Don't Step on the Bluebells

How Listening to Your Intuition Can Change Your Life (#033)

• Amanda Parker • Season 1 • Episode 33

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Intuition isn't just a feeling—it's a compass guiding us through life's maze, helping us make decisions when logic falls short. In this episode, we delve deep into the concept of intuition and how it can empower you to cultivate unshakable self-confidence. Join Amanda Parker as she shares heartfelt stories of her own journey with intuition, from moments of doubt and anxiety to the realization of its transformative power.

Listeners will learn practical techniques to strengthen their intuitive muscles, including journaling, oracle cards, and physical intuition tests like the sway test. Engaging conversations unpack why trusting your gut is vital in a world that constantly pushes external validation.

Empower yourself to tune into that inner voice urging you towards the right path. Amanda encourages everyone to embark on their journey to discover how intuition speaks to them, unlocking the clarity and direction they truly desire. Whether you’re dealing with big life decisions or simply seeking alignment, this episode offers rich insights to help you navigate life's complexities with confidence.

Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation—join us, pick a practice, and see how your intuition can reshape your experience. Subscribe now, and share your progress with us!

How to Get in Touch:
Website: www.amandaparker.co
Instagram: @amandaparker.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandamparker/
Podcast: www.dontsteponthebluebells
Community: www.womenhealerscollective.com

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Amanda Parker:

Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Blue bells. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and today I'm excited to bring you another mini episode. Today's topic is going to be all about intuition and how you can actually develop unshakable self-confidence. So intuition is a topic that keeps coming up for me time and time again. If you've been following me on LinkedIn or you follow any of the articles or blog posts that I share on my website or my mailing list, then you're already well aware that I am a big fan, probably number one fan.

Amanda Parker:

I like to talk about intuition because it has impacted my life so much. I can remember specifically when I was younger. There were periods of time in my life where I just didn't understand how my intuition was speaking to me or what it was saying. So it took me until the last five to 10 years to actually understand that my intuition was speaking to me all the time, and when I listened to it, quickly, decisions were easy and seamless. I would be in flow. There was a lot of creative power in what I would do when I was ignoring it. It would certainly find a way to let me know. This is how, when I was younger and I was going to my high school prom and I was feeling so stressed out. I wanted my dress to be perfect and my hair and my makeup and all of this and I had a massive anxiety attack. On the day of the prom, I spent a good part of the evening in the bathroom throwing up because I did not know how to cope. This was a clear sign of anxiety Something's not right, we're in danger. You need to pay attention. I didn't know how to listen to it back then. I also didn't know that. You know, prom wasn't like the biggest event of my life because I was what? 17. But this was just one of the many times in my life that my intuition actually did start speaking up to me by shouting.

Amanda Parker:

The reality is that by the time your intuition is shouting at you, so that might mean that you have health concerns, you might have anxiety, there might be sleeplessness or other things that you might be facing. By the time it usually gets to that point, your inner wisdom has probably been trying to get your attention for quite some time before, has probably been trying to get your attention for quite some time before. You just weren't listening. This isn't about shaming. This isn't about guilt. This isn't about saying you're doing it wrong. This is a call to say that you get to learn how your intuition speaks to you and then you get to make more conscious choices about what you want to do with that information conscious choices about what you want to do with that information.

Amanda Parker:

This is why I love teaching this so much, because when we start to recognize the way that our own inner voice speaks to us, we can start paying attention and taking action that is aligned with who we are, with what matters to us, with our values, with the goals and the vision that we've set for ourselves. So when we're trying to please others, when we're trying to make decisions that don't really feel aligned, when we're moving forward with that you know, job application that doesn't actually feel good, we actually have a way of tuning in to find out is this the right way forward or not, and we all have this guidance system within. So everything that I'm telling you today, I am 100% convinced that we all have the possibility of tuning into our own inner wisdom, to our own intuition. We just want to learn the ways that our intuition speaks to us and we want to be able to learn enough that we can choose how we engage. So for me, my intuition, by the time I'm getting anxiety over something. So if I am in a relationship which luckily is no longer the case I have a wonderful husband he is fantastic In the past I had a relationship and I had quite a few that were not as fantastic they weren't, you know, healthy relationships and I was feeling emotionally drained and I was feeling exhausted or anxious or feeling like something was wrong all the time.

