A Joyful Intuition
How To Access Your Inner Knowing For Insight, Healing And Happiness
by Patrick Marsolek
Copyright 2011 – Patrick Marsolek
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Doorways
Chapter 2 - Beginning Sensing; Shifting Focus; Imagining Space; Body Focus; Describing
Chapter 3 - Spontaneous Shifting States; Fascination; Personal Validation; Experiences at the Edge
Chapter 4 - Imagining and Perceiving; Direct Perception
Chapter 5 - Softening the Conscious Mind; Spatial Body Focus; Baseline; Beliefs.; Sensory Awareness
Chapter 6 - Sense an Object; Drawing; Drawing an Object;
Chapter 7 - Layers of Consciousness; Trance; Trance and Sensing; Visual Focus
Chapter 8 - Further Opening to the Unconscious; Breathing Focus; Intuitive Perception; Feedback
Chapter 9 - Body and Ideomotor Signals; Pendulum; Basic Questions; Sticky Fingers; Using Your Ideomotor Response
Chapter 10 - Envision an Object; Intention ; Intention and Perception
Chapter 11 - Clear Intent ; Allowing; Allowing Intuition - Target; Target Feedback; More on Feedback; Intuitive Process
Chapter 12 - Unconscious Messaging; Reaching out with Intuition
Chapter 13 - Description Releases; Personal Needs; Future Sensing; Redefining Noise
Chapter 14 - Fascination; Charged Emotions; Unknown Others and Language
Chapter 15 - Drawing Senses; Precognitive Newspaper; Peak Experiences; Living the Process
Chapter 16 - Beliefs and Fears; Integrating the Body; Envisioning in the Body
Chapter 17 - Suggestion; Personal Suggestions
Chapter 18 - Levity and Affirmation; Intuitive Target; Entangled Thinking; Spirit Connections
Chapter 19 - Body Focus as Exploration; Enjoying the Present Moment; Sound Perception
Chapter 20 - State Markers; Psychometry; Playing with Objects; Money Energy; Asking Questions
Chapter 21 - Expanding Visualization; Immersed Experience and Flow
Chapter 22 - Intention and Body ; Discovering Unconscious
Intentions
Chapter 23 - Breathing into the Body; Body Touch; Refining Senses
Chapter 24 - Conscious Description; Timed Sensing; DreambodyPeripherals; Peripheral Practice; Deeper Body Focus
Chapter 25 - Deeper Questions; The Flow of the Space
Chapter 26 - Natural Consciousness; Falling in Love; PersonalIntuition Questions; Expanding to Groups
Chapter 27 - Living Intuition
Appendix A – Targets For Intuitive Practice
Appendix B - Websites;
Appendix C – Glossary281
Appendix D – Bibliography
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I am profoundly thankful for having been led into the company of the following people whose guidance, support, encouragement, and love have helped me in the envisioning, writing and refining of this book: Raymond Worring, Whit Hibbard, George McMullen, Bevy Jaegers, Lisa Marsolek, Bunny Albers, Sam Taylor, Marc Scow, Troy Holter, Julie Ryder, Dolores Dawse, Kari Mays, and all the fellow explorers who have taken my classes and shared with me their stories, tools, techniques and insights.
To them all and the great spirit, my deepest gratitude.
Thanks to Coleman Barks for permission to print his translations of the Poetry of Jalal Al-Din Rumi.
•••
Foreword
We live in an amazing time, one that has been labeled both transitional and transformational. One certainty during this volatile period is that change will impact your work, relationships, family, social connections and many of your everyday decisions. In our 21st century, the pace is fast. You may feel stressed, overloaded, even burnt out from juggling multiple responsibilities. If I could penetrate your mind to find out what you are thinking at this moment, I imagine I would find these three questions:
How do I want to live?
What are my priorities?
How can I get back in balance?
The word balance resonates. It means becoming ‘whole-brain’. I am a ‘whole-brain’ advocate honoring both intuition and logic as necessary companions. During these changing times, you are limiting yourself if you question with only your logical mind. To reprioritize and understand how you want to live your life, you have to use your ‘whole brain’ and see the whole picture. What’s the secret ingredient for getting this perspective? Accessing your intuitive mind. How fortunate you are to have this excellent book, Patrick Marsolek’s A Joyful Intuition, as a resource to help you access your inner knowing for insight, healing and happiness.
Let’s clear up one myth at the outset. Everyone has intuition. Intuition is not a talent reserved for special folk, but a gift all of us use every day whether we acknowledge it or not. You do not have to wait to be hit by a bolt of lightning to proclaim, “I am intuitive.” With individual listening and awareness practice, you will know what your intuition—the deepest wisdom of your soul—is telling you. While I write these words now, a memory surfaces. I am walking on the beach on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. The blue-green water is ever so calm. Small waves gently break on the shore depositing beautiful shells at the water’s edge. Some are small conch shells. There are pine cones, sand castles and even a snail shell. This image triggers another memory in my brain of a favorite Dr. Jonas Salk saying:
“I wonder what my intuition will toss up to me like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely upon it. It’s my partner.”
At this moment, my intuition continues to be my trusted partner assisting my logical mind. Throughout the pages of A Joyful Intuition, you will also discover how your intuitive awareness, which is bubbling up in your consciousness, can partner with your logical mind processes making you more wholely present in the world.
