The Intuitive Therapist

CHAPTER 2 You Are Already Intuitive Most graduates who have a degree in psychology, coaching, child and family development, counseling, or other helping profession, have a burning desire to blaze new trails and save the world. Helping others is one of the noblest pursuits a person can have. After all, how can we make this world a better place if we don’t lift others up and create positive change? After I completed college and graduate school, I had no idea why I felt compelled to help others. It seemed to be part of my personal mosaic. It was only later in my life that I realized that my need to help others work out their difficulties came from my own need to do that very thing. I needed to learn to trust my intuition in all parts of my life and I certainly needed to develop more courage, confidence and certainty. If you take a moment and look at why you chose to become a therapist, counselor, personal coach or service provider and then looked even closer at the niche that you have adopted, you will be hard pressed to deny that it brings you a sense of significance and value. The motivation to be a contribution is at the core of being of service. Perhaps the issues that you have struggled with, have overcome, or even continue to struggle with today, are the very issues that you are now helping your clients resolve. Perhaps a family member battled with something and you find yourself compelled to help others who also struggle with it. Kind of like someone who got killed by an alcoholic driver or from a disease or bad divorce and you felt compelled to devote your career to helping others who are challenged with the same thing. Or maybe you work with people from all over the country, or beyond, who have difficulty dealing with a particular problem and you realize you are meant to help them. Whatever the motivating factor was that steered you in the direction of your chosen field initially, the guiding force behind your decision was connected to the need to feel significant, purposeful, helpful, and valuable. You have entered the helping profession to work out your stuff by helping others work out theirs. When you come from a place of authenticity, you realize that you will always be a student with a desire to grow and learn. As you maximize the quality of your life by believing in your natural intuitive abilities, you can teach these skills to your clients much more effectively and help them create their enlightened life to a much greater capacity and with faster results. There is no magic strategy to this process. But as you practice the techniques in this book, you will learn what it takes to tap into the endless reservoir of natural resources that are within you right now. The reward that naturally results is that you take your life and work to the “next level.” Tuning in to your intuition is possible for everyone; each of us is inherently intuitive. And, as you begin to focus your intention on your intuitive development, you will realize that you have already used it on many occasions. Your intuition works just like your beating heart, your breath and your organs: automatically. Awareness of your intuitive influences, however, might not be as automatic. Intuitive Influences Who you are today is a result of all of your experiences, in this lifetime and in past lifetimes. Every aspect of your life is driven by your upbringing with your family of origin having perhaps the greatest influence on you. For example, if you are a parent, you have raised, or are raising, your child in the same way that your parents raised you. Alternatively, you may have used any or all of your parent’s child-rearing practices as an anti-model — anything but! In your romantic relationships, both overt and covert parental modeling has influenced all the values and standards that you hold for yourself, and the partners you choose. Access to and development of your intuition is no different. You have been influenced by your intuition throughout your entire life. Recognizing how it has influenced you and choosing to allow it to do so are keys to nurturing your intuitive development. Other factors that influence your belief in intuition and spirituality come from your family of origin’s belief system, your romantic partner’s perspective, your previous experiences with your intuitive abilities and your wider sphere of social influence. Many people have intuitive experiences as children. For some, family and friends support them to live intuitively, while others don’t. A child may try to shut down his intuitive abilities to remain emotionally safe or he may realize that his intuitive gifts remain ever-present, but choose to just experience them privately. You still might think that you have never had any intuitive experiences or might doubt whether you could ever ‘be’ intuitive. But I have no doubt that you can be. You just haven’t yet recognized when your intuition has been active or how you have actually used it in your life in a million different ways already! You might say to yourself, “I can’t be intuitive because I haven’t ever seen dead people, or heard voices, or had any major experiences like other people have.” The truth is: you have had intuitive experiences throughout your life; they just have seemed so ordinary that you didn’t give them the credibility they deserve. Rules Are Meant to be Broken When you alter the rules by which you live your life, change inevitably happens. Rules can limit us, shut us down or guide us in our lives. They let us know what we can expect to happen if we choose A or B. Rules can provide a sense of safety and security. But they can also close us off from considering alternative avenues to reach a desired outcome and can limit our ability to expand our understanding of available options.