Amanda Parker:

I remember showing up at work and you know, after a night of crying and trying to hide that, I had all these bags under my eyes from my colleagues because I was so unhappy but I wasn't willing to listen. So it took me a long time to finally realize oh wait, a second, I'm really unhappy here. I need to get out of this. I need to end this relationship and move on to something else. That's a whole story and I'm happy to share that another day or not, but the point being that by the time, my intuition was already shouting at me through all these physical symptoms like on my skin and anxiety and exhaustion and all this other information. By the time it was shouting at me, it had already been whispering for months or years to let me know that something was off. I just didn't want to listen and I didn't 100% know if what I was listening to was the right way forward. So, in short, my mind got involved as well and wanted to have a say about what I wanted to do. That didn't necessarily involve my gut and my heart.

Amanda Parker:

Now I've had enough experiences in building my business, in different relationships that I've been in, in just different dynamics that I've been so fortunate to experience over the years, I understand that I can actually listen to my intuition in a number of ways before it needs to shout at me. So, first and foremost, everyone has their own definition of what intuition means and they might have their own association to it. I remember specifically when I was doing my MBA and one of my economics professors told us, without any doubt, that you should never use your intuition to make business decisions. While that is sound advice in some cases, the truth is rather more complicated. So there are a number of studies out there that have tracked the somatic response of your body in the decision-making process. So I'll reference this one study and you're welcome to go take a look at it by Dr Antonio Damasio, who did research on somatic markers and found that decisions are influenced by emotional reactions that are stored in our bodies. So that means that the intuition really involves bodily signals guiding our decisions before we're even consciously aware of it. So we might rationalize the reasons that we made those decisions, but the truth might actually be that something inside our body, something somatically, already told us which way we're supposed to decide before we rationalize it. So feel free to do your own research and look into what that means for you.

Amanda Parker:

For me, I've come to really trust that voice of inner knowing that I have within, because I've developed a relationship with it over the last six, seven years. This is something that you can also do. It's a muscle that you can build, and when you're able to tune into your own intuition, you just have this access to so much more energy, awareness, to so much more insight, to so much more groundedness and centeredness in your life. You're able to make decisions that are really aligned with who you are and your values and what your goals and vision are for your life. You're not making choices that aren't aligned because you think you should or because someone else told you that would be a good idea. You're not making decisions just to please others. You're really learning how to tune into yourself, knowing that the choices that you're making are the best for you. This is so important.

Amanda Parker:

We so often and we're really all living in this society together that we make choices because we're supposed to. You're supposed to graduate college and get a good job and work your way up, and you're supposed to want to get married and have a family, and you're supposed to do all these things that our society or our families or people close to us are either doing or telling us we should be doing, and that's not the path for all of us. So we might spend our whole lives trying to fulfill what others think we should be doing and ignoring what it is that we really feel called to do. So my mission here in teaching intuition and how to develop that self-trust is because I want to help you actually tune into what matters to you, to live the life that you're meant to be living and to create a life for the people around you, who you love, who share that life with you, that lets you and everyone else show up as your highest, happiest, most fulfilled self. This is why we talk about intuition and why I have such strong beliefs that it's so important to develop this skill set.

Amanda Parker:

So intuition speaks to each of us differently. I know I've already alluded to this, but it will show up in very different ways for each of us. So, for example, you might have physical sensations. There might be something within your body that every time x, y, z happens, you feel it. That could be the coming on of headaches. That could be a twitch in your eye. That could be that knot in your stomach that's usually the one that gets me. That could be something like on your skin, like what I had when I was younger, where my whole skin just broke out because everything was so out of alignment that my body was like in a panic. So there's different things that you might be feeling somatically. You might not be sleeping as well, or maybe you're sleeping extra well. So those are things that you're going to want to pay attention to.

Amanda Parker:

What signals does your body give you? There's also emotional signals that you might get and that could be through, you know, some basic emotions. I don't have my emotion chart here with me. They do exist, but I don't really have one. So that might be through happiness, through feeling really happy, through laughing through, feeling carefree or sad, or angry or frustrated. All these different emotions hold valuable information for you that you can tune in and say oh wait, I'm feeling really angry. I have no idea why. What's making me so angry? And if you take the time to investigate a bit, you'll likely find the reason. What's the culprit, what's the thing? What's that? Either decision that you have to make that you're finding really difficult, or a person who has stepped on your boundaries or stepped on your values who made you really angry. So there might be many different reasons for that, but it's up to you to investigate what's really beneath it and what's the information that you need to pay attention to as a result, to as a result.