As a teacher and as the author of books about intuition, I applaud so many features of A Joyful Intuition. The book is an awareness primer guiding you, the reader, on a personal journey, so your intuition will surface gracefully. As I went through each of the exercises in this book, I felt as though Marsolek was my intuitive guide and teacher. He seemed to be standing there leading me gently through each step. The exercises in this manual, while illustrating practical techniques, also teach about the cycle of awareness which begins with intent, flows into perception, becomes learning and growth and ends in self-reflection. The revelation at the end of each process is fully explained.
The first step to begin to cultivate your intuitive abilities is to become aware. Learning to quiet the mind and court receptivity helps you open the door to inner awareness and your intuitive knowing. I truly value A Joyful Intuition’s basic process using the body focus. It invites you to sense and describe what you are experiencing in your body, heart and mind. This sensing and description helps you release any unconscious thoughts, feelings, or perceptions that you are holding.
Marsolek also uses his Personal Validation Process to release struggles or resistances in your body and mind. Then you are able to more effectively respond to your unconscious intuitive messages. These particular exercises are brilliant. They will help you acknowledge your subtle unspoken messages that are very much present and could otherwise block intuitive retrieval.
Unlocking the wisdom residing in your unconscious is a key to become more aware of significant and meaningful messages you may have previously ignored. For example, is it an accident that you suddenly get a stomach ache when you shake someone’s hand? I have always maintained that your body is an intuitive antenna. Is your transmitter or unconscious telling you that you can’t stomach this person? Throughout this book you will learn how to get your sensing living body to unlock your one-of-a-kind unconscious wisdom. You will experience how the revealing dialogue between your unconscious and conscious awarenesses can be both empowering and liberating.
A Joyful Intuition explains how accessing your intuition will connect you to your creativity and spiritual awareness. Many decades ago, when I started giving intuitive development seminars to business groups, people flocked to creativity seminars. They thought creative development would help them produce and sell their products. Sadly, they didn’t feel the same excitement about intuition seminars. Many did not see the close connection between the two processes. But, as I have always believed, intuition and creativity go hand in hand. Intuition is the input or energy for the creative act. Creativity becomes the many-faceted output. This manual will show you how to tap into your unconscious information for both intuition and creativity. Watching your creative juices flow is one of the many gifts embedded in A Joyful Intuiton.
Over the past three decades I have maintained that intuition is always right. I still stand by that statement. Your intuition goes astray when the culprits of wishful thinking, fear or projection come marching in. These subjective ego-based emotions are judgmental, while intuition in contrast, is neutral. For intuitive input to be accurate and clear, thoughts or feelings coming from the ego need to be released. I appreciate how Marsolek’s exercises can help you become aware of the fear culprit. You will learn how to release this negative emotion and tap into your unbiased intuitive flow.
The exercises in this book gently help you get your conscious mind out of the way in order to enter a receptive trance state. That is what I call making an enTRANCE the right way. The word trance has often been fused with fear and uncertainty for a budding intuitive. You might ask, “What will happen if I you lose control and let go?” But there is nothing to fear. You are simply entering the kingdom of your inner self to retrieve spectacular and evidential information. The reward for letting go are huge. Marsolek with his professional background in hypnotherapy identifies markers of the trance state to make your journey safe and comfortable.
Gayle Delaney, a pioneer in the field of dreams, taught her students to describe their dream symbols in a naive and detached way. She proposed asking, “If I were from another planet, what would this symbol mean?” I was reminded of Delaney’s suggestion as I went through A Joyful Intuition’s sensory awareness process. You will be asked to shift from what you “know” about an object, into what you are actually perceiving as if you were in fact from another planet, to get an accurate read from your intuitive mind. This suggestion will help you.
Another brilliant mind and believer in intuition, Dr Albert Einstein said;
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
Use A Joyful Intuition to develop and honor your intuitive gift. Savor your intuitive journey.
Marcia Emery, Ph.D.
Professor: Energy Medicine University, Holos University, University of Philosophical Research
Author: PowerHunch!, The Intuitive Healer, Dr. Marcia Emery’s Intuition Workbook.
•••
Do you want to live a joyful, healthy life in which you have access to your own wisdom, creativity, and insight? Regardless of where you are right now in your life, there are inner resources just waiting for you. You can start accessing your intuitive self, a part of you that is insightful and restorative, and can connect you to a deeper sense of meaningfulness in your life.
You may have heard of meditators or yoga masters who have reached an inner peace and enlightenment and are purported to experience a joyful living state of presence. To reach this state, they’ve dedicated their lives to meditation and physical, mental and emotional mastery. For most people that level of discipline and focus is not feasible or practical. That lifestyle probably wouldn’t fit into your busy life.
Yet, do you have to throw away your desire for wonder, joy and spiritual fullness? No. You can live and work in the world and you can be connected to the spiritual and energetic qualities that give you meaning and wellness. It doesn’t take a radical transformation of your current lifestyle, only a shift in how you are inside yourself as you engage in the world. You can reawaken a part of your being that is vitally alive, creative and joyfully connected to the universe.
Imagine a woman living her life, following the values that have been instilled in her, working for success, raising children, searching for a relationship that works, wanting to find happiness in her work and her creative expression. She is doing everything that she is supposed to do to be happy and yet she feels unfulfilled and disconnected. As time passes, she feels less alive. She has to work harder to sustain happiness while doing everything that “has to” be done. If you could look at the “color” of her life it might look like a gray shadow over muted colors. She would be asking herself, “Who am I? What am I doing? Where is the creativity and meaning in my life?”
