I have a friend who is a vintage collectibles dealer. This is a great thing, because he finds beautiful stuff and he has a generous heart, so he’s always finding things for his friends that he gives away.

So, I am the new owner of a beautiful little yellow pot that’s perfect for warming milk for my latte.

He had a session with me recently to figure out how to take the next step in his business.
In my meditation, I saw him at a thrift store, finding things of value. And then, outlined in a shimmery gold, I saw the things that he was missing, that his intuition would guide him to, if he was deeply listening.

I told him about this and he said, Things call me. I get feelings about where things are or where I should go. I get drawn to certain places. Did I tell you about the penny?

The Penny

No, I hadn’t heard about the penny.

Dave was at an estate sale. He had found some great clothes, picked over the rest and was about ready to go when he was drawn to the basement. He’d been down there already and hadn’t seen anything interesting, but his intuition was really pinging.

So, he went downstairs again and found himself standing by a stack of books. On top of this stack were 2 books of pennies, a penny collected for each year. One book was 1900-1949. One was 1949-2000. Each book was $2.00. Dave is not a coin guy, but he figured that two bucks was worth a bet. He bought the older book.

(Aside: What kind of beautiful time was it when people took a penny from each year and put it in a book?)

He went home and left the book of pennies on his table for a week or so. Then, one day he opened it. He was looking at the first page of pennies when he noticed something interesting about a penny from 1909. It had the initials VDB stamped on it, on the bottom of the rim.

So he looked up the penny. It turns out that this penny is one of the rarest Abraham Lincoln pennies and collectors regularly buy it for $1,000-3,000.

One little penny. One to three thousand dollars. Not bad for a $2 investment.

At the end of our session, I made a list of things he can do to further strengthen his intuition. The more you use it, the stronger it gets.

I love my friend Dave, but he’s not special. Er…I mean, he’s special but his intuition isn’t special. We all got it. He uses his to find treasure in the trash. Just think of all the things you could use yours for.

I tend to start to do things because they are fun. Then I have work-in-progress a-has that completely surprise me and then I use what I’ve learned to dance-kick into the next thing.

I had all kinds of reactions during the cupcake season:

1. Woo-woo, for my audience, is a-okay.

People were fine with the chakras, the past lives, the lacks of lines of evidence. What mattered for the cupcake eaters was that I gave them deep insight about who they are and what they can do to make their lives better. Nearly every email said, Hey, you asked about woo-woo? Woo-woo is fine.

I found that fact to be very interesting, because everybody and their dog tells me that the more woo-woo I get, the more I’m limiting my audience and gravitas and turning people off.

People don’t really give a damn where the information comes from. It just has to be relevant, practical and valid. There has to be a “Oh that’s so true!” moment for the cupcake eater.

2. Practical energy exercises are much appreciated

I’ve got people making lists, talking to their chakras, moving their energy, walking barefoot through the grass. I’ve got people looking into their own eyes. People talking to themselves at age 5, 10, 15, 20. I’ve got people taking baths, cooking, painting, listening to their breathing, wearing yellow.

Of course, people love this. I know this from my regular clients. So it’s not really an a-ha. But the feedback is super-cool.

3. People also like very tangible direction.

Do this, and see doors open. It can’t all be fun exercises. Of course, there has to also be direction.
Also not an a-ha, but I like how one can inform the other.

4. People want help with their businesses!

Half of the cupcakes were about business decisions. And I rock at that. I spent 15 years in IT management and marketing. I know my way around corporate America. And to be able to tune in and help people figure this stuff out, is incredibly edifying for me. And useful for them.

5. People can do a lot with a little information.

The most common comment back? “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Hmm…It makes me think about sizing and packaging the work I do.

6. The specific key to each problem was different.

There is no 3-step formula for success. There is no one way.
When it comes down to what helps one person vs. another, it’s as unique as a fingerprint.
This is both cool and frustrating.

Because I would love to have a formula to sell you. I would love to wrap this up with a big bow, and make the world a better place, and make lots of money and then go live on a sailboat somewhere.

I’d love to have four questions or five commitments or seven keys or something. I would love something with a number. Yeah, I don’t see that happening.

