These are big names people, I mean very, very important people.’ Kind of a playful Trumpish lead into this subject of Intuition but conversely I want you to grasp that this is no lightweight subject. Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson all believed that intuition was more vital than logic.
Caroline Myss, the five-time New York Times bestselling author and renowned speaker in the fields of human consciousness and the science of medical intuition said ‘Though many people think that being intuitive is a gift, that view will one day be considered as preposterous as thinking that being born with a sense of smell or taste is a “gift”. Your intuition is an inherent sense that develops in you just as you develop eyes, ears and your other senses. The challenge today is to understand how your intuitive nature communicates with you, as your intuitive sense is as continually active as all your other senses.’
My intuitive sense communicated with me fifty plus years ago with a voice in my head, as redolent of majesty as an old man with a beard sitting on cloud, who gave me instructions to do something creative every day, did not matter what but that it should be something I had never done before. I was galvanised into action. My intuition led me to the final creative stage in recovering from trauma and ill health.
Science now shows a gut decision, intuition, or hunch is not something fanciful — it is based on a depth of experience that stems from our unconscious. Our intuition or gut feelings come from deep in the brain in a region called the insula. Evidence from MRI scans shows that the insula is the cornerstone or wellspring of social emotions.
In 1949 Einstein said ‘Intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.”
Malcolm Gladwell, writer for the New Yorker, and no slouch when it comes to researching and penning definitive factual work, certainly would not dispute the great man’s words. But he was determined to investigate where modern science was in the study of intuition. In a nutshell he found that intuition is all about the brain rapidly slicing empirical experience and knowledge to prompt — “blink”– the intuitive message. He summarized these findings in his book ‘Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,’ published in 2005.
Okay, you say, you have convinced me that intuition is real and valuable but what has it to do with me being stuck at home, worrying about health of myself and my family, about money and the future.
I have learned that intuition can be trusted to guide you to what is best for you. Whether it is simply planning how to have a productive day in isolation, to exercise, to be creative, what is best for your health and even how to be less fearful of the future.
You have heard that little voice before I am sure, or had some sort of coincidence that you know is a gut reaction. To activate your intuition, find somewhere peaceful, close your eyes and ask your question. Relax if the answer doesn’t pop into your consciousness immediately, trust that it will. The more you practice asking your intuition, the more answers will come. Sometimes in the form of symbols, sometimes a bit cryptic but you’re the creator of these and you will able to read them.
Finally and fittingly I have chosen the man who saved generations from polio, Jonas Salk to have the last word. ‘It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It’s my partner.
The pole is seemingly immoveable, too tall to jump, too solid to push aside and there is only one way that I can get past it – is by going round it. I see it as something ugly — a pale concrete column dominating a space while understanding this is an essential part of a building’s construction. I am irritated with my muse as she has set me a thankless task. I mentally tell her so. ‘Poles are poles,’ I say ’nothing more than holding up a roof, so what is the point of this exercise?’
them well, so much so they became her signature dressing, ‘choose the hat first darling and the decision on the rest of the outfit falls into line.’
When eventually my Grandfather gave permission for my parents to marry after seven years of ‘courting,’ in setting up her first home she rebelled against the heavily Victorian style of the house of her childhood and embraced the 1930’s cutting-edge-fashion of art deco. She was an avid collector of Clarice Cliff, the legendary ceramic artist’s pottery. In the Blitz, we lost our home and everything in it. Later when we lived with our grandfather, his house was hit by a V1 doodle bug and again all we had were clothes we stood in.
Make Do & Mend’ was a government catchphrase during that time and my mother was very good at. She found a semi-detached house to rent and once again created a stylish home. There were no quarterly household item collections, there were no flea markets and furniture was scarcer than hen’s teeth with everything rationed. But she begged borrowed and made make-do-&-mend into an art form. Today’s home-stylists would have adored her as she was the Queen of renovation. She bought the old, tired and worn back to life; recovering threadbare chairs and settees, French polishing scratched and dull furniture to a glowing patina and painting the house inside and out.
She especially loved the spill of lighting from table lamps, overhead lighting was never used, and graced all of her many lamps with her hand-made pleated chiffon lampshades. She was equally at home in the garden and our small colourful blooming patches, both front and back, were the envy of neighbours.
up a small café. Immediately her morning and afternoon tea concept was a winner, people loved her sense of style, pink bone china for tea and for coffee, the first of its kind shatter free glass cups and saucers. Soon the market demanded luncheons and she started her day before sparrow twitter preparing, baking and cooking and achieving a regular sixty covers a day for lunch and a steady morning and afternoon trade.
MARY ATKINS AUTHOR 