, and your investments, your home, your rental properties, whatever ways you may be incorporating wealth. So again, I am not a financial advisor, this is not financial advice. But I learned this recently from my friend Erin, who is a financial advisor and planner, and I'm so thankful she told me because I didn't know what an umbrella policy was, and I did not know how important they are to protect yourself, when you have assets that you wanna protect. So that's just a PSA, we are having our house appraised for that. So I'm out in my car with my dogs driving around. It's a Friday, and I am just like thinking about things. And I wanted to record this because it's top of mind. Okay, and I didn't say before, when I record podcasts in my car, on my phone, I record them recording video of myself talking to the camera. I don't record it in voice memos. Voice memo audio quality is not great. In my experience, recording a video and then separating the audio in another program is great. The iPhone microphone with video is exceptional. Okay, that's my PSAs and my life stuff, I guess. Today I wanted to talk about three of the best practices that I have used, or three of my favorite practices that I use, to feel more intuitive. I think that feeling intuitive, to me, is like being creative. I think that everyone is creative. I think everyone is intuitive, but it's a muscle that we build, and it's kind of a trust muscle. It's something that we all have access to, but not all of us listen to. And so these three practices are my favorite ways to tap in, and ways that I think are really accessible to begin building your trust muscle with your intuition. The first one is writing, and if you know anything about me and writing, you know that I'm a proponent of daily- ish writing, meaning you write daily- ish. I personally am not someone that does something every single day. It's just not my personality. I like variety. I mean, there are things I do every single day, I brush my teeth every single day. I sleep every single day, but I like to switch up things that I do. Sometimes I write, sometimes I read. Sometimes I pull an oracle card. Sometimes I listen to an audio meditation. I like to do a lot of different things to tap into myself, to nurture myself, and what I'm needing in each moment. But writing is something that I have come back to over many years, and in the past few years, I really feel like I've mastered feeling like a daily-ish writer. That's my identity. And I think writing daily- ish, you know, so ish, right? Like every day-ish. Every other day. Every couple days, is awesome. Like, why is that not as good as writing every single day? This is, that's a bit of a tangent, but I just don't think that doing something every single day is better or more noble than doing something daily- ish, because it really is serving you and you're doing it from a place of taking care of yourself, not a place of force or should. Like, I don't think that's better personally. It's taken me a while to get here, though. I used to think it was more noble to do something every single day because I feel like that's what's preached to us, but I don't actually agree with that. I think it's way better to honor yourself and what you're actually needing in this moment or in the certain morning, or the day, and do that for yourself rather than upholding something that you do every day because I don't know why. If you do do it every single day, like your reasons for it. I guess that would be my advice. Okay, so the first practice that I do that helps me tap into my intuition is daily-ish writing, and here is how I think about it. I like to write what I'm thinking about, and I like to write to befriend myself. This is such a big change for me. When I started doing things to befriend myself, when I started writing, when I started working out to befriend myself, it changed the way I related to it as a habit, and it helped me build it as part of my identity. To me, I wanna write to know myself better. I wanna know what I'm thinking about, I want to know how I'm feeling. I love to start there, usually I do start with what am I thinking about? What am I feeling? And then that will very often, lily pad me into something else. And then now I'm thinking about something else, or I'm making connections with things. To me, that's really rewarding. And doing something because it's rewarding is a great way to build a habit. I very often start with some mind drama, some grumpies, something that's irking me, or I'm being hard on myself about something. But I try not to stay there. Because, in my experience, if I stay in writing negatively, complaining about myself, complaining about other people, about life situations, it makes the process of writing kind of negative, and then it's therefore not something that I really want to do. So I often will start with something that's brewing, bugging me, like just irking me, something I'm ruminating on, like I just keep playing in my head, but I try to get to the root of what's beneath it. What's bothering me about this? What is talking to me about this? What might this be here to show me? Why is this persisting? Like I'm seeking a deeper relationship with myself in my writing, and I'm using it to be a better friend to myself. Or to befriend myself. That's just a great way to build the habit, number one, but number two, this is a way to source wisdom from yourself. If something is persisting in your life, there's probably a reason for it. And if you ask yourself good questions like, why might this be hanging around for me? And see what answers come up for you. It can be really interesting and you can get really good information just by kind of sitting with it. The visual I'm thinking of is