Amanda Parker:

So you might have recurring thoughts that show up. So there might be this idea like you just want to get a house in the countryside I'm using my own example here I just want to have a house in the countryside, where I have a lot of land and there's nature and animals, and I don't have to talk to people if I don't want to, but I can if I do. So there might be these recurring ideas or visions about jobs, about relationships, about places that you want to live or places that you want to travel, to Pay attention. That's all information for you to know. Wait a minute, this isn't going away. There's something that I need to see here One of my personal favorite ways that intuition can show up or the way that it can speak to. This isn't going away. There's something that I need to see here.

Amanda Parker:

One of my personal favorite ways that intuition can show up or the way that it can speak to me is through synchronicity. So if I'm thinking about, I don't know, taking a trip to Mexico or studying with a particular shamanic teacher who maybe is based in Mexico, and then over the coming days someone might talk to me about Mexico or something about Mexican traditions or Mexican food, like it can show up in so many ways. But if you're paying attention, you can actually see Mexico, mexico, mexico, mexico and then start to realize wait a minute, this is like the fifth time I've heard that this week. I'm going to see what else is there. So synchronicity is really fun to play with. Usually, by the time I hear something twice, sometimes by the third time, I know it's time to pay attention. So there's other ways that your intuition can show up, for example.

Amanda Parker:

There's other ways that your intuition can show up. For example, if you meditate or you practice mindfulness and you give yourself that opportunity to really slow down, you might hear the voice of your intuition much more clearly. In those moments when I give myself the grace to really slow down and go into that meditative state, I know that wisdom comes through so clearly to me. The same is true when I go out for a walk in nature and I can really connect to the plants and the trees and just feeling grateful to be there, wherever it is that I am on the earth, walking, and just really hear that wisdom from within. So a lot of people who are starting out to listen to their own inner voice ask the questions about well, how do I know if this is really my intuition? What if it's just fear? The truth is that you might not know in the beginning. You might need to spend some time getting to know what that voice sounds like.

Amanda Parker:

Sometimes it is going to feel like fear. You're really afraid to do that thing, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. What it means is that you should get really clear about why you're doing it. And does that feel aligned? So if I'm going to speak on a stage in front of 300 people and I'm feeling really scared. Is that my intuition saying don't do it, you're in danger, or is that like I'm stepping into something really big and I really want it? And of course, I feel scared. So I would need to connect to myself in that moment and just think what are the reasons that I'm coming here? Why am I doing this? Does this feel aligned? And then you can do it scared?

Amanda Parker:

So you're going to need to discern for yourself whether something is really about fear or intuition, and that comes from getting to know your own intuition and how it speaks to you. You can do this by tracking. You know, you can write down a log of all the times that your intuition showed up or that that fear showed up, what was happening, what was the situation, and then you can start to discern a little bit easier. So you really want to give yourself the opportunity to practice, to get it wrong and to trust that you don't know until you've actually had a chance to get to know. Don't know until you've actually had a chance to get to know. So I know that my intuition has been speaking to me my whole life, but I had no idea how it was speaking to me. Now, because I've been studying it and teaching it and showing others in like my coaching practice and also in my training practice how they can access their own intuition, I've learned a lot about how mind speaks to me and how I can listen before it has to become a hardship or before it's a difficult thing to pay attention to. So for anyone who's listening and is really keen to deepen their own intuition, I've written a lot about this topic on my blog so you can go check out wwwamandaparkerco and take a look at the articles that are there. So I had a relatively recent article about from doubt to trust my own journey to stronger intuition, and there was also an article very recently about six powerful ways to strengthen your intuition. Go ahead check those out. If this speaks to you, I'll link to it in the show notes. But for anyone who just wants to learn one or two quick ways that you can tune into your intuition just by listening to this podcast episode, so I highly recommend working through journaling.

