Mastering Fear, Harnessing Intuition

Does listening to your intuition mean that you can always prevent a harmful event from occurring? No! Can it help? Yes! And practice is your friend in learning to use these tools out in the world. When one learns to master imaginary fear and then tap into and recognize legitimate warning signs via intuitive gut hits, avoiding unfavorable circumstances in one’s life without living in the constant vibration of fear becomes possible.

A simple example, a black sedan follows someone all the way home, and it creates overwhelming fear in them; from that point forward, seeing any black sedan might bring up that body memory and recreate the fear. The question becomes, how would you know it was born from intuition rather than imaginary fear? Again, this is an important distinction to understand because it can save your or someone you know’s life. As the title suggests, the prerequisite to harnessing our intuitions is mastering our fears. To do that, we must first understand what fear is, exactly, as the line between fear and intuition can be very blurry.

Real vs Illusory Fear

There are two types of fear: real and illusory or what you may call, imaginary. Real fear is the kind that triggers primal responses that protect us. For instance, if an unknown person were to start chasing you down the street, you would run—and it’s real fear that gets your feet moving. Real fear is set in the present moment and is essential for survival. Real fear happens daily, from our natural fight-or-flight responses to even the simplest things, like a wasp circling near us. Fight-or-flight is a primal response to a situation that could cause potential physical, mental, or emotional harm.

The three natural stages of fight or flight are 1) the alarm stage, where your body is preparing to fight or flee 2) the resistance or freeze stage, when your body attempts to normalize and recover from the initial fight or flight response; and 3) the exhaustion or fawn stage, when our body wants to deescalate the situation, and we become hopeful that we can smooth over the situation to rid ourselves of the perceived threat. Fight or flight response plays a critical role in our survival. It is gearing you to fight or flee in dire circumstances, which makes it more likely that you will survive the danger.

On the other hand, illusory fear is anxiety about what could go wrong rather than what is happening now. This brand of fear is rampantly available in our human world. Set in the what-if of the future rather than the reality of the now, imagined fear ultimately hinders living life to the fullest if not overcome. What are you afraid of? If you’re like most people, you can rattle off a list of things pretty quickly, and chances are most-if-not-all of those fears are illusory. Most of the fears we deal with in our human lives are illusory. Once we understand and then master our fears, it clears the way to live a Spirit-led life guided by our intuition, which is what Spirit wants for us—the secret to life, indeed!

Illusory fear and intuitive hits are future-focused and, therefore, easily confused. While we tend to internalize our fear based feelings as real, we similarly tend to belittle our intuitive voices. The spirit world is always sending us signs of validation and caution; the problem is we often write it off as “coincidence” or “paranoia.”

What am I feeling: Fear or Intuition

That’s why understanding the difference between perceived fear and intuition is vital in living a Spirit-led life in a sometimes frightening world. So, what’s the trick to deciphering between fear and intuition? Telling the difference starts with examining the feelings in your gut around your thoughts. Feel anxious and overwhelmed? That’s fear. Feel calm and certain? That’s intuition.

Our intuitive voice comes to us as a neutral thought—the message could be scary (i.e., this person is not safe), but the way it comes is calm and factual. It is not necessarily calming information, often it’s not, but it’s peaceful in feeling when it’s delivered. In other words, it isn’t a story that your anxious, fear-based mind is telling, but a message from your soul meant to guide or protect you or someone else. Intuition is a sudden knowing, an instant understanding of something you otherwise wouldn’t have known or considered. Intuition is affirming.

Fear, on the other hand, can be a very dark, heavy, or terrifying energy. Some fear, as discussed, is necessary for survival. The distinction is that real fear presents a clear and present danger, whereas imagined fear creates a story around something that may or may not happen.

