First things first: intuition is real. And its great.

It used to be weighted down by misconceptions and an aura of woo-woo, but nowadays its recognised in many fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and business leadership.

I once made an interview with a successful business leader and we got to talk about decision making in general and in particular how to take fast decisions. He said: 

”you’ve got to go for the first impulse. Then you can consider your options more, but that first impulse is the right one, it almost always is.” 

That first impulse is the intuitive one. And learning to trust is may be one of the most important things you can do. 

Intuition is that gut feeling that instantly tells you when something, or someone, feels on, or off. A help in fast, direct decision making, but intuition is also being able to access the vat reserve of knowledge and information which is stored inside your central nervous system. I like to think of them as two aspects of intuition, equally valuable, and equally fascinating.

Sometimes intuition shows as the feeling that something is off with a person or situation. Sometimes its that first impulse directing you to pick a color for painting your kitchen, and it turns out to be a decision that will make you think ”Im so glad I want with that first impulse, its perfect!” Sometimes its shows up when you are forced to make a really fast, and bold, decision that later turned out to be the right one. This is the yes or no intuitive mental signpost.

The other aspect of intuition shows up when you’ve been working on a complex problem and suddenly the solution appears fully formed in your head while you’re doing something else. Or, in the way you gain clarity and new perspectives on a situation by simply going for a long walk in nature.

Intuition is pattern recognition

Those things are not random, and they’re likely not interventions of some higher power guiding and protecting you. They are signs your nervous system is integrating information that you have gathered throughout your entire life. All that information is subconsciously being put together to form a somatic ‘yes’, ‘no’, or sense of direction that can be felt in your body. 

Sometimes intuition is described as rapid, unconscious pattern recognition, as in the concept of system 1 processing, a term popularised by Daniel Kahneman. Fast, automatic, associative. And embodied. Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio introduced the idea of somatic markers: bodily signals that guide decision-making before conscious reasoning kicks in.

Pattern recognition implies that intuition is build from experience. every book you’ve ever read. Every situation you’ve encountered. Every conversation you’ve ever had. Your entire life experience, for a moment suddenly available. 

Your body and mind are constantly updating their predictive models of the world. Most of it happens outside the realm of conscious awareness. So it feels like magic, but it’s a glimpse of what happens when you are fully aligned with yourself, and fully present in the current moment. 

On a philosophical level we may talk about oneness. One with the entity we can refer to as ’God’, or a higher power, or the universe. In the abrahamic religions there is the idea of the individual soul, in relation to something greater. ”God”. Ideas of oneness implies that higher states of consciousness arrives when we are aligned with everything that isn’t our own, individual bodies. 

In Vedic philosophy the unity of the atma (self) with the brahma (universal consciousness) is central. And the realisation that atma and brahma are one is what leads to liberation, a higher state. In buddhism there is a reach for higher consciousness, a state of self realisation. This may occur when the pure consciousness is freed from kleshas (the five mind afflications). Pure consciousness is all knowing, understands everything. My point is that there has clearly long been an understanding that there is something more than the part of ourselves of which we are aware. Intuition taps into these lines of thinking precisely because it is something bigger, deeper, and its right there on the edge of conscious awareness. Accessing it requires connection with something outside of ourselves.

We are not atoms. We are integrated with the world around us

Most people tend to think of themselves as contained individuals walking around in the world but we’re not. We are integrated. It’s a biological reality. 

Your nervous system is constantly processing information: light, sound, temperature, other peoples fascial micro-expressions, etc., and respond to that information in different ways. When you breathe you exchange gases with the atmosphere surrounding you. We integrate with bacteria and viruses. Not just to trigger an immune response, some researchers go as far as suggesting gut bacteria manipulate our behaviour. We are affected by the food we eat and the water we drink. Some people believe that we are affected by moon phases or star constellations. Experiences in previous lives, connections to ancestors…

Ok, let’s not go further down that slope.

The point is: the brain is not a detached command center. It is an organ that predicts and regulates bodily states in relation to the environment. 

And that leads us to the real beauty of intuition. The wide, and wild definition of what it means to be a moving, feeling, sensing being; always, indisputably intertwined with its surrounding environment. Our bodies movements through space creates a weave that embraces us and simultaneously form and is formed by how we experience things here and now. 

The myth of the fully conscious mind

And that brings us to the idea of the fully conscious mind. Which is nothing more than an idea, as we are not aware of most of what going on inside our brains. 

The conscious mind, the part of you reading this text feels like it’s central. Almost authoritative. It’s not, however. It’s more like a tiny spotlight lighting up a fraction of the neural landscape of your brain. Working memory, what you actively hold in awareness, is extremely limited. While your working memory allows you to be aware of some things, billions of neural process run in parallell below awareness.

