Developing Your Intuition

Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:09:52 -0400

By Christopher Easton

Intuition is an innate ability that every person has available to them all of the time. The problem that most people have is that they have forgotten how to access their intuitive abilities. A number of reasons we have stopped using our intuition are:

At an early age we are told it’s not real.
The information doesn’t make sense to us.
We are afraid of being wrong.
We doubt the info that we become aware of.
The information goes against what we know or believe.

All of those reasons and any others you might have are only ways of keeping you from accessing your intuition. In order to develop your intuition you must be willing to step outside of what you know and feel uncomfortable with. As well as realizing that you might not get the whole picture or all the information at once. Coming from a point of not using your intuition to one of desiring to access it means you are going to have to deal with the reasons you have not used your intuition to this point. As you work on developing your intuition you will have to access your courage in order to let go of your doubt, your fear of being wrong and all the other things you use to keep yourself from using your intuition.

One of the things about intuition is that the information doesn’t usually come in one big package. What is meant by this is that you will get inklings or hunches at first. You won’t necessarily have an understanding of what it is you are aware of. The important thing is to act on the awareness you have in the moment. In the beginning you need to act on the first piece that you are aware of and then the next piece usually becomes available to you. So as you start to develop your intuition information will tend to come in little pieces. It may not make sense at first but as you continue to use it more, more information will come in. Also, the information may not make sense to you but it might make sense to whomever you are with or talking to.

As you begin to receive information you will have to use your courage because your awarenesses don’t always mesh with what you know. You will have to let go of the fear of being wrong , as well as, the need to have instant validation of what it is you are aware of. It takes courage to step out of your box of KNOWN and allow something different into your awareness. It will also take courage to express what you are receiving to another person especially if you don’t understand the awareness that you have.

Intuition is of the Moment for the Moment. It is not meant to be saved for a more appropriate time or place. If you have an awareness for yourself or someone else practice by expressing it in the moment. Allow yourself to stretch beyond your zone of comfortability and open up to the infinite wisdom that is available to you all of the time.

Breathe In & Beyond ©

Facilitating Healthy Emotional Expression in Children

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:28:30 -0400

By Christopher Easton

We tend to believe that as adults we know what is best when it comes to a child’s expression. This couldn’t be further from the truth. When we give a child permission to express what is really going on, in the moment, we give them the opportunity to begin to change the way they interact with the world. When a child no longer has to stuff their emotions there is no need to have those bottled up emotions surface at a later time in the form of frustration, rebellion, anger, low self esteem, self worth issues, depression, physical issues, etc.

When a child has an experience that causes an emotional response and is allowed to express their feelings there is less tendency to cause a lock down in the emotional body. The problem with this approach is it often causes the caregiver to feel their own emotional holding. This is one of the reasons we are so quick to attempt to have the child move on and forget whatever the experience was. They don’t really forget the experience they just lock it away and it gets expressed in a variety of ways later on.

We learn at a very early age that most expression is not appropriate. Most of all do not express any emotions other than what you have learned to be good emotions. Such as being nice, happy or positive. Sad or grieving is ok up to a point. Whatever the emotion is don’t make it too much. The reason we are taught to keep our collective mouths shut is because when we express emotions it causes the people around us to feel all the emotions they have been suppressing. This causes a problem in that now you suppress your feelings and when someone else goes to express it makes you feel uncomfortable and the cycle of non expression continues. We all have the opportunity to shift this if we would be willing to express our emotions without judgement and let others do the same. The problem is we judge ours and others emotions as wrong or bad. This just drives the unexpressed emotions deeper into our subconscious where it festers. It will be expressed inwardly as depression or outwardly as anger/rage. It also can come out through the physical body in the form of some dis-ease. It is time to break the cycle of non expression and let children know that feelings are ok no matter what they are. It is ok for everyone to cry, be angry, be sad, be happy, etc. without being judged as being wrong.

We can’t stop expression we just alter the way it is comes out. When we attempt to curtail expression in the moment, whether in ourselves or someone else,we create gaps in our emotional body. Our mind believes that when we suppress emotions they are gone, nothing could be further from the truth. It is still there, it is just in a different form. The form it takes on is one of compression and pressurization. Now over a life time of avoiding emotional expression we can build up quite a bit of pressurization. It takes a lot of energy to keep our held emotions in a compressed state. When we do finally let some of the held emotion move it is usually when we have been triggered by a person/situation, the last straw. This trigger usually has nothing to do with the held emotion, it is just a way of releasing some of the pressure. We then link our outburst to that person/situation and blame them for our emotions. We also judge ourselves for expressing so much. This causes the emotion to be driven back down into our subconscious where it waits for another trigger to help relieve the pressure. The problem with this is that it never clears out the held emotion.