Then imagine she has an encounter. She’s walking through a park and she sees a small girl playing with a stick. This child is waving the stick and imagining it’s a magical wand. She sees the woman and pauses for a moment before her. Then the child points the stick at her, smiles and says, “You are now a beautiful princess.” In that moment, the woman forgets herself and plays with the child. She smiles and says, “Thank you.” Then she gives the little girl a playful curtsy, as she holds the edges of her imaginary princess gown. The child runs off to continue sharing her magic with the world.
In that moment the woman has been gifted. In her encounter with the child’s magic wand and smiling eyes, she was transported, blessed with happiness and joyful memories. She remembers the way she used to play as a child, wrapped up in her imaginary world of immense creativity, adventure and learning. These memories tingle inside her with an aliveness and a sparkle. In that moment her color shifts to a bright purple and a yellow, a brilliant white/yellow light streaks out over her inner world, washing away the gray muted tones. This color/feeling radiates through her as she watches the child running through the grass with open trust, creativity, and aliveness. The woman feels a warmth, a softening in her body, a sense of safety and ease permeates her whole being. She remembers images, sensations, and the energy of her own creativity. She remembers her sensory aliveness as a child.
What happens next? Does the woman shake her head, break the spell, and return to her normal way of being? Does she pay attention and recognize the importance of this non-rational feeling rippling through her being? In that moment she has encountered a potential, an aliveness of possibility upwelling into her consciousness. She has a choice how she responds to it. The appearance of these kinds of gifts in our lives is one way intuition informs us and enlarges us. Have you been given such a gift? What did you do? Did you pay attention?
In my life, I have gone both ways. There are times when I have chosen to focus on what my rational mind and my sense of duty told me was important. There are also times when I’ve listened to that other, creative voice inside me. Both voices are important. Through practice and attention, I’ve learned to value that creative, intuitive impulse while still living my life of responsibility and commitment. I believe paying attention to the vital energy and aliveness of my being has led me into a life of more joy, more wonder and aliveness, and even a greater sense of health and well-being. As I write this book, I know that I am still learning and discovering the nature of my intuitive self. It continues to be a path of delightful discovery, growth and learning.
Similarly, you can say “Yes” to yourself. The exercises and explorations in this book will help you relearn how to be present with yourself in moments of meaningful connection and aliveness. You can reconnect to a guiding, wise part of your own being. You can remember how to harvest the richness of the colorful, enlivening influences of the world that are always soliciting your attention. Do you want to paint your world with a colorful richness and fullness of heart?
Perhaps more importantly, you can learn how to open to the fullness of your living presence as you are living your day-to-day life. The woman standing in the park in a moment of wonder could respond with joy and color, with warmth and richness. She could attend to her gift, and carry that awareness back into her life, gifting her own children and her world while maintaining her responsibilities.
Right now you are living in a body/mind that is intimately interconnected to the beauty and mystery of the living world. You have a 24/7 existence that is incredibly rich in aliveness, safety and meaningful engagement. Even now in this moment, you are being bathed in vibratory colors, sound frequencies and physical stimulation that I believe is implicitly loving, healing and creative. Can you imagine what it would be like to live in that awareness on a daily basis?
This joyful life is not outside your reach. It’s not something to be gained and learned anew. It is an innate quality within you, an essential, elemental part of your being that is already alive within you. There are easy, practical ways of shifting into health and well-being within your heart, mind and body. You can envision and live what would be the best expression of yourself on your path into the future.
This book is an exploration into ways of being and sensing that can bring this aliveness, vitality and clarity into your life. Essentially, this is a practice of coming into your body/mind with consciousness. Intuition is one name for this consciousness. You may also call it insight, guidance, knowing, presence, connection, or even spiritual awareness. Intuition is an instinctive knowing, a sense of rightness within us. It operates the way a wound heals or the way our bodies restore themselves at night when we rest. Intuition draws us like the insistence of a gently flowing river, back into connection with our whole selves. Regardless what you name it, you can experience a direct, intimate connection to all the guidance, wisdom, and healing, that you were born with. You already have that ability. Like that woman in the park, you can remember how you are always connected to a larger, loving presence. You can open the door to a joyful, unfolding of meaning, and becoming.
When you shift out of the seeking and doing of your conscious self, you can come into a perception and engagement with an ever-present flow of information including; sensation, thoughts, feelings, internal and external awareness, sensing of yourself and others, of physical and non-physical energies. Within this present flow of being you can connect with and perhaps rediscover the most meaningful and rewarding aspects of your life. You may think you’re reading this book to learn something new, to find the piece that has been missing, but something else may be happening. You may become aware of a different kind of instruction - the inward structuring of your own being, that is already occurring.
When you attend to what is happening in the present - perhaps it’s a smell, a physical feeling, or an emotion - you come into an engagement with what is alive in you. With practice, you can learn to allow this flow of presence to inform you, to enlarge your awareness and to guide you into the next meaningful moment.
The exercises in this book will help you develop your connection to the unconscious and untapped resources of your being. They begin with a foundation of simple yet profound techniques for becoming present with yourself. These techniques will help you move out of the linear, logical realm of conscious awareness and into a more balanced connection with your whole body. This shift is inherently healing and restorative. As you awaken your sensory awareness, your mind will become clearer, calmer and more focused. Your body will relax and rest more easily. You will be able to listen and respond to the solicitations of your unconscious, relieving physical stress, and living a healthier life.
This intuitive exploration will progress into inner sensing. You will develop flexibility in awareness and attention. This attentional training will help you increase your mental health and resiliency. As you develop a larger sense of yourself, one that bridges different states of mind and ways of knowing, you will become better able to respond to the stresses and tensions of everyday life. You will have more core confidence and trust which are essential for mental and emotional health.