There is no universally agreed-upon definition of consciousness. There are theories, conflicting ideas, and endless debates among philosophers and neuroscientists. But what is clear is this: what you are aware of is just a fraction of whats going on. 

Intuition is a product of this: its knowledge that exists, but which is not formatted for conscious access. It doesn’t arrive as a bullet list, but rather as a pull, a shift, a yes or no.

When I was a child, someone mentioned to me that everything I learned was still in my brain, I just didn’t remember it. And so I daydreamed of being able to access my brain, I pictured it as walking into a library full of pockets (round, plastic, bubble shaped pockets) from where I could produce pieces of knowledge right when I needed them. I would also imagine storing new knowledge in my brain library; in my mind I entered, found an empty round bubble pocket, and put the knowledge inside.

Turned out that daydream fantasy wasn’t so very far from reality. Except, of course, we cannot enter our in-brain libraries and pick out information just like that.

Therefore, intuition is elusive. We don’t know where to look for information to guide us in a certain situation, so instead we rely heavily on knowledge and information which is currently available to our conscious mind. And we get stuck in thinking mode, with very little prospect of finding a straightforward way out. 

Why the answer comes when you least expect it

I’m sure yo are familiar with it. You’re are facing a problem. You’re researching, gathering information, testing various scenarios in your head. Search for new perspectives. And then, while you’re in the shower, the solution pops up like its always been there. And it’s a solution that feels right, one that gives a sense of peace inside your body and your gut. 

When you are deeply focused the brain’s task-positive networks dominate. When you disengage and allow your mind to wander, the default mode network becomes active instead. This network is associated with internal reflection, memory integration, and creative insight. In states of relaxed alertness, previously unconnected information can integrate. 

Just because it’s there, doesn’t mean it’s there. So what do we do?

We tend to respond to uncertainty by consuming more information. And, of course, more information can offer perspectives and valuable insights. But we also reach a point where the most efficient move won’t be more information but space. Space to integrate all that which we already know so that is can surface as the wisdom we need. So how exactly do we create that space? Taking showers and going for long walks in nature might work to some extent but they’re time consuming and not always practically possible. 

What we need is a protocol that directs our conscious awareness away from the problem we’re working on, while also keeping it from engaging too deeply in another problem, or in general worrying about life. A protocol that also involves the somatic layer, since intuition is more of a mind-body thing, and a protocol that is accessible and low threshold. 

Thus, may I introduce conscious movement!

The movement intuition love story

Conscious movement, specifically exploratory, investigative movements, creates a unique cognitive state. When you focus on physical sensations: your breath, the temperature raising in your body, the way your muscles fibres engage and release, how your weight distributes, etc. your attention anchors in the body. Unlike abstract thinking, bodily sensations provides immediate, continuous feedback. The body gives the mind something concrete to hold on to. And this does several things:

• It keeps your working memory occupied.
• It helps you stay present in the current moment.
• It reduces muscular tension, especially around the spine and spinal cord, which makes neural communication more efficient. 
• It serves as a subconscious reminder that you are capable, free, and in charge over your own life.

It also helps us tap into the connection between the somatic and subconscious knowledge. Certain memories arise when we move in certain ways. Muscle memory can be connected to experiences that gave us valuable information. We are not aware of what movements, and what memories, but the more we engage movement throughout the body, the more likely we are to stir up the memory bank a bit, as hopefully release something that will prove valuable to us. 

The dance with no expectation paradox

Moving with the expectation that brilliance will appear however, is a fast way to ruin the process. Intuition doesn’t work under pressure. Whenever you try to catch it, it will escape, like a shy stray dog who runs the moment you reach out to touch them. Focus has to be on the process, not the outcome. 

For me it works to move with a clearly defined somatic purpose. I move with the intention to free my body from tension. Not to reach deep into the unconscious ocean of my mind, and not even to keep my mind from thinking. Just that: releasing tension in my body. It requires: 

• focused attention and precision, 
• it gives my mind something concrete to hold on to, 
• disconnects me from deliberate thinking, and 
• provides direct somatic feedback. 

I imagine moving with the purpose of learning a skill, such as learning to do handstands, or do tricks with a ball, would have similar advantages. But, I also get the benefits of having a body that feels amazing: free from tension, supple, mobile, highly functional. 

Conscious Movement and somatic awareness also directs you towards paying more attention to bodily sensations, which in turn helps in catching the first intuitive response. 

So can you train your intuition? I would say yes. You can train yourself to get into a state of mind release- bodily feedback faster. Think of it as a way to shorten the distance between working memory and your subconscious wisdom. Repetition makes the process more familiar. You can also train your ability to shut off thinking, which is exactly what conscious movement with intentional focus on the body does. 

When you learn to really tune in, you might discover that you can in fact just listen to your body. And it will lead you on the right path, despite what logical arguments your mind comes up with. 

The question is: can you trust the process enough to do so?