What’s cool, though, is how it reminds me that life is always giving us the lesson we need when we need it. And the lessons are different and always coming to us, in waves or like rogue grandmothers with sweaters or something…

7. It’s hard to do just a cupcake.

Because everything is related. And sometimes, I found myself giving more than a cupcake because the person wasn’t going to be successful without a complete answer. My marketing friends said, That’s a marketing opportunity!
And I just didn’t want to feel like I was hooking anyone.

8. There’s cupcakes for all.

Even though the answers were very specific, there are themes to play with for future blog posts.
Themes like:
Power
Self-knowledge
Conversation Autopsies
The Night Sky
The importance of talking to yourself
Paralysis
Grief
The importance of YOU-ness in your life.

9. DIY Cupcake

In an effort to make this stuff affordable and everywhere, I need to take what I do and make it into a DIY cupcake. What could that look like? Hmm….

So, there you go.
Got something to say about what you need or would like to see?
Awesome. Bring it.

It’s all about learning how to really use your intuition. Really…whether you use it every day, or it’s sitting in the corner with dust on it.

This course is good for those who have an intuitive practice, and good for those who don’t. I’m learning stuff just by talking through the curriculum with Fabeku (and so is he), and we are experts. We do this for a living every day.

It is going to be SO awesome. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it…and maybe something is stopping you from signing up. So I thought I’d bring out my zoo to help you make up your mind…

Drama LLama

Drama llama sez: Oh, you know that this is just going to be another $125 that you’ll regret you spent. It’s like that time you went out and got that hair cut that all your friends were getting and it looked like a raccoon had died on your head. Bless your heart. I bet you’ll get in there, and try it, and everybody will try not to laugh at your pitiful attempts. They’ll try. They’re good people and all.

VoD the Impaler

VoD sez: You Suck! You will suck so hard at this! Everybody will know!

Destiny Dolphin, the Purpose Porpoise

Destiny sez: Snick…chitter-chitter….snick…

which means figuring out your life’s purpose, or even just the next step is a great way to use your new intuitive skills! Yay!

Crow and Mushroom

Crow sez: You know that thing…you know. The thing that’s really been sticking in your craw? That thing we’ve been working on? Yeah…that thing…How about you learn some tools to handle that thing?

Mushroom sez: (nom nom nom crunch nom) I’m eating all your worries about this away.

Tanuki

Wait…have I not introduced you to Tanuki? A tanuki is a Japanese raccoon dog. In Japanese folklore, they are jolly and a little bit mischevious, and they are endowed with disproportionately-sized testicles. Hence, their favorite phrase is “What could happen?”

Tanuki likes to go to the bar with me, where we drink Sake and eat pickles. With those big cojones of his, he’s often talking me into doing things that I’m very nearly not brave enough for…

Let’s stop by the Izakaya and see what he has to say…

Tanuki sez: Hey! You’re just in time! Hey! Two glasses for my friends, and more of that Junmai Sake! Hey, you want to try this? This is monkfish liver! Hey, you will love it. Hey, try it! See, I told you.”

Tanuki slurps down a glass of sake and eats some sardines.

Oh? The Rock Star Intuition class? You going to take that? Oh ho! You are going to like it. That Fabeku, he’s all right, for all his talk about ninjas, the boy is a smarty. You’re going to come away with some good ideas about your work. Yeah, like that one idea you had…I bet you pick that back up. Hey! We need more pickles! Pickles!

Slurp…crunch…slurp

Hey, what could happen? You know what could happen? You could find out how powerful you are.  Whoa…So crazy…what would you do with that?

Okay

So, the class has already started. Maybe you can take the advice from these guys and apply it to something else in your life.

I hope you’re doing well. I was twittering this morning about the ways I use my intuition. I made a list of the top 21 ways I use it…I think I could have gone on for miles! I want to know the ways you use it.

I use my intuition to:

1. Help bring about positive change in people’s lives.

2. Help pets and their people get along better.

3. Have a close and steady, positive relationship with my kids, so that they grow up to be happy adults leading proactive lives.

4. Have a close, sweet relationship with my partner, so that he and I feel the deep love and respect we have for each other.