Lastly we will explore the cultivation of specific intuitive practices which you can use to access tangible information that relates to your world. In terms of personal health, you can learn how to perceive what your body needs for well-being, wether or not a certain activity or intention serves your overall well-being, or even what you might need to do to heal an old emotional pattern or habit. You can learn how to use your intuition to guide your decisions at home or work and to improve your relationships with family, friends and coworkers.
Are there specific reasons you want to learn to be more intuitive? Hold that intention in your mind as you read. Through the course of this exploration you will discover tools that will help you reach your goal. You will also learn more about yourself in the process. You will learn how your mind works, how your body is connected to your mind and your unconscious. You will learn which senses and perceptions are more accessible to you, and even how to move towards what you’re wanting with less effort, more trust and joy.
So as you go enter this exploration, take a moment and make yourself comfortable. Ask yourself,:
Is there anything you need now to help you become more present?
Would you like to turn off the phone or get a cup of tea?
Why not begin taking care of yourself right now?
How can you relax more?
Then, with a full sense of being connected to this moment, read on and open yourself to the next unfolding experience.
The Guest House
“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it’s furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
- Translation of Rumi by Coleman Barks and John Moyne3
Back to top.•••
Chapter 1
Doorways
Opening the pages of this book begins your exploration. As you follow your intention to learn, expand, and grow you have already opened a door inside yourself. This doorway is a transitional place where you are naturally more engaged in the present. When you go through a physical door you perceive changes in several different senses. What you see, hear, smell and feel may all be recognizably different. As you encounter these changing sensations you are more in the present, at least for a few moments. So it is also as you pass through the threshold of this book.
There are many kinds of doors besides the physical ones separating rooms. People you meet, new ideas, an opening in a landscape you pass through, a change in the weather, shifting states of consciousness, memories, even physical changes in the bodyare all new doors. You may not even realize you are going through a door until you sense something has shifted.
When you do recognize you are about to go through a door, pause for a moment and use that opportunity to heighten your awareness. Before entering, take a moment and notice what is happening inside you—in your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Do you feel a sensation in your body? Are you hearing sounds? What is the emotion you’re feeling? Then, being more in touch with what you are perceiving, you can go through the door and be more conscious of the changes you experience. The changes you first recognize may be external perceptions, such as colors, smells, shifts in temperature or sounds. Having paused before entering, you will be more able to notices these changes. Yet, as you become more attentive you will begin to notice more subtle changes. You may sense a different ambiance in the new space, your thinking may take on a different quality, or you may even sense an internal shift in your own energy.
Are you already perceiving changes as a result of entering this doorway of this book?
How would you describe these changes?
Each time you see italicized words like this, take the time to attend to what these words are asking you. This book is intended to be used as a work book. As you put yourself into each exercise you will gain more insight and understanding.
As you read, have a pen with you and something to write on. Find a notebook or a journal that you can dedicate to your explorations with this book. The meaning you experience reading this book flows out of your participation with it. Each idea you are drawn into resonates inside you in a meaningful way. As you participate more, what you experience will become more meaningful.
You can consciously step through each door you encounter and become aware of the aliveness of the immediate, sensory world. You can with equal consciousness close this book, put it down and continue learning in different ways and in a different context. You always have the ability to choose what suits you. You have an infinite number of moments to listen to other ways of knowing.
What is this moment telling you?
Enjoy an Image...
Figure 1
Observe this image. Even an image in a book may be a catalyst for another meaningful moment in your life. Physically, you have already responded to this image. The patterns of colors and shapes have massaged the cells in your eyes, triggering waves of information and electricity in your brain and in your body. In your mind, these energies and images may have triggered memories and emotions.
Take a moment and describe your response to this image. What senses are stimulated? Memories? Feelings?
What thoughts come to mind?
Are there other changes that you experience as you view this image?
Be aware of what is alive in you now and describe it.
By paying attention now, you are more conscious in this moment of the changes this picture evokes in you. You may not sense any particular significance to this image, but you do still have a response. Thus, this image is another doorway. As you pay attention to your response to that image, you send a message to a deeper part of yourself. You tell that part you are interested in other kinds of information. When you attend to your present experience, there is an inner portal that opens, an entrance into experiencing yourself more fully.
With each page you turn and each idea you encounter, you can become more open to the flowing present. You perceive an image, a smell, or a thought flows into you and your mind and body change. Perhaps the color you saw on the previous page triggered an inner sensation or a memory of a similar scene you experienced. With that stimulus, a part of your awareness turned inward and opened. You can allow that subtle opening to inform you.
Of course, if you discount such simple things, if you’re so unconscious of them that they’re experienced merely as reflex and don’t even cause a blip on your inner screen, then you won’t be seeing shimmering, barely glowing orbs of light while you’re making love either. But what are you going to believe, your own senses or how you’ve been taught the world works?
- Michael Ventura 32
You become more receptive to intuition by paying attention to what is happening now. You cross over a threshold from what you know or believe in your mind, to what is occurring in this present moment. You may notice a color, a shape, or a sensation in your body. These are all triggered by the image. When you attend to these perceptions, you shift your awareness into direct sensing. Direct sensing is intuitive.
In the first few moments you viewed the photograph, typically for only a fraction of a second, you were in direct perception. Your awareness was observant and receptive, noticing colors, shapes and textures. As you recognized shapes and colors, your mind likely came up with a label for it. With that labeling, you probably shifted back out of direct perception into thought and memory. This recognition and labeling happens very fast. You’ve been trained to do it, we all have. You’ve been rewarded for being able to understand things quickly and efficiently. The flow of direct perceptions is stopped when you label and define what you are experiencing and shift to thinking about it.
