The Personal Nature of Intuition

Over the weekend, my friend Elena asked me about my Reiki practice since I’m a Reiki 2 practitioner. I don’t have clients, so I only practice on myself and my family at home. She expressed interest in learning, but she’s hesitant because she tends to overthink and analyze everything. She mentioned how difficult it is to tune into her intuition because of all the noise in her mind.

I know this feeling well. Even though I’ve been on my spiritual journey for a few years now, this is still something I’m learning to navigate myself.

What I told her is that I still doubt and question myself too. When I decided to learn Reiki and get certified, I was definitely unsure. But like most things in life, we learn through experience.

We practice. We try.

We become familiar through firsthand experience, not through certainty beforehand.

Learning Through Experience

Sometimes when I read about the experiences of spiritual teachers online, it can seem like they’re deeply connected to their intuition every second of the day. But I honestly don’t believe that’s always the case. I know that comparing myself to others has never helped me feel more connected to myself, yet many times it happens without me even realizing it.

Elena told me she only owns one oracle deck and was surprised when I said I have around thirty. When I asked her if she was interested in learning tarot, she said it seemed too complicated. I actually felt the same way when I first started working with cards.

Over time though, I realized something important. The more relaxed I am, the more open I become to receiving whatever message is there for me.

For me, card decks feel like mirrors. I believe the answers we need already exist within us. Cards simply reflect something back to me that’s already there. When I muddy that mirror with too much overthinking and analyzing, it becomes harder to see clearly. But when I loosen up and approach it with curiosity and playfulness, I become more receptive.

That doesn’t mean I always understand everything immediately. Sometimes my own mind still gets in the way. Sometimes I still question myself. But I’ve learned that intuition rarely arrives as absolute certainty.

Even if Elena and I pulled the exact same cards, the meaning would be different for each of us because our experiences, emotions, and inner worlds are different.

It’s the same with astrology. For most of my life, I only knew my sun sign. I had no idea about moon signs, rising signs, houses, or planetary placements. As I slowly learned more, certain parts of myself began making a lot more sense to me.

Elena told me astrology also seemed complicated. But I told her that if we only look at something from the outside and decide it’s too complicated, then it will probably continue feeling that way. Sometimes understanding only comes when we actually step into something and begin exploring it for ourselves.

There are moments when I wonder whether I’m interpreting something correctly or not. But I try to approach these practices with curiosity instead of pressure. That makes a huge difference.

How Intuition Feels for Me

Intuition has shown up for me in many different ways over the years.

Sometimes it appears as a physical sensation. During Reiki practice, my hands may suddenly feel warm. Other times, I’ve felt a deep sensation in my heart or solar plexus area that felt like an inner knowing.

One evening, I was unwinding at home with my husband when I suddenly felt still and steady deep down, along with a sensation in my heart and solar plexus areas. Something inside me quietly told me that a relative had passed away.

The next day, when my family confirmed the news, I realized the timing matched that exact moment of stillness the night before.

For me, intuition often feels quiet and steady rather than dramatic.

When I feel more connected to myself, there’s usually a sense of stillness underneath everything else. Not necessarily the absence of thoughts, but something calm beneath the noise.

I told Elena that when her mind feels loud, she doesn’t need to force herself into silence. Trying to force it usually creates even more tension.

What helps me instead is gently tuning into my heart and finding the place inside myself that already feels steady.

Sometimes I picture myself floating in space surrounded by stars and galaxies. Even though there’s endless movement around me, there’s also silence, darkness, and stillness. I feel a similar stillness when I look up at the night sky.

That’s another thing I’ve learned: spiritual practices are deeply personal. I’ve seen many people, including myself, ask how they know whether it’s truly their intuition speaking to them. A lot of it comes down to learning how to trust ourselves.

Many of us have spent so much time looking outside of ourselves for answers, confirmation, and validation that our trust in ourselves has weakened over time. Learning to cultivate that trust takes patience, experience, and self-awareness.

I’ve heard many teachers encourage making decisions and taking action because that’s how we gain experience and learn about ourselves. I also remember Wayne Dyer's teaching that "there’s no such thing as failure, only results."

What does trusting myself look like? For me, it means doing my best to get still, tune in, and make the decision for myself.

