Words arrived again last night. As I sat with them, I realized they offered a clue into something I’d been struggling with. How does one describe intuition?
It can be challenging in my current work to describe things that seem to defy language. How do I describe the state of psi, or wholeness, or presence in a way that holds true yet doesn’t box in a specific experience? I have done my best to meet this need, but there are still questions. One of the most repeated questions I receive after keynotes and in workshops is around intuition.
For what is intuition really? One workshop attendee described it simply as masked desire. She offered that this desire may have been previously unrecognized and so when it rose to the surface, it felt like it came from nowhere. But in actuality, it was simply a need arising from ourselves. I pondered this, and I believe there is some truth to the idea that intuition comes from within ourselves. Where we differ is around the concept of desire, yet I still couldn’t quite explain why.
Until this morning. Last night’s words have provided a clarity that gives me goosebumps. A realization that all of us have experienced an intuition that goes beyond desire and that likely, this intuition surfaced in our lives even before language. The words were around color.
“I have such feelings about color. Perhaps that’s how I initially found my intuition. / Color permeates your being until it reaches your soul.”
When we are young, we are asked, “What is your favorite color?” At that moment, we answer with a color that feels most resonant with us, that excites us. We feel something about pink, or green, or blue. It represents something that isn’t depicted through cognition. It speaks to our deeper selves. I have always loved fuchsia. It has always spoken to me and felt alive, playful, bold. It tells me that I can be all of those things and even more. This example of color reminds me that intuition begins long before we ever call it intuition. It actually begins the first time something simply feels true before we know why.
These words have me thinking about all the beauty we see in the world. The things themselves don’t communicate beauty. When we see a sunset, the label is sunset. If we were to intellectually describe the sunset, we would say that the sun appears to rise and set each day as the earth moves. We might say that depending on weather and cloud cover, the sun could create a band of colors across the sky or simply not be seen at all.
And yet, sunsets are one of the things we seek out consistently. We go to the spot where you can see it most vastly, we take picture after picture, we ponder ourselves as we sit with it. Undoubtedly, we sense something bigger about the sunset in those moments. This sensation goes beyond our minds and beyond our intellect. It is felt. Often without words, it is an energy, an encompassing, divinity in form. We all have these moments of feeling inordinate beauty – whether it is the first snow, the daffodils as they peek out under spring thaw, birds as they fly majestically through the air. Long before we explain these moments, we experience them.
In order to make use of intuition, we move the intuitive feeling through our minds to create something tangible. For me, that means turning it into words. I see leaders do this every day in business. Without concrete answers, and with competing priorities and conflicting data, leaders are using feelings and intuition (labeled instinct) all the time. I see parents do this every day as they rear their children. There is no parenting manual and so we trust our “instincts.” Intuition can be one of the most powerful ways we move through the world and is expanded through trust. The more we use it, the more we see its brilliance, vitality and possibility.
Intuition is the magic of color existing unidentifiably until it permeates our soul.