Staying receptive to the present is essential for opening the doors of intuition and for shifting into a healthy balance of mind and body. It is easier to be present when you are experiencing changing stimuli, such as turning a page, opening a door or perceiving something new. Experiencing new stimulus forces your awareness into the present for a few moments. With attention and practice, you can stay in the present longer without needing continuous stimulation. You can learn to stay present within the ever flowing change of your own consciousness.
Now you can let your sensing go a little deeper, with another visit to the first image. Read this guide first:
This time as you view the image, give yourself time to be present.
Pay attention to the whole range of your experience.
Take more time and notice the colors.
Let your other senses engage with what is pictured in the image.
What smells would be there?
The temperature?
The textures?
What is the mood of the place?
Imagine you could perceive what is pictured in this image without thinking. What would that be like?
If you could put your body in that place, how would it respond?
How would your heart respond?
Your spirit?
Which senses are the most activated by the image?
Do it now.
Then write down your responses to your second viewing.
Whatever responses you have to that image are OK. There is no correct or incorrect way of perceiving. As you sit with an image and your responses to it, you may experience a movement. The movement could contain thoughts, activation in your body, a feeling of hunger, a need to move or stretch, or an image of a person you know entering your mind. Whatever response occurs within you, allow it and notice it.
What would it be like to allow yourself to stay with your responses to the image, even to linger with them for a little while? There may be something else that’s guiding you through this doorway. You can attend to those solicitations.
Take a moment and reflect on the difference between perceiving that image the first time and when you relaxed into it.
Back to top.•••
•••
Chapter 2
Beginning Sensing
I’d like you to begin extending and refining your awareness. I want you to learn how to shift into a more receptive frame of mind. To do this, you will shift to sense perception. First, become aware of how you are sitting. Then take a moment and address each of these questions internally:
Are you comfortable?
Would it be OK for you to be even more comfortable while you read?
Respond if you need to.
You can make yourself more comfortable.
If you sense a need to shift or change your physical position at the beginning, pay attention to it. What can you do about it? I’m not talking here only about relieving physical discomfort, although you can do that. Finding comfort is also about moving towards something. You can move towards greater well-being, even joy. You can move toward a new experience. Comfort may be active and passive simultaneously. You can do whatever you need to do for yourself, now, regardless of what it is. Change your position if you want to. When you respond to the idea of comfort, it may even cross your mind what it is you would like to be comfortably moving toward.
From the position your body is in now, I’d like you to become aware of the sense of hearing. Then you will describe those sounds. Normally when we pay attention to something, we’re trying to put it into a mental box, staying with the labeling part of our minds. For example, if I were to describe what I’m hearing, I might write:
I hear my computer running, the clicking sound of typing on my keyboard and, occasionally, I hear a bird chirping outside.
Sentences like these are how we normally describe something using the labels we have. For this exercise, I want to you go further into your senses. Stay with your senses. Take your time and describe it as if you don’t know what it really is you’re hearing.
Here’s how I would describe what I’m hearing as I stay with what I am actually perceiving:
I hear a humming. It’s a soft whirring sound that has a slower, regular beat. Now it seems to be more of a pulsation. There are also different notes in the humming that are hard to differentiate, some higher, some lower. There’s also a rhythmical tapping and clicking sound, with lower tones and higher ones. It’s irregular, with pauses, then flurries. Farther away, there are chirping sounds. These, too, rise and fall. They sound thicker one moment, and less dense the next.
As I bring my attention to the sounds around me, it takes me a little time to allow my consciousness to shift from thinking to hearing. At first I know what I’m hearing, but then I gradually relax into the experience of hearing. The sounds become richer and more meaningful. As I stay with my awareness, the quality changes. I am able to enjoy this deeper richness without needing to define it. Some of my awareness shifts back as I compose these words on paper, but my perception of richness also remains.
Give yourself permission to enter your sensing slowly. Start to listen to the sounds around you. Be patient with yourself. You may not have words to describe what you’re hearing. It may take a few moments. Take a deep breath. Relax. Enjoy the process. Allow your awareness to settle and deepen into what you hear. As you pay attention you’ll notice more. Sounds will become richer.
Listen.
Become aware of the sounds you hear and pause in your reading.
Notice the qualities, textures and intensities of those sounds.
Then, when you’re ready, describe those sounds to yourself.
Stay with the sensory descriptions.
Write down your perceptions.
Do it now.
How does it feel when you allow yourself to drop into the sense of hearing?
Whatever qualities you gained in your awareness, you can keep those with you as you return to reading. Your enjoyment of this moment gives you a powerful connection to your unconscious. The way you perceive with your physical senses is directly related to intuitive perception. Attending to sounds or any other senses you are experiencing with full consciousness becomes an experience of direct perception. It is intuitive.
You have many ways of perceiving, some internal and some external. All of them are ways of immersing yourself in intuitive knowing. Tremendous meaning can be triggered by a simple sense. Even a familiar sound can be the doorway to an experience that is deeply profound.
Shifting Focus
Every time you shift your awareness into direct perception, you are also altering your brain frequencies and your physiology in a healthy way. In your normal, analytical frame of mind, you are generating Beta frequencies. They are typically the most active and fastest frequencies occurring in our brains. Slower, Alpha frequencies are generated when we shift into a more receptive state of awareness. The slowest brainwaves are the meditative frequencies of Theta and Delta which are associated with deep relaxation or sleep.
