Episode 34: Most Underrated Spiritual Practice to Grow Your Intuition

Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's episode. I'm so excited to talk to you about this topic today because we're going to be talking about intuition some more, which I'm super excited about, because who doesn't want to tap into their intuition, right? So today, what we're going to do is we're going to start today's show off with a quote by Albert Einstein. And that quote is, "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

That's by Albert Einstein. And I think it's such a wise observation because we have a sacred gift, and that is intuition. Our intuition is here to support us, to allow us to fold time, to allow us to tap into the infinite possibilities that our soul is here to co-create with the universe. When we use our intuition, we can tap into our highest and best path.

So what practice can you use to develop your intentions? That practice would be breathing. Sacred breath practices are super powerful. And the breath practice that I'm going to recommend that will help you to develop your intuition is called Nadi Shodhana, which is also called Alternate Nostril Breathing. And I believe that this is a powerful breathing practice that can help you develop your intuition because it balances the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

When you're doing this type of breathing practice, you're alternating breathing through the left nostril, then the right, the right, through the left, and back and forth. And what this is doing is it's balancing the masculine and the feminine. So our masculine side is our right side. This is our action side. This is our Yang side. This is our doing side. We have to have the masculine in our life. We also have to have the feminine, which is our yin side. This is more of our intuitive side, our lunar side, our softer side. We want both because together it creates a whole.

And naturally, our nostrils will take turns on which side is going to be more dominant and what side is going to be less dominant throughout our day. And it's about every 40 minutes or so, it will switch. You can test it right now. If you want to put your hand underneath your nostrils, maybe about six inches and palm facing up, you can exhale, and you can breathe out through the nose. And you'll feel what nostril is stronger than the other side.

So when you're doing this type of breathing practice, you'll also notice which one is more dominant when you're doing it. But either way, each channel, each nostril is going to get a lot of fresh oxygen. And that fresh oxygen is going to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. It's going to help regulate your nervous system. So your nervous system is going to get a bath and this bath is going to help reduce anxiety and help reduce stress.

And when you're less stressed and you have less anxiety, you can pay attention to those hunches, those gut feelings. Your intuition might go from a small little whisper to a really loud voice because you're allowing space to receive messages. This is also a great practice to do before meditation or after meditation. I find that I drop into meditation more easily when I do some breathing practices beforehand.

Is my breathing practice always going to be alternative nostril breathing before I start meditating? No. I will do whatever breathing practice I am guided to do in that particular moment. Every type of breath practice is going to help you no matter what. This particular breath practice is focused on balancing the right and left hemispheres of the brain because of the way that we are breathing.

This particular breathing practice is also going to help quiet the mind. Now when you're doing it, is your mind going to always be quiet? Absolutely not. In the beginning, your mind might be quieter than it will be later on. And the reason why I'm saying that is because when we're doing something new, especially breathing practices that involve hands or involve a certain process, we're focusing on the steps at first, and then eventually your body will start automatically doing it so then your mind goes, "Oh wait, I have time to think about my to-do list today," or, "I have time to think about a conversation I had a week ago that I'm still stewing on," or, "I have time to think about...."

Whatever it is that your brain wants to think about that's random at that particular moment. And so, no matter what, when you're doing breathing practices, your mind has the opportunity to get quiet. If your mind starts to wander when you're doing it, you just come back to the breath. You focus on the inhale, you focus on the exhale, you focus on the quality of the inhale, the quality of the exhale, and you focus on the count of the breath as well.

So this particular breathing practice I'm going to give you guys access to, I'm not going to do it here on the show today. Just from a logistical standpoint, some of you might be driving or doing something while you're listening to this podcast. And I'd love you to try this breathing practice on your own without any distractions or whatever it is that you're doing at this moment in time. And so if you'd like to, there's going to be a link in the show notes that you can go to that will allow you to access this breathing practice. And I'll do it with you as well.

And I believe that when we have a lot of stress and we have a lot of anxiety seen or unseen, known or unknown because sometimes we are operating at a high level of stress and that's become our normal and we don't even realize how stressed out we are. When we operate with this high level of stress and anxiety, we become the servant. Instead of tapping into the intuitive side of our being that wants to share with us what we could be doing differently or how or what path we could be taking. I find that when I do breathing practices I am a lot more present with myself as well. So it's a really powerful gift of tapping into that inner knowing and what I mean by present with myself. I'm not quick to judge, I'm not quick to find an excuse for why I can't do something or I'm not quick to criticize how I'm doing something.

I'm actually in a different state of peace, I'm in a different state of mind. And this is because you're giving yourself that fresh oxygen. You're balancing things in a little bit of a different way. I have also found that by doing this particular breath exercise, I am way more in tune with my body. This particular breath does something and I'm not a scientist, I'm not a doctor, I don't know exactly what it does to the brain besides balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain. But when it does this, when you balance out that masculine and feminine, I find that my physical body feels different and I have different communication with my physical body. And my physical body is able to tune into and be with its own natural frequency. And when it's tuned in to that natural frequency, that means my soul is able to speak to me easier through my body, through my being, through my heart. And it's really neat to witness.

This morning.... I have a toddler. This morning my toddler woke up super early and so sometimes I get to meditate before she wakes up. Sometimes I have to meditate after she wakes up. And so this morning we were sitting on the couch and she was drinking her milk and so I sat there and did my alternative nostril breathing. And by doing this I was able to just allow my body to wake up a little bit more but still ease into the day. And I want to share this with you because a lot of people think that when you're doing a breath exercise, it has to be done in this quiet room while you're doing nothing else.

And it has to be this really sacred practice, which it is, it is a very sacred practice, but the practice will meet you where you're at no matter what it is that you are doing. And for me, the best time to do it was this morning while my daughter was drinking her milk because I wanted to do some sort of practice, but she woke up really early so I couldn't do it before she started her day. So we started it by just doing some breathing practices. So know that it doesn't have to be perfect, it can be wherever it is that you want it to be.

An extra benefit to this particular practice as well is it can support your cardiovascular system, your heart and your lungs. Now, I'm not a doctor, if you do these breathing practices and you have asthma or any sort of other breathing condition that you are concerned about, I would highly recommend talking to your doctor before starting a breathing practice such as this. These particular breathing practices have been shown in studies to improve the cardiovascular system, which is really neat to see. It also lowers the heart rate as well because we're calming the system down. This particular breathing exercise will also increase your Prana, which is your vital life force, which is also known as Chi.

When we're bringing and stoking that inner flame, our inner being, we want that vital life force to propel us, to invoke us, to support us in our journey and in our adventure in this lifetime. And so this particular breathing exercise and all breathing exercises are going to promote and bring in more of that Chi, more of that prana, which is really, really important. So if you're wanting to one grow your intuition, but most importantly, you're wanting a tool that can help you with your mental health, alternative nostril breathing is going to be an amazing sacred practice for you. If you're interested, click on the link in the show notes to learn how to do this breathing exercise. I'm going to walk you through the practice itself.

I hope that you find time to do any sort of breath practice throughout the day. It can literally be ten conscious breaths where you're breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth, where you're breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. It can be super powerful. You deserve to be balanced, masculine, and feminine and I hope that you find a breathing practice that helps you feel that way. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

And as always, please make sure you like and subscribe. It helps more than you know. Growing a community and I would love for us to support each other so no one feels alone in this journey. Have an amazing day. I look forward to seeing you soon. Bye.