Intuition
From Sense Think Act
[edit] INTUITION PART 1
- exercise: Positive Frame of Mind A
Spend a week pushing yourself to notice the positive aspects of people and places you would not normally exude enthusiasm towards. Each day go up to someone and fearlessly compliment them on some positive quality you have noticed. Repeat this 'seeing positive' week occasionally until the practice becomes a permanent habit. Once you have the knack of always taking a positive direction or viewpoint it won't seem such an effort.
- exercise: Positive Frame of Mind B
Write out a testimonial to some quality you have enjoyed in yourself in the last week. Having difficulty? O.K. Try this way... write down something positive about yourself, the smallest thing will do. Expand it with examples and anecdotes. If you get stuck not remembering anything, don't stop... fantasise. It's better to have a positive fantasy than to be stuck feeling glum - and it may even make you laugh. Repeat weekly at a set time until your notebook, and your head, is filled with well you are doing (when everything you have had to deal with is taken into account).
- exercise: Positive Frame of mind C
Negative events must be seen as learning experiences. Choose an negative event and see all its constructive aspects. Take a sheet of paper. At the top write a title for the bad event. Then below make a list of all possible positive aspects that ensued or might have ensued. Let you imagination run riot.
There is always some value in the troublesome. It is of prime importance that this is brought to the fore if intuition is to work well.
- exercise:Positive Frame of Mind D
Each evening as you go to bed prepare some positive thought with which to begin the next day. Make a collection of such pleasant and inspiring thoughts. Keep it as a direction through the day. Any suspicion of melancholy should be combatted with reference to the thought. Such positive directions can be associated with an amulet or 'charm' which will act as a constant reminder of the 'realness' of that which is without substance.
- exercise: Positive Frame of Mind E
On meeting another person be sure to point out something worthy of notice. Ideally something about them. Then go on to tell them something pleasing that happened recently and encourage them to do the same.
As I have noted in the Memory section it is the first impressions (and parting shots) that are most memorable. Starting a meeting on such a positive note will effect the subsequent pattern of events out of all proportion to the effort that it requires.
- exercise: Positive Frame of Mind F
Stand back and behold your life. Take a day off. Write the story of the last year in the third person. Be a ruthless, but not negative or pessimistic, documenter. Reread it and then write it again in a more positive, insightful or useful way. Then leave it for a week or so and coming back to it read it as if you were a critic out to review and analyse the performance of a dear friend.
Make notes.
- exercise: Information Saturation
The area in which you need intuitive insight must be looked at from all angles and with all senses. Interact as fully as you are able with the subject.
Select a defined area of wall or pin-board as your centre of operation. Pin up a list of approaches to your interest. Make a timetable perhaps. Find illustrations and put them up. Decorate the 'centre of operations' for its own sake. Concentrate on making this area lively rather than trying to hard to 'solving problems'.
Take any excuses to make visits. Arrange to meet old codgers who did it first. Ask museum curators, and continue to amass relevant data and other things that take your fancy at the centre of operation. Sometimes let yourself wander off the subject. Look through a magazine. This light focus with lots of energy is just what intuition needs to come up with brilliant ideas.
- exercise: Identification of Your Own Subjective Position
It is a matter of getting to know yourself and the origin of your opinions and feelings in the events of your past. Becoming aware of your own history and the conditions in which you developed.
Look at your lifestory in detail to find areas in which emotion is stirred; in which you have strong views that have never been carefully thought through. The best way to do this is to make a pact with someone to exchange life stories in great detail. Keep to one lifestory for at least half an hour at a time. The person not telling hir story should ask questions and be supportive but refrain from telling similar stories from hir own life.
If this isn't possible write or draw a cartoon-strip of your story illustrated with photo-snaps and other evidences. Be sure to answer the following key questions and all their implications. Having identified your peer groups it is a good strategy to spend time with what you like and then what you dislike.
[edit] Key Questions
- 1. What class are your parents? What class or life style were you brought up and schooled in?
- 2. What race(s) are your parents (or guardians)? What part did different cultures play in your upbringing?
- 3. How has your gender conditioning influenced you? How do you relate or identify with any gender stereotypes?
- 4. What special or minority groups are you, or were you, part of? e.g. homosexual. disabled, artist.
- 5. How did religion play a part in your upbringing?
- 6. How were you treated as a child?
- 7. Did you experience any traumatic or life changing events not covered by the above questions?
Each group has its particular hurts and its rigidities as well as values and culture to be proud of. (link to emotion ...)