like, if your friend is going through something or is thinking about something, and you're walking, and you sit down on a bench together. And they're talking about whatever is is present for them, your energy is that you're just sitting with them on this bench while they share with you. Right. You're just being a gentle witness and an interested party. That's the kind of relationship, or that's the way I relate to writing. Is this idea of gentle witnessing, just being with myself. That's how I see it as time to be with myself, time to be with what is actually already present for me. And another note I have here on writing, is that if nothing else, it's a way for me to dump out things I'm thinking about so that I can actually hear myself. We are not our top thoughts that we're thinking about all the time. That's just ruminations, that's personality, it's past experiences, going around and around. We are actually that deeper wisdom that is watching and listening and encouraging us, and writing can be a way to kind of take off that top layer of soil, I guess, and get to that deeper part of ourselves that has all of the wisdom and intuition that we could ever hope for. Writing daily ish is number one. Number two, the second practice that I use to feel more intuitive is, something that's called mental rehearsal. And there's a lot of ways to do this. The way that I like to do it is by listening to audios. They're kind of like meditations, and I actually have created one because I'm such a fan of this. I took a training on it, a certification, and I created one that you get for free if you sign up for my newsletter. It's all about feeling intuitive and being in touch with yourself, and what mental rehearsal means is literally mental rehearsal, right? You're rehearsing mentally what you want to have, be, create, experience, et cetera. So the audio that I've created, the one I'm talking about right now, is all about feeling intuitive and tapping into yourself and your inner wisdom before you start making any creative work. You can also listen to it in the morning before you go into your day so that you're grounded, and centered, and in touch with yourself. One of my favorite parts of the audio is, I love to think about what is at the edge of my awareness? What is speaking to me? What is interesting in this moment? What kind of like threads am I starting to pick up on? That's really to me what the audio is about. That's also, to me, what feeling intuitive is about, is just like sensing like little threads, sensing little perceptions that might be present for you. It's often not big, loud, in your face. I mean, sometimes it is, but in my experience it's often not. It's more like gentle, communicating to me in like more subtle ways. And we have to be listening. We have to be paying attention. We have to be clear so that we're hearing it. And mental rehearsal really helps me do that. You can listen to audios, you can also do it yourself. It's basically, you would close your eyes and go into a meditation and see yourself operating in the world in the way that you want to be. Feeling intuitive, feeling connected, feeling clear, feeling grounded and present probably is part of it. At least it is for me. Mental rehearsal can be really powerful because it is priming the same neural pathways that we live out. So in our brains, if you mentally rehearse something and you actually do it, it's the same neural pathway. So we can prime the way that we wanna show up, and experience, and operate in the world by doing mental rehearsal. And we can strengthen the neural pathways too. Not just prime them, but strengthen them, so that they are our go-tos. So that when we sit down to make creative work, or sit down with a friend, or sit down to write, or whatever it might be, that you're first tapping into yourself. Getting connected and grounded so that you're hearing your intuition, so you're hearing your inner wisdom before you make, before you engage, before you write. It's a really supportive way to go about it, and you don't have to use force, or discipline, or shoulds to do it. Your practices can be really supportive, and gentle, and nurturing. You still, you know, will need to use dedication sometimes, cause you won't feel like it. But we can encourage ourselves. I hope that's the message that I'm communicating. We can encourage ourselves, we can go about it in supportive ways, to feel intuitive and to make creative work. It doesn't have to be a discipline, a shoulds, and like I should want to do this too. Like that doesn't need to be part of it. If you're interested in that mental rehearsal audio that I've created, you can get that by going to www.jenmoulton.com/newsletter and sign up. You'll get a weekly newsletter from me with musings and wisdom about how to feel more intuitive and creative and joy in your life and in your creative practice, and you will also instantaneously receive this mental rehearsal audio, which you'll be able to download. I like to put it in Google Drive or in Dropbox, and have it on my phone and just listen to it before making, or sometimes I listen to it when I'm walking, or resting, et cetera. Okay, the third way that I like to feel more intuitive is something that I think of as little nudges. So, here's my recommendation: you give yourself space in your schedule. This can be one weekday one day a week, or it could be a weekend day. It depends on your schedule, and your life, and what you have going on. It could be something you do once a month. It doesn't need to be all the time, but have an open schedule, or a minimum schedule if you have certain things that need to get done, no problem, but just make it minimum so that you feel like you have space. So you're gonna do the