And if that decision doesn’t lead to the outcome I hoped for, of course it can feel disappointing. It can feel like I made the “wrong” choice or failed somehow. I don’t think we need to dismiss those feelings or pretend they don’t hurt.

But over time, I’ve started realizing that not every decision that leads to discomfort is necessarily the wrong one. Every experience has value. Situations that initially feel painful, frustrating, or disappointing end up teaching us something important or guiding us somewhere we couldn’t yet see at the time.

So instead of viewing those moments purely as failures, I try to see them as part of the learning. Part of building trust with myself. Every decision, experience, and outcome teaches me something and helps inform my next steps.

There Is No One Right Way

There are many ways to meditate, many ways to connect, many ways to return to ourselves. Some people resonate with sitting upright in silence every day. Others may connect more through movement, creativity, prayer, music, or being in nature.

For me, it changes depending on the day and what I need.

Sometimes I use mala beads I crafted myself, and other times I turn to bracelet beads I’ve collected. 

Sometimes I sit quietly and focus on my breathing.

Sometimes I use a timer with gentle intervals on my phone to help bring my attention back to the present moment whenever my mind drifts.

I’ve learned that getting creative can be deeply meditative, too. Whether it’s sketching, intuitive painting, or just working on a jigsaw puzzle, losing myself in a creative project brings a sense of quiet focus.

Other times, it’s as simple as writing down a few thoughts about what’s bothering me or overwhelming me in the moment. Sometimes just putting the thoughts onto paper or saying them out loud helps release some of the heaviness surrounding them.

Other times I connect more through movement practices like yoga or dancing.

None of these ways feel more “correct” than the others to me.

Even dreams have become part of how I listen to myself.

The imagery in dreams isn’t always easy for me to understand, but I’ve learned to pay attention to how I feel during them. That emotional feeling often tells me more than the actual symbols themselves.

Sometimes in my dreams, I suddenly become very still and quiet inside even if there’s chaos happening around me. I hear a specific word or name, and when I wake up, I immediately write it down because something inside me recognizes that moment as important.

Whether someone calls it intuition, higher self, inner knowing, or spirit guides doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is learning how to listen to ourselves in a deeper way.

Quiet Inner Nudges

One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that intuition rarely looks the same for everybody.

Every person experiences it differently. Even for the same person, intuition may appear differently depending on the situation. I know that can feel frustrating because many of us want one clear answer or one “right” method we can follow perfectly.

We spend so much of our lives looking outside of ourselves for answers, approval, certainty, and authority that it can feel uncomfortable learning how to trust our own inner experience.

Practices like tarot, oracle cards, crystals, Reiki, astrology, meditation, or divination can either become ways to reconnect with ourselves or things we hand our power over to.

For me, they feel more like support and companions.

I don’t see cards as external objects magically giving me answers. I see them as reflections that help me access something already within me. I don’t look at crystals as objects with magical powers either. I see them more as companions that help me focus my intention and awareness.

The intention itself still comes from me.

Toward the end of our conversation, I told Elena to think back to moments in her life where something made her suddenly pause. Maybe it was a line in a movie, a random sentence someone said, a dream, a feeling, or a quiet inner nudge she couldn’t explain.

Intuition doesn’t always arrive as some grand, movie-like experience.

Sometimes it’s simply that small nudge inside ourselves that says, “Pay attention.”

Even now, there are moments where I wonder whether something is intuition or coincidence, even though I’ve always believed things happen for a reason. There’s still a voice in my mind that questions things sometimes. But I’ve also noticed that the more I pay attention to those subtle moments, the more connected I feel to myself.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s necessary to analyze every single thing that happens. That would become exhausting very quickly.

Intuition isn’t about becoming someone who is certain all the time. It’s about learning how to notice ourselves more deeply. Learning what our inner nudges feel like. Learning what stillness feels like beneath the noise.

There isn’t one correct way to connect with ourselves spiritually. We learn by exploring, questioning, practicing, doubting, trying again, and paying attention to what quietly resonates within us.

Even now, I’m still learning. It’s a lifelong process, and I don’t think we ever really stop unfolding into a deeper understanding of who we are.