TCF #010: How Your Intuition Is Being Trained Right Now (Whether You Know It or Not)

TCF #010: How Your Intuition Is Being Trained Right Now (Whether You Know It or Not)

Your intuition isn't mystical - it's a system that's being trained by everything competing for your attention.

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Connection Fix, host Joey Klein breaks down how intuition actually works - not as a mystical force, but as a guidance system that's always operating and always being trained. You'll learn how your brain's reticular activating system filters reality, why "trust your gut" is dangerous advice, and how aligning vision with focus and emotion turns intuition into a powerful force for transformation.

Question of the Day 🗣️

Over the past week or two, what has your mind been returning to most often - a fear you're trying to avoid, or a vision you're actively designing?

Key Take-aways

• Your intuition is always active - the question is what's training it right now
• The reticular activating system filters reality based on three key signals
• "Trust your gut" fails when your gut has been trained by fear and avoidance
• Obsessing over what you want to avoid trains intuition to create exactly that
• Vision is the starting point - align focus, emotion, and time to unlock intuition

Timestamped Outline ⏱️

00:00 - Happy Easter and the vision behind gathering
01:22 - Most people have lost connection with their inner guidance
01:56 - What if the guidance system you're looking for is already built in?
02:19 - Intuition as your internal GPS - always operating
03:05 - How we accidentally train intuition by deferring to outside priorities
03:30 - The reticular activating system (RAS) explained
04:42 - The Subaru Outback example
05:44 - The deeper, personal dimension of intuition
06:58 - Why vision is the starting point for intuition
08:06 - Myths about intuition - it's not a force or a feeling
09:06 - How intuition works toward what you're trying to avoid
10:58 - What's coming next - focus, emotion, and time investment
11:42 - The one question to sit with this week

Links & Resources 🔗

• The Connection Fix blog and podcast → https://open.spotify.com/show/3oMvTF6uHxAh5QQ8JezjEH
• Episode 5 - Vision for Life and Relationships → https://youtu.be/B9bnQZPvmu4
• Subscribe to The Connection Fix → https://theconnectionfix.com

Connect & CTA 🎯

👉 Enjoyed this? Subscribe & leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

🎁 Every week, The Connection Fix delivers practical frameworks for navigating the Connection Crisis - rebuilding your relationship with yourself so you can show up fully for the people who matter most: https://theconnectionfix.com