Once the anger/rage is allowed to move and the compression is allowed to be released what is really going on can be uncovered. The reason we see emotion move as anger/rage is because we are seeing an emotion that has been stuffed and held for a long time. Any emotion that has been compressed can initially come out as rage/anger. If we are willing to allow the anger/rage to move we can find what is underneath. In our experience what is underneath the anger/rage is always something different then what we thought. We rarely allow ourselves or others to express the anger/rage long enough to get below it so that it can be released. Because of our fear and our own uncomfortability we stop the process of emotional expression. It then gets pushed down and continues to fester. This is a continuous cycle that we are all too familiar with. Once we overcome our fear that something terrible is going to happen and allow ourselves and others the opportunity to express their anger/rage we can start to release the held emotions that keep us from truly experiencing who we are.

So, if you can express whatever it is you are feeling in the moment and resist the urge to link it to anything, you can release it and move on. When we link an emotion to a person/situation we begin to loop the feeling, which can and usually involves a lot of drama. This reaction comes with a big expenditure of energy without any resolution. It also tends to set up a repetitive pattern whenever faced with a similar person/situation. When this happens it seems like we are really feeling what is going on when in reality we are avoiding really dealing with our true feelings. The more this happens the more we believe that it is the outside world that controls how we feel. Once you realize that you are the creator of your feelings then you can feel anything you desire at any time no matter the person/situation you are dealing with. This is something children need to learn, that they create their feelings, that it is ok to express what it is they are feeling even if they don’t why.

Be present with whomever you are dealing with in the moment. Children know when you are truly present with them and when you are not. When speaking to a child they not only hear the words they also feel your presence. If you are pre occupied with something else or you pull back your energy because of doubt, fear, etc. the child will pick up on it. What they then will respond to is not the words but your lack of presence. They feel the energetic gap that is created by your unwillingness to be fully present with them.

We teach children to not feel because when they feel we have to feel and we don’t want to. This is something that has been going on for a long time. It is time to break the cycle of non expression and let children know that feelings are ok no matter what they are. It is ok for everyone to cry, be angry, be sad, be happy, etc. without being judged as being wrong. When children are allowed to express their emotions in the moment it is less likely they will stuff them. This can then eliminate a whole list of possible detrimental effects further down the road.

Breathe In & Beyond ©

Letting Go of the Intensity In Your Life

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:28:37 -0500

By Christopher Easton
The intensity of our lives, whether it is emotional, mental, physical or just seen as chaos inside or outside of us is being caused by our contraction around the energy that is now moving within us. We are now being asked to respond differently to the energy then we have in the past. This involves beginning to relax while creating space within. By allowing the vibration within us to move with ease there is a lessening of the intensity level that we have spent so much time and energy attempting to control. Let go of your need to understand what is happening. Step outside of your box and see the magic by experiencing the movement in the moment.

There is nothing we can do to stop the movement inside as well as outside of us. Accessing your past experience, as an avenue to understanding, will only create more contraction. We have been attempting to stop or get away from the energetic movement forever and even though we thought it was stopping it really never did. We have been able to stuff it in the past but that just doesn’t seem to work any more. The old coping mechanisms are not working the way they use to. So, as we try to figure out how to deal with the movement the only option we believe we have is to do it the same way we always have. This option, which is to deny that the energy/vibration is there, doesn’t seem to work very well, if at all. There is another way, which is to be in reception of what is happening in the moment. You can either be in reception of the movement or be in reaction to it. Either way it will still be there. If you choose reception and allow yourself the opportunity to respond in the moment life begins to lose its intensity. Otherwise, you set up a battle inside, which then shows itself internally as physical and emotional turmoil and in your outside world it appears as reflection of your internal process.

As you go through your day begin to become aware of where you are in reaction, whether it is to another person or a situation. Are you reacting from a place of I’ve seen this all before and I know what is going to happen next? If you are, you are missing an opportunity for change. You might consider looking at every situation/person as brand new in every moment, with limitless possibility. Most of the time we reference the past and we get exactly what we thought was going to happen. This usually causes us to feel very right and even though this should make us feel good it only makes the internal turmoil worse. The reason for this is that in our attempt to reference from the past we are causing the very energetic contraction which we are trying to stop which then shuts down space so the movement intensifies inside.

If we look at each moment as new and let go of the past we can respond rather than react. This opens up space inside which allows the movement to vibrate less intensely. The more we do this the less intense the energy feels. In order to do this we have to step out of our known structure and begin to play with the unknown. This involves accessing our courage while looking at everything as brand new and respond to the situation/person in the moment. It also means we have to be willing to drop our need to be right.

It takes practice to be in the moment. Resist the urge to figure everything out and drop the need to know every outcome. In reality we have no idea what is going to happen next. We only pretend we know the outcome. This way we can pretend we don’t feel out of control and won’t panic. Which is exactly what we are feeling and pretending we aren’t.

So the next time you find yourself in reaction take five to ten deep breaths and release them with a sigh. Then courageously step outside of your known and respond in the moment allowing the magic of now to happen.
Breathe In & Beyond ©

Breath, Expression and the Emotional Body

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:24:32 -0500