5. To grow.

6. To move my business forward.

7. To stay close and support my friends and family and sweet pets.

8. To have a healthy self-esteem, and to put myself out there, even when I’m a little afraid.

9. To enhance my creative experience.

10. To be closer to God.

11. To keep my ego in check.

12. To cut down on worry and anxiety.

13. To understand my purpose.

14.  To stay in the present moment.

15. To sleep well at night.

16. To interact with love and compassion with strangers, and also people in traffic who would otherwise piss me off.

17. To have a healthy sex life.

18. To not be frustrated when my path has unexpected turns and can’t-get-there-from-here-itis.

19. To be in flow with life around me.

20.  To appreciate the world around me.

21. To experience abundance.

If I were to make this list much longer,  you’d see things about time-saving, food, picking the right movie, and all the little, in-the-moment ways that intuition helps my experience…

How do you use yours?

I want to know.  Please tell me!

Want to use yours better? Take our Rock Star Intuition Workshop!

Here’s an extreme close-up of the guy:

Brian is polite and nice to nearly everyone. And he’s incredibly, consciously loving to me. So, he packs extra rain gear when we go camping (because I will forget mine). He makes me coffee before he goes to work in the morning. The man does my laundry. And every day, I am reminded that he is most often thinking of me and what I need.

It comes so naturally to him to do this, it kind of freaks me out.

It makes me want to be a better person, to try to take better care of him. So I make him dinner, a lot. And I let him have the couch all to himself, and I sit in the stinky dog chair (this is the chair where guests try to sit down on it and I shout, Don’t sit on that! It may be more dog hair than chair now).

One day, he was comfortably sacked out on the couch, and our dog Olive, needed to go outside. And at that moment, it occurred to me that it would hurt me more to watch him get up off of the couch than to take the dog out myself.

This is lovingkindness.

This is the feeling of being so connected to someone that their happiness is as good as your happiness.

This is not I’m a good person so I’m going to do this good thing and I’m going to feel good for doing it.

This is not Well you did this nice thing for me yesterday so I’m going to do this nice thing for you today.

This is not It has been ingrained in me to be nice to others so I will do it.

This is not even I have compassion for you so I will do this thing for you.

This is Oh, for some reason the boundaries between me and you are such that I can’t quite tell where you start and I stop and the idea of you getting off the couch is causing more pain to me than the effort of me taking that dog out.

Whoa. This is a big thing.

Perhaps

This is the reason why we long to go two-by-two through the world, why from an early age, we’re doodling our married names on notebooks. It’s so that if we truly love one other person, we can learn to live in lovingkindness with everybody. We can see that we are all part of a greater thing. And that really, when you suffer, I suffer, because you and I are the same.

This loving kindness stuff is hard, sometimes, because we don’t want to lose ourselves in it. We want to somehow be connected, and yet keep that boundary of self. We don’t want to be lost.

We know the torch songs of those who have suffered when they’ve given themselves completely to someone else. We don’t want that.

We have to be sturdy to be in lovingkindness. We have to have structure and form. This is what I know.

Where are you?

In all this? What’s ringing true for you?

Our culture has this idea that either you’re born with it, or not. Guess what… you were born with it!

Are You Ready?

You ready to use your intuition? You ready to bring that part of you to life?
I want you to experience Rock Star Intuition. I want you to feel the awesome that is your intuition! I want you to feel what I feel with my intuition! So come on…Join us…be part of our workshop: Rock Star Intuition .

Here’s the video:

Yep…Intuition is a lot like clamming…you feel around…dig in….gather useful, meaty information.

We have a vast landscape of information within us. You can learn how to access yours at our new workshop!

Check Out Rock Star Intuition!

Visit my workshop page to learn more about the Rock Star Intuition Workshop, taught by Fabeku Fatunmise and me! You will love it. It’ll change your life.

I want you to know what intuition is and what it isn’t.

So I made a video. It’s right there…

You ready to explore your intuition?

Cool. We have a workshop coming up on July 20th.

Please join us!

The Written Version

Don’t have 5 minutes to listen in? That’s cool. Here’s some words about it.

what is intuition?

Intuition is a tool to get information in a way that’s not through your brain.
It’s non-cognitive information. It’s not an if, then statement. It’s not linear.
It’s more like a dot-to-dot that connects the dots.

I’ve probably just completely confused you. Of course you use your brain when you have an intuitive experience. You brain makes your intuition conscious.

However, while you are intuiting, your brain is in the back seat. It’s not driving.

Intuition enriches the context of your human experience, of the here and now.

Intuition is scalable. You can intuit about small things (what to eat on a menu) and big things (what to do with my life).

That’s what it is.