When you come into your senses, you activate more Alpha and Theta frequencies in your brain. If you’re experiencing stress, you will feel some release or relaxation when you make this shift.
In the book, The Open Focus Brain 16, Jim Robbins and Dr. Les Fehmi present an in-depth look at how the way we attend to the world affects our health. Dr. Fehmi, a psychologist and brainwave researcher at Princeton, has focused his research on synchronous alpha frequencies in the brain. These brainwave frequencies and sensations of health and well-being occur when we allow ourselves to engage fully into a sensory experience, one that is not directed by the conscious mind and will.
Fehmi found that there were two questions on a hypnotic susceptibility questionnaire that consistently produced synchronous alpha brainwaves in his subjects. Both questions had to do with imagining space. Every time a test subject was asked to imagine space, his brain produced more alpha. Fehmi theorizes that imagining space provides a simple way to force the brain to stop grasping in a habitual narrow focus and move into a more receptive balanced focus that he calls “open focus.” I believe that any time we can drop into the sensory experience of the moment, as with the sound exercise above, we generate more alpha frequencies in the brain and can experience some of the same healing effects.
Imagining Space
You can get a sense of how this works now.
As you read, imagine you can become aware of the space in and around each of the letters on this page.
Slow down and do this while you’re reading now.
Then bring into your awareness the spaces between the words.
As you continue reading you can also be aware of the space around the sentences and paragraphs.
As you’re aware of the space, continue to be aware of the words and their meanings.
Can you also be aware of the space between your eyes and the paper?
How do you sense that space?
Can you expand this to include an awareness of the space around your body?
Keep the awareness of space with you while you continue reading.
Become aware again of the sounds you are hearing, while you are aware of the spaces and the words.
Is it possible to attend to all those senses equally, while you are reading these words and sensing the space?
Experiment with being in that flow of sensation and letting it inform you.
Imagine there is also space in your awareness, in between thoughts, senses, words, feelings, even as you are reading.
Notice how this way of attending makes you feel.
Describe those sensations.
As you do this exercise you may notice how the intensity of the words and their meanings alters. That awareness may now be combined with your sense of your body or other internal perceptions. These words are perceived in a greater context of spaciousness. They may not be as important, or their importance may shift. You may also have a different awareness of the sounds that you focused on earlier.
Let your awareness continue to flow softly as you attend to the words in front of you now.
When you allow yourself to become immersed into your senses (perhaps even into the feelings on your skin while you’re reading), then you make the shift to a different way of attending and to different brainwave frequencies in your brain.Your attention begins to spread out. A healthier mind and body and intuitive sensing becomes more accessible. This kind of attentional flexibility is essential for health.
Fehmi’s open focus, hypnotic trances, and other consciousness states have been shown to bring about the remission of many stress related symptoms—chronic pain, insomnia, and even eye and skin disorders. People who have been primarily locked in to an analytical, cognitive way of focusing may experience the most profound results as they shift into a more immersed, sensory experience. You may not even know what stress you’re carrying until the load is lifted.
Once we shift in a safe, comfortable way, our whole world can change. I often see profound responses with my hypnosis clients when they first shift. The process of going into trance allows them to let go of habitual holding. Muscles they never even knew existed may start twitching. This can be disconcerting and startling to the ego and might even be perceived as if the body has been taken over by another force. As the muscles release, spontaneous memories or emotions associated with the tension also become conscious. Through this release they reconnect with huge unconscious parts of themselves.
Releasing awareness from the confines of narrow objective focus frees up the natural flexibility of your attention. Sensory awareness anchored in the present becomes a meaningful unfolding of thoughts, sensations, and emotions. They are all part of the intuitive flow bringing your deeper self into consciousness.
Body Focus
I’d like to introduce you to a simple, yet profound practice to bring you back into direct perception and into a more fluid flow of brainwave frequencies.
Read through this entire exercise before you begin.
Begin by becoming aware of what you are perceiving with each of your physical senses. The intent here isn’t to analyze or label what you are sensing. Rather, it’s to allow yourself to move into an actual sense of it, just as we did with the sense of sound. Be patient with yourself. Stay with each sense until your awareness embraces it. Every sense will become richer and more interesting as you let yourself embrace it. Your attention activates it.
After allowing yourself to become immersed in the actual sensing, let your experience guide you back towards words.
Describe what you are perceiving.
Do it as best you can with words on paper.
Describe rather than label.
Take as long as you need to accurately communicate what you are sensing. If a word doesn’t come, then wait; be patient. Take another breath. Go into the sense again until some way to describe it emerges. Go through each of your senses—smell, touch taste, sight and hearing—in whatever order appeals to you. Stay with each one until you connect with it in some way, then describe what you sense.
Take your time. Enjoy yourself.
Spend some time with each of your senses and then describe your experience.
Then, after describing your sensing, notice what’s going on inside you. Have there been any internal changes? Are you experiencing an emotion, a mood, or other feelings? Be aware of these responses. Then describe them as best you can; don’t censor yourself or label your response.
How would you describe your state of mind?
How would you describe the emotion your feeling?
Are you experiencing any other internal changes?
Describe all these perceptions.
Do it now.
As with the sense of sound, every channel of awareness we have can be full, rich and absorbing. The sensory present can be an amazing place when you allow it. As part of this process I encourage you to allow whatever it is you experience. Just describe it and stay with it. There is no right way or wrong way to do this exercise.
