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Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

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conditioning

Self Knowledge – Differentiating Intuition From Conditioning

August 10, 2011 By Nathalie Himmelrich Leave a Comment

intuition
Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

Part of anyone’s personal development will be getting to know yourself and learning to tap into your intuition. At the beginning of that endeavor this can be a not so easy challenge to sort out “what really is intuition and what is all the other ‘crap'”?

Conditioning

To shed a bit more light on what’s driving you we need to understand conditioning. The way you are today, the way you think and behave is the result of your conditioning, your upbringing and your education. The sentences you heard from your parents, all well-meant and intended, will have left a mark on your unconscious mind. Some of those statements have become guiding principles, like the policies of a company that are stored somewhere in the archive cupboard.

Years later, in the present time, you are still running your ship with guiding principles and policies that might have been useful at an earlier time, but are outdated now. The crux of the situation is that they don’t update themselves, they quietly influence your everyday thinking, emoting and behaving. It’s time to clear out that archive cupboard and throw out those not really useful beliefs!

How to find limiting beliefs or guiding principles?

Start by listening to your mind. For example, you might be standing in the kitchen, preparing breakfast, intuitively reaching for the passion fruit yoghurt when a voice says: ‘You should first use up the blueberry yoghurt or it goes off.’ Alarm bells! ‘Should’ is always a good indication that you’ve just uncovered some old belief or guiding principle that was created by someone else. In the example it might be something like ‘You shouldn’t waste food’ or ‘You must always eat up what’s on your plate’ (later ‘in your fridge’). Does this make sense?

Even though those principles may not be ‘wrong’ as such, it is questionable if you are in the process of honing your intuition. For whatever reason, you were reaching for the passion fruit yoghurt. Often there is no clear logical explanation for intuition so don’t bother searching for one. It just is.

Choice point

When you are at the point where you notice what I’ve just explained in the example above, you are now at the point of being able to make your choice. This is the process of getting to know yourself and finding your voice of intuition.

If you find yourself overthinking a topic, there is a good chance that intuition has already been surpassed a while ago. Intuition usually is like a subtle voice, sense, or feeling that comes immediately when you do something. Also if you find yourself tossing and turning between two options that sound equally good and you find it hard to make a decision, just step back for a moment and when you come back to it, go with your gut instinct – that’s practising following your intuition.

Filed Under: inspiration/humour, self development/motivation, spirituality Tagged With: conditioning, education, parenting, upbringing, value

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    Nathalie Himmelrich

    I accompany people therapeutically as a holistic counsellor and coach.

    I walk alongside people dealing with the challenges presented by life and death.

    I’m also a writer and published author of multiple grief resource books and the founder of the Grieving Parents Support Network.

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