minimum that you need to do on this day, and you're gonna keep space open and see what is tugging at you. And then when something tugs at you, I want you to listen to it, and follow it, and then see what comes next. And I wanna encourage you to do what feels fun, indulgent, and spacious. So I'm gonna give you an example, earlier today, I went and picked up sandwiches for lunch, and as I was driving to pick up lunch, I passed Austin Flower Company, which is this beautiful independent flower shop in Austin that I used to use flowers from them years ago when I did freelance floral design. It's such a special place that we have here, and I was like, I'm gonna run in there and get some flowers. I had unpacked our vases recently and I thought it just would feel really nice to go get some flowers. And so I went in and they had so many varieties that I haven't seen before. They had something called butterfly ranunculus, they were so pretty and I'd never even heard of that. I got a bunch of poppies and a bunch of ranunculus, and then I went home and I arranged them, one in a vase that I made and one in a vase that a glass blower made that's one of my favorite possessions ever. And that was just an intuitive nudge. That was something that sounded fun to me, and sounded nurturing. It sounded like just like fun in my soul. And so I did it, and sometimes I might have just been like, no, I'm not gonna do that. They're just gonna die. Like the flowers that I love last, just like usually a few days. Or I can't do that because the sandwiches are gonna get cold while I go in there. Or like what happened today was there wasn't a parking spot, so I had to wait. All of these like silly reasons that I wouldn't have done it instead of just like I felt a little tug to go get some flowers, and why not do that and enjoy the experience of arranging them and appreciate them when they're in our home. That's an example of these little nudges. So I followed that. And then, I had to leave the house because we had the appraiser coming. So I stopped and got myself an iced matcha just cause that sounded fun today. And then as I was driving to come down by the lake, cause I'm gonna walk my dogs around there for a little bit, I had these ideas to record these podcast, which normally I would not do. I would normally record them in my office, et cetera. So like the details don't really matter except that when we listen to these little nudges, we honor one of them, in this case, stopping and getting flowers. Then another idea comes in, stop and get a matcha. Then another one, walk the dogs around the lake because I love being around water. Then another one, oh, before you do that, just record these ideas that are percolating, and maybe you'll share them on a podcast. And now here I am, like at 21 minutes of talking to myself on video recording this, and hopefully I'll share it with you. And to me, this is the essence of creative work. We think of creative work as I have a strict practice. I go into my studio from 9:00 AM and I work until 11:30 AM, and then I break for lunch from 12 to one, and then I work again from two until four, blah, blah, blah. Right? That's how we tend to think of creative work, but. Maybe for some people it is like that, but it doesn't have to be like that. It can be following these little nudges. Doing things that feel indulgent and fun and spacious, just to make you happy. That is the sole reason to do them. Not because of what they'll get for you or what they'll create for you, but just because you felt a little nudge to do it, and you decided to honor it. And I wanna offer that by following your little nudges, and honoring them, you're actually building your relationship with your intuition. Because, here's the important part, those little nudges are coming from somewhere. And I bet if you really think about it, when you have these little nudges, they are not coming from your brain thinking really hard about it. I wasn't driving to pick up sandwiches and thinking, oh, what should I do with the vases that I unpacked recently? Oh, I should stop and get flowers to fill them. No, I wasn't thinking about that. I was just driving, and I don't even remember what I was thinking about, but then I felt that little nudge to go get flowers and I did it. And that is a way to honor my intuition, honoring those little nudges. Because those little nudges are everything. And because they lead us places that we wouldn't go without listening to them. And I wanna say here that we don't know where they will ultimately lead us. The point is not always I do something because I know it's gonna lead me here. We've all seen the graphics of paths being really windy and twirly and swirly. They kind of look like chaos. That's how these little nudges add up. We don't know where they take us. We don't know why always. It doesn't always make sense, but they come to us for a reason, and I just think it's so important to honor them. Because when we honor them, we're honoring our little callings, our little nudges. And that's a way to build trust. And the more that we listen, the more information we'll get. And maybe the bigger it'll get too, I don't know. But the way to get there is by starting small and building to the big information coming to you. Because you honor the little nudges, you'll trust the big information. You'll trust that you'll actually be able to hear it, and you'll trust that it's coming in for you for a reason. And maybe you won't see where it's leading you and you'll still trust it. And I feel like that's the point.
ATR USB microphone-2:That's what I have for you today. I am so glad that you were here and then we get to walk our paths together. See you next time. Same time, same place. Bye for now.