Sensing and describing what you are experiencing in body, heart and mind is the basic process of the body focus. Attention to your actual experience shifts you into direct sensing. Then you communicate what you experience. Here’s a short example of the body focus as I’m writing. I pause, go into each sense, then write when I feel ready...
I hear a rhythmic sound, several levels, a buzzing rattle, higher pitched, also a lower hum. The hum I also feel in my body, more so in my feet, coming through the floor.
Visual... white sheets, golden brown, lots of objects close, bright colors.
Smell... slightly smoky, humid, body smells, warm, familiar, an earthy smell also.
Taste... slightly chemical, neutral mouth taste, a sharpness.
Touch... a sense of warmth in my body, stomach working, tension in shoulders, like a buzzing. In my hands, a smooth texture, that’s hard and flat.
Now my emotion is calm and my mind is more focused. My mood is neutral and lighter now. Hearing and touch are easier for me to describe. If I take a moment and go deeper into my visual perception, more arises...
Color... rich tones, yellows to browns, golden, several layers, sense of depth to these tones, a richness, it’s spreading out with a calming effect. It has a natural feel and takes me outdoors.
What you describe when you do the body focus is only for you and for now. It connects your conscious mind to your unconscious mind through the flow of experience. You can allow each sense to lead you into words that feel right. The following figure illustrates the different channels of awareness you may embody at any moment. When you do the body focus, you can go into any or each of these channels. They are separated into internal and external channels but they are all in your consciousness. The word proprioception at the top of the figure refers to any internal body sensations including pain, movement, and balance. At first, it may be easier to start your body focus by focusing on the external senses.
Figure 2- Body Focus
Obviously, by calling this process a body focus, I’m expanding the definition of body. I’m calling the entire form you inhabit including your thoughts, feelings and non-physical energies your body. All of these channels of awareness make up what you experience in any given moment. Through this flowing body you experience your world.
Each time you do the body focus, you can allow yourself to “go into” anything you perceive. You can stay with a sensation long enough for your awareness to merge with it. Then you can describe it. Your description doesn’t have to be perfect. All you have to do is describe what you experience as you are aware of it.
Because there is no right or wrong to the flow of your awareness, I would like you to use a pen as you do the exercises in this book. Communicating your experience as it is, is important. You don’t need to erase anything. Erasing something means you didn’t get it right. If something becomes clearer after you write, then write or describe more to clarify it. The second word may feel more accurate but the both represent your process of unfolding awareness.
If you find your attention wandering during the body focus be aware of that as well. Observe what you are experiencing and describe it as part of the flow. Then go back and finish working through your senses. You can be present with whatever is in your present experience; it may be a sense, a mood, or a state of mind. Once you start paying attention, everything you experience becomes informative, in a gentle, effortless way.
The meaning you experience at any moment may come just as much from the process of your awareness as from the content of your senses. Thus as you do the body focus, you may feel a shift, a settling perhaps, or even an activation. Your response isn’t caused so much by what it is you are sensing. Rather it’s from the process of becoming present with yourself.
Your senses are the lenses through which you make contact with your world. Being aware of those lenses is the first step to consciously choosing what information you want to focus on. As you practice the body focus, you may find you spend all your time with one sense. You can also make a conscious choice to explore other senses to balance your awareness.
Describing
Each time you think of a word to describe what you are experiencing you alter your perceptions. Even if you have a perception of what you would clearly call red and you describe it as red, your perception is changed. You will then be seeing it differently. Your conscious mind is always translating the present through the filter of previous experiences. This is a natural part of the bridging that happens between the conscious and the unconscious, between ourselves and the object of our perceptions. There is no truly neutral description of anything we experience. You have learned to focus more on the associations you have than the actual experience you are having.
Your descriptions become more accurate as you learn to relax into what you are sensing, without rushing to describe or label it. With that relaxation, the words you use will come from the living present of your experience. If a word comes to mind that doesn’t accurately describe what you are sensing, you will be more able to recognize that difference. When that happens, you can stay with your sensation until a more accurate or descriptive word emerges. Imagine that your experience is more important than the words you speak.
So, if you are perceiving a color, a texture, or a sound, let yourself enjoy it. Allow yourself to stay with it until words start to come. Even as words arise, stay with your sensing; your expression will lead you to the next words, the next sense, and the next unfolding of your consciousness. You may be surprised where the flow of language takes you in response to your perceptions.
Also, as you do these exercises, take the time to write legibly. Having a meaningful experience is only half the process; communicating, or bringing it back to normal consciousness makes it complete. Writing down your experiences helps you bridge different states of consciousness.
Every time you write, even in a slightly altered state of body focus, let yourself relax into your senses, trusting that the words will come. You can achieve a balance between being relaxed and allowing your experiences to flow on the one hand and communicating on the other. As you go further into experiences that are not directed by your conscious mind, you will be better able communicate what you are experiencing. Being able to communicate while you’re having an experience frees you to enjoy the experience in the present and go deeper into it.
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Chapter 3
Perception is inherently participatory. To the body, the world is not ‘object’. There is no ‘me’ apart from an ‘other.’ Everything is animate for the sensing body. Touch a tree and the tree is touching you back.
- David Abram 1
Spontaneous Shifting States
Whenever you attend to and describe a perception or feeling you are experiencing, you are increasing your ability to shift in and out of different states of consciousness. You are building bridges in your mind and body so you can travel back and forth with ease. As I mentioned, you build a healthy flexibility in your mind and body. Being able to shift into your body and be with a feeling will help you relieve mental stress. It will also help you validate and release emotions you’re carrying. You can communicate what is alive in you this way. You are making your mind/body system more responsive and healthy. It doesn’t matter if you write, speak or gesture with your body; if you’re expressing something of your living energy it will enliven you.