Here’s what it isn’t:
new age
numinous
alien
separating
weird
crystals
auras
chakras
woo-woo
God
esoteric
just for women
out there.

Woo-woo, God, auras, chakras, those are all aspects of experience that some find comforting and some don’t. You can have your own aspect of experience that relates to your reality.

Intuition happens here. It happens now. It relates to your current life experience.

Bottom Line: you do not have to change your reality to use your intuition.

What is Intuition?

Intuition is information that you don’t get through your brain. I like to imagine intuition as a big post office in my belly. And there are little workers picking up and sorting bits of information that  may be useful.

These packets of information are best recognized as hunches.  But to the intuitively aware, they are much much more than that. They are news we can act on.

You are Intuitive. Yes You. I’m Talking About You.

You have this post office too. We all have one. We bring in and send out useful intuitive information all of the time.This can be very hard for many of us to believe, especially if we have a loud inner critic who calls bullshit on the whole thing:

Imagination is Key

Hush, V.o.D., or I’m getting out the panties.

Einstein summed it up best:“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”- Albert Einstein

Cognitive learning is like stair steps.  One thought follows another. A huge if-then statement.
Intuitive information is like a rock in a pool, it ripples outward in lots of directions. We can leap from understanding to understanding.
Imagination is opening the door to the entirety of all knowing.

You know how to imagine. You also know how to intuit.

Imagine a pink elephant with white stripes.  Or a Pink elephant with The White Stripes (it’s all good). Imagine a pineapple effectively hula hooping. Imagine a raccoon at karaoke night.
Whoa. Look at you! You can imagine things! Was the Raccoon singing Brown-eyed Girl? Mine was.  And then he had to pig the microphone and sing Born in the U.S.A. Raccoons have shitty karaoke etiquette.

The same brain that takes you to a raccoon karaoke bar can take  you to the answers that you need.

This morning, in a meditative state, I asked the question:  What’s the next step that I need to do for my fabulous career?
I closed my eyes, and saw myself on a TV talk show.  The chairs were blue. I was wearing a suit, and I was laughing. I was also a little skinnier than I am now. Hmmm… I thought the cameras were supposed to add ten pounds.
Ah, okay. That’s cool!  I need to put myself out there.  I need to network.  I need to bring my ideas to the general public. The world and me are a fit! Whoo-hoo! Call my publicist! Oh hey!  I need a publicist!

Let’s try this together.

Let’s imagine something ridiculous and then let’s ask a question and get an answer.

Need a cue?  Let’s imagine a Moose. A moose named Doug that cares.  Sort of the Brawny Towel Guy, but in moose form.  He has a daisy for you, that he just picked, because he remembered that you like daisies.  Ah, thoughtful moose.

Okay, now ask an important question, either to the Moose or to the Universe (or possibly the Moosiverse?).

What did you get?
I bet you got something useful.
I like this imagination and asking game because it helps us lighten up a little.  And with lightness, answers come.  With worry, the answers are muddy.
Okay, really, I want to hear what you got.  And if you got something super-weird and irrelevant, keep trying, you were probably just blowing some rust your intuitive apparatus. I still want to hear about it.

Another thing to notice about this intuition stuff

We’re getting answers by talking to imaginary moose. That’s weird, but it’s not woo-woo. It’s just weird.
It’s a trigger. It’s just a little thing to bypass the cognitive brain and get you there.
People have intuitive experiences through running, yoga, music, cooking, crystal balls, mowing the lawn. Whatever gets you there. Don’t ever confuse the doorway for the message. It’s not the crystal ball that gives you the answers (or running, or kneading dough). It’s just a trigger to bypass your cognition.

This is what Fabeku and I mean when we talk about decoupling the woo-woo from the intuition. Nearly anything that brings you lightness and peace can be your doorway. Even a moose named Doug, who cares.

P.S.

Hey, take our Rock Star Intuition Experience. You will love it. And it will rock your world.

I’m not feeling that way, but I know a few people who are. In fact, everywhere I turned this week, I heard a story about not having enough.

I thought you might want to see tonglen in action.  Okay, I look really tired, but it’s me.

And, then here’s Olive, my dog, thinking that I’m talking about tongue-len instead of tonglen.

Oh that silly dog.

I hope you have some good experiences with Tonglen.

What say you?

Have you tried Tonglen?