Credits

Host: Joey Klein © 2026 Inner Matrix Systems. All rights reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey there, it's Easter Sunday. And so happy Easter to you if you celebrate. And if not, well, happy day to you. Every year, Caitlin's mom makes this lamb cake from you know an antique mold that's essentially been in their family for decades. And this year's version came out really great. Not all year's versions look like a lamb, but this one pretty much did. And so we're going to be enjoying that later today, after we have family uh brunch with friends and family, and we all come together. Moments like this, you know, are very special to me for a simple reason. Many years ago, long before I lived here in Colorado, I had a vision for creating a home where people could gather, where friends and family, my trainers and the team could all come together and create a space or a vehicle where real connection could happen, where real connection could be fostered. And at the time that I first envisioned it, I wasn't even living here yet. I was in LA, I lived in a condo out in West LA, and there was a pretty big gap between where I was and where I eventually wanted to go. Matter of fact, I never even owned a home before. And bridging that gap required something that most people do not fully understand, which is intuition. And that brings us to where we're going to be going this month. One of the things that I've noticed over the years is that most people have essentially lost connection with their own inner guidance. When something important comes up, we tend to reach outside of ourselves now. We ask friends for their opinion, we search the internet, we scroll social media, we seek advice from a variety of different experts, or these days we just simply go to AI and ask, what should I do? But what if the guidance system that you're looking for isn't outside of you at all? What if it's already built in? For the month of April, we're going to be exploring the topic of intuition and how it functions as your internal GPS. Because intuition is always operating on your behalf. The real question is whether it's operating by your design or whether it's being trained accidentally by everything around you. One of the biggest misconceptions about intuition is that it's something special that only shows up occasionally. And that's just simply not how it works. Your intuition is always active, it's constantly processing information, looking for patterns, and working to bridge the gap between where you are and essentially where you want to go. But most people were never taught how it actually functions. And because of that, we end up training our intuition unintentionally. We defer to outside priorities, to screens, to substances, to social media, to the news cycle, and to the expectations of other people. And before long, our attention is being directed by everything except our own vision. And when that happens, intuition doesn't simply disappear. It simply begins working toward priorities that may not be your own. And so when we talk about intuition in our work, we tend to look at it through two complementary lenses. The first is neurological, the second is deeper and far more personal. Let's start with the neurological side. Your brain contains something called the reticular activating system or RAS. Think of it as a filtering system that determines what your brain notices and is going to prioritize. Your brain is essentially a supercomputer, but like any powerful system, it needs context. It needs to know and be told what matters. And the way that it determines what matters comes down to three key signals: attention and focus, emotion, and the way we invest our time. Focus tells the brain something is important. When we place our attention on something with regularity, the brain says it's important. Emotion amplifies and reinforces that priority. And the way that you invest your time, your money, and your talent tells your brain that something is truly important, it truly matters. Once those signals line up, the brain begins doing what it does best. It starts connecting dots, finding opportunities, noticing patterns, and solving problems. And then suddenly you begin seeing pathways you never noticed before. A really simple way to understand this is through something most of us have experienced. Let's say you decide that you're going to buy a new car and you land on a Subaru Outback. They're very popular in Colorado, and all of a sudden you start imagining the trips that you're going to take into the mountains, you feel the excitement of the weekend adventures, and you start picturing the experience that you want to have. Then something interesting begins to happen. As you're driving around, you start seeing Subaru Outbacks everywhere. They're on the highway, they're in parking lots, you see them at stoplights, and they were always there, but you didn't see them in the way you now see them before. Your brain simply wasn't prioritizing them before. The moment that your focus and emotion aligned around that outcome, your brain began filtering for it and determined Sumbaru outbacks were very important, and so it drew your attention to them. That's the reticular activating system doing its job. And that's one dimension of how intuition works. Now, the second dimension is less mechanical and more personal. The deeper you become connected with yourself, what some people call your true self, your higher self, your soul, or simply consciousness, the more you gain access to a different kind of guidance. It shows up as a subtle impulse, a quiet knowing from inside, a sense of movement towards something that feels aligned with who you are and who you are becoming. And many people have simply lost touch with that signal, not because that it has disappeared, it's always there, but because our attention is constantly pulled outward. When your focus is always on someone or something else's agenda, you lose the space required to hear your own. But when you connect with yourself, when you anchor to your own vision and priorities, that signal becomes easier to hear. And intuition begins operating on both levels simultaneously. Your brain starts recognizing patterns that support your vision. And your deeper sense of self begins guiding you toward the experience that are yours to have. And this is exactly why we always begin with vision. If you've been following along in the series, we talked about vision in episode five, both vision for life and vision for a romantic relationship that fits within that life. Vision provides the context that intuition needs. Without vision, intuition still works, but it works toward whatever your attention happens to be prioritizing. And if that attention is being shaped by outside influences, you end up creating a life that was never consciously designed by you. That's when people find themselves looking around and asking, how did I end up here? Vision changes that. Vision tells your brain what matters, it tells your intuition where to focus, but there's an important nuance here. Vision doesn't tell you what you're supposed to create. You decide the what. Vision helps clarify how you want to experience your life, who you want to become, what kind of life experience you want to live. And then from there, intuition begins bridging the gap from where you are to where you want to go. Because intuition is so widely misunderstood, it's worth clearing up a few myths. Intuition is not a magical force. It's not a mystical, magical eight ball that tells you who to marry or what job to take. It's also not an emotion, and this is a big one. Many people say things like, go with your gut, trust your gut feelings, but feelings and emotions are largely based on past programming. If you've been cheated on before, your emotions may constantly warn you it's going to happen again. If you've struggled with money, your emotions may associate investing with fear. Emotion cannot reliably guide you into something new. Intuition is fundamentally different. It's a system that processes information and patterns to help you move toward what you've prioritized. But that system still needs directing. And this is where things get interesting. Because intuition will faithfully work toward whatever outcome you prioritize, even if that outcome is something you're trying to avoid, let's say someone becoming obsessed with not getting sick, then they keep thinking, I can't get sick, I can't lose my voice, I have an important event coming up. Their attention is so locked on that outcome that they don't want, and they're emotionally charged around it in an intense way. They constantly think about it over and over and over again. So their attention and focuses on it. From the brain's perspective, the outcome sick just becomes a priority. Lots of attention, lots of focus, lots of emotion. So the system goes to work. The brain starts scanning for signals related to illness, and your focus narrows around it. And then suddenly the very thing that you are trying to avoid becomes the thing in which you move toward. And then the same thing happens in relationships. If someone has been cheated on in the past, they may become hyperfocused on avoiding that outcome. They watch for it, they worry about it, they expect it and try to prevent it. But that obsessive attention can actually train their intuition to prioritize that pattern again. Instead of designing the relationship they want to create, they end up creating Groundhog's Day again and again and again. So this is why our work always comes back to the same principle. Create a clear vision, then allow intuition to help bridge the gap instead of drifting into outcomes that you never intended. Because when your focus, emotion, and time investment align around something meaningful to you, intuition becomes one of the most powerful forces available to you. It begins working with you, working for you, not accidentally against you. Now, this week we introduced intuition as your natural internal GPS, but knowing that the system exists is only the beginning. Over the next few episodes, we're going to do a deep dive on the three elements that actually train intuition: intensity of focus, intensity of emotion, time investment. When those three factors align with the clear vision, intuition becomes incredibly powerful. And if you'd rather read or listen instead of watch, you'll find links below to the Connection Fits blog and the podcast. Some people like to sit with it, others like to take it on the walk. However, you absorb information is great, or you can do both. However, you train is best, use it that way. Before I wrap up, I want to leave you with one question to sit with. Over the past week or two, what has your mind been returning to most often? Not what you say you want, but what your attention actually keeps circling back to. Is it a problem? Is it a fear? Something you're trying to avoid, or a vision that you're actively designing? If you're willing, please leave a comment or email me and share the one thing that your mind has been repeatedly focusing on as of late, because that single pattern will tell you a lot about what your intuition is currently being trained to prioritize. I read all of your comments and I appreciate you very much for taking the time. Uh, more very soon to come. Have a great rest of your day, and I look forward to connecting again next week.