Amanda Parker:

This is a way that you can clear out all that noise in your head. Let everything go. Stop paying such close attention to all the thoughts that are ruminating, get everything out onto the page. I follow Julia Cameron's method of the morning pages, where I write three pages of sometimes absolute nonsense just to clear my head and then at the end of the page I will ask for guidance on something. And that might be a difficult decision that I have to make. That might just be a choice I need to make and I'm not quite sure how I want to move forward yet, and I'll simply write that I want that guidance for how to do X or, you know, should I book this retreat or should I say yes to working with this client? So I will let that wisdom come through my hand onto the page and I'll read it and I'll feel grounded and I'll know, I'll know that that is the right wisdom for me. Sometimes it can feel weird. If you're not really used to doing that, you might not be sure Is this really valuable? Is this really you know wisdom speaking through, or is this just me thinking and writing it all down? Don't worry, do it anyway. Just trust that the information that you need to get will show up on the page and maybe it takes one or two or three tries to really connect with it deeper. But this is, without a doubt, my most powerful method for tuning into my intuition.

Amanda Parker:

The other technique that I love is pulling oracle cards. So for me it's oracle cards. It could be tarot cards. People have many different kinds of cards. My sister actually created a deck of cards called A Gentle Reminder and they're just affirmations, and she will pick an affirmation every day. She has her own process for doing that. So for me, it's using Oracle cards, which I really love working with. I have a few decks that I'm like passionate about. You can always send me a message to ask me for tips or my favorite decks. I'm super happy to share that and I will just ask a question, usually something. Share that and I will just ask a question, usually something what is important for me to know today, or what do I need to know about X? So you want to keep those questions pretty open, but you definitely want to focus on a question every time you pull a card so that you can get clarity on the answer. Now, whatever your belief system, when you look at that card and you either read the information or, if it's like a beautiful image, just trust it's the right card and see what wisdom is there for you. So the card doesn't need to be perfectly right, but there will be something in there that really resonates and lands for what you're asking about. Let that be the truth, and then you do your own reflecting and discernment to take what is valuable to you and to leave what is not.

Amanda Parker:

One other practice that I'm going to leave you with, because this is I taught this recently at a leadership workshop and it was very well received by the audience, so I'll share it here as well. It's called the sway test. So this is a way that you can actually test your own yes or no. So the way that it works is that you ground yourself, take a deep breath so that you really ground into your body. Ground into your body, and then you'll ask the question that you want to know about and you see if your body makes a gentle motion backwards or a gentle motion forwards. It might not be so obvious at first.

Amanda Parker:

Once again, with all of these, you practice, you try it out. It's a lot of trial and error to find the method that works best for you, but over time you'll start to feel very clearly if you're moving forwards or backwards on something I'm not going to tell you which is yes and which is no. You have to find that for yourself, because what's true for me might not be true for you. But you will ask show me a yes, show me a no. See what happens in your body, the way that you move, and then you can decide if that feels true. So if you really want to test it, you can ask a couple questions, like I am a woman, I am Amanda, I am an avid hiker, I love swimming with sharks. So ask a couple questions that the answers are really obvious to you, so you'll get that clarity immediately. And otherwise, just trust that it's the right answer. Trust that it's the thing you need to know and keep playing with it.

Amanda Parker:

I have so many more tools that I could share, but I know that we are doing a mini episode today and I don't want to overwhelm you with too much information. I hope that this has given you a bit of an idea of just the different ways that you can play with intuition, the ways that it impacts you and your life and the ways that you can actually strengthen that muscle. This is one of my favorite topics to talk about, to teach, to help people with, so please do get in touch if you want to share your own experience or you want to ask for support as you're building your own intuition. You can always find me on Instagram at amandaparkerco, and I'm also super active on LinkedIn, so you're welcome to send me a message there. I hope that this has been really helpful.

Amanda Parker:

I would give each of you listening the challenge to pick one practice that you would like to try out and try it for the next seven days. So, whether that's the sway test or maybe it's journaling, you just pick one practice that you want to give it a shot and see how your intuition is speaking to you. Try it for seven days and see what happens. Please do share the results. Let me know what's working, let me know what's not, and if you'd like some more exercises, you know where to find me. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode all about intuition. I am so happy that I get to share this kind of wisdom and information with you all. So thank you for your trust and tuning in, and I can't wait to see you next time.

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