Here’s a very simple bridging exercise to try:
The next time you find yourself daydreaming, enjoy it and allow a part of yourself to observe your experience as it’s happening.
Then afterwards, write down what you remember.
The challenge is to learn to allow daydreaming to happen while being aware. It’s easy and, at the same time not so easy. Daydreaming is one place in most people’s lives where the unconscious leads. It’s enjoyable, natural, and familiar, yet it’s truly an altered state led by the unconscious. Practicing this exercise can be a tremendous help in recognizing your intuitive information. If you try to be aware when you are daydreaming, you may first only catch yourself after you’ve returned. If so, then you can still track where you went. Can you remember when you shifted, or what stimulated the shift? With practice you will begin to sense yourself daydreaming as it’s happening.
You can do the same thing with sleeping dreams. When you become conscious after sleeping, stay with the sense of the dream as you remember it. At first it may seem like a delicate balance. As your conscious mind becomes activated, it may seem to chase your dream perceptions away. But with practice you can stay with the felt sense of the dream and the threads of memory, and write legibly and concisely what you remember. Then you can even go back into the dream again.
That ability starts now, in this moment, with the sensory exercises you’ve been doing. Can you allow a part of your awareness to stay in touch with the sounds you’re hearing? As you read and hear simultaneously, you build your bridging ability. Other sounds or sensations, when they arise, can then be attended to, and recognized.
If you pay attention to your body, you will have more access to what is in your subconscious. For example, your body tells you when you’re hungry. Is that intuition? I would say so. It is a direct communication from your unconscious. You may not think of it as intuitive because it’s so familiar. What other ways is your unconscious already communicating with you? Unconscious intelligence and energy pervades your being and flows through every channel of perception, every thought and feeling.
Most information received through sensory channels is processed unconsciously. Then it bubbles up to conscious awareness. It doesn’t matter if the information is received intuitively or directly through the physical senses. When you are fully present with your perceptions, much more complex information becomes accessible.
If you were to eat an apple with your full sensory presence, your experience may become incredibly rich. That richness may be directly caused by the physical transfer of information through the sense organs, but there also may be intuitive information. For example, while chewing you may perceive an image of a place and a landscape that might be where the apple came from. With this image, you may also feel a sense of warmth and moisture indicating where it grew. Similarly, you might perceive how old the tree is, who picked the apple, or what they were feeling. The immediacy of sensory awareness takes you out of what you think and moves you into direct perceptions not limited by your conscious beliefs and thoughts. You connect with what is, beyond the limitations of your physical senses.
And, I suspect, while making no such claims for myself, a great deal of the world’s most significant thinking has begun just like this, with the body, in the heart of the night, coming, for all I can tell, from a place so far within us that it is very likely common to all of us.
- David Brooks 7
Fascination
It doesn’t matter what channel of perception you focus on. When allowed to unfold, all channels of perception will take you into the realm of direct knowing. If you allow yourself to be fascinated, to enjoy what you are experiencing, your sensing will take you deeper.
How do you enjoy something?
Does it take will or effort?
Remember the feeling of enjoying or being fascinated by an experience.
Describe what that feels like.
How does remembering a pleasurable experience make you feel now?
How do you enjoy a hot bath? You fill the tub with water and perhaps light a candle. You set yourself up for the experience with conscious intent. But in order to get into the experience of the bath you have to let go of the preparation and the doing and get into it. At some point you have to let go and get in to what you have created.
How about a sunset? When evening comes, you can sit on the porch and watch the sunset happen all by itself. It takes no effort. In fact, when you release any idea of doing anything, then greater enjoyment and satisfaction comes. When you follow your fascination, you will naturally immerse into what you’re sensing. A sunset may begin with an image, but quickly it blends into your other senses. The feeling on your skin becomes part of the equation, as does your breathing and other sounds or smells. Perhaps past memories or significant feelings surface as part of the present.
As you allow this sensing, your conscious mind lets go. All these aspects combine, without effort, guided by your unconscious intelligence. (Remember the daydreaming exercise. You may start to daydream while you’re watching the beauty in front of you.) As you allow your experience, your letting go may not be passive either. You may feel like moving or talking or engaging in some other creative release of energy.
Learning to allow and to let go is an integral part of coming to your senses, finding health and balance in your body, and developing intuition. Your deeper intelligence will always take you where you need to go if you allow it.
Sleep is a good example of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious. Can you make yourself fall asleep? No, not without ingesting a medication to help. Sleep is a process where the conscious mind lets go and surrenders to the unconscious intentions of the body. You may consciously want to sleep, but you only fall asleep when the conscious mind lets go.
Have you struggled to fall asleep? In our society so dominated by conscious control and will, sleep is one place where many people struggle to let go. Anything you can do to shift into a more receptive and open connection with your body and your senses will help you sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping, do the full body focus before you go to bed. Take your time. Sense and describe everything you are experiencing in all of the channels of awareness you can attend to.
Personal Validation
Being present with yourself is especially important if you are experiencing uncomfortable sensations or feelings. How often have you been wanting to sleep and rest, but found that your body was too tense or uncomfortable. Perhaps you realized that you were holding anxiety or anger in your body. The body focus will help you name and release even these uncomfortable sensations.
Here is another simple, yet profoundly valuable exercise you can use in conjunction with the body focus to help you release anything you’re holding that is uncomfortable, awkward or fearful. I call this exercise the Personal Validation Process.