When we are steeped in fear, we are constantly on high alert; when we are in sync with our intuition, we are in a state of affirmative awareness. In other words, while fear is messy, intuition is straightforward. Real fear keeps us safe; intuition keeps us safe—but illusory fear does not. Mastering fear just comes down to a simple reality check: ask yourself, is this real or imagined fear? If it’s real, run, so to speak. If it’s imagined, shift gears; turn the volume way down on that irrational “what if” voice for a minute to better hear what your calm, intuitive voice has to say. Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve been waiting for a driver, and when it finally reaches you, the door opens, and someone is inside that instantly undeniably gives you that uncomfortable feeling in your gut? It could be the sleekest business person, flashing the biggest smile, with no glaringly obvious physical indicators of any ill will, but for whatever reason, your gut whispers to you: don’t get in that car! If you’re like most people, you’ll ignore that small (but mighty) intuitive voice and get in anyway. And it’s precisely in situations like this, when people talk themselves out of their inner intuitive voice, that some of the most tragic scenarios unfold, such as kidnappings, violence, and murder.

Honoring Instincts

It’s rare that people listen to that gut instinct and wait for another car. Why is this? We place more value on social cohesion, wanting to be kind, and blending in; therefore, we don’t honor our intuition. When we honor those instincts, we become spiritually connected people who understand self-protection.

A great example of this is with one of my clients; I’ll call Nicole, who narrowly escaped probable danger because she did listen to that quiet voice screaming inside her. She went on a date with a man from a dating app, and all went well, so they agreed to meet again. On their second date, she decided to drive with him rather than meet him at their destination as they had established some semblance of trust. During the drive that night, her date suddenly said he had to pull over for a second to get something from the back of his truck. Feeling a bit strange about that, she tried to watch what he was doing through the rearview mirror and happened to see a shovel, some rope, and a blanket in the back.

You have to go NOW, her gut told her. Her mind fought back: Maybe he’s just a hunter? Maybe he just worked construction on the side? Maybe he’s just a handyman? All these things could have been used to explain her intuitive hit away, but she chose to listen to it, got out of the car, and told him she felt suddenly unwell and would walk home, leaving him confused as he didn’t know she saw what she saw.

Nicole called me a few days later to affirm her intuitive nudges and see if this guy really was a dangerous person or if she was just paranoid. I told her that his energy felt very dangerous to me. I told her that I didn’t know if he was a killer, but I knew he was definitely connected to one. Soon after that, she discovered that he was the brother of a notorious serial killer of women who had recently been arrested and charged in California.

Intuition will Keep Your Safe

What would have happened if she didn’t get out of the car? Maybe nothing, but my gut says otherwise, and so did hers. And that is all that matters. The point is that she trusted her instincts enough to get out of the car, not only because she saw some questionable items but more importantly because she felt that something was off; she had an uncomfortable feeling inside her bones. Please remember that when something feels off, the chances are high that it is.

This entire article is about the vital importance of distinguishing between fear and intuition so that you and the people you love remain as safe as possible in an unpredictable world. The irony is that people who live their lives steeped in illusory fear really want to stay safe, but their allegiance to fear actually puts them in harm’s way on many levels. It’s our intuition that keeps us safe, and that’s the muscle we must strengthen.

For all its glory, this world can also be a very scary place in many ways; that is undeniable. For that reason, most people default to navigating life with a compass of fear. However, from my near-death experience as a young girl to the often heartbreaking cases I’ve worked on in forensics and many personal experiences in between, I’ve learned that the best way to stay safe isn’t to give into fear-based thinking but to learn to listen to the inner intuitive voice, as it truly is the voice of Spirit, and Spirit wants nothing but to help us. It’s our job to remember that strengthening trust in Spirit is the pathway to strengthening our clear connection to our intuitive self, and in doing so, lends to a safer environment for ourselves and those we love.

The 5 Phases of Harnessing Your Intuition

Intuition is a powerful source that everyone should learn to master in order to better their lives. Here are my 5 phases to harnessing your intuition—which stage are you in?

PHASE 1: What is this feeling?

In this initial stage, your intuition seems to be random and inconsistent, like it just comes out of the blue. You feel something, but you don’t know what it is. It feels as if your imagination is running away with you. You easily confuse intuition with fear. In this stage: You question if your intuition or feeling inside is accurate.

PHASE 2: It’s becoming a familiar feeling

In this stage, you realize intuition feels different from fear, it creates a gut feeling, as this is where intuition sits—in your gut! It will come and go, but you are beginning to feel the

familiarity of this feeling. You do not yet understand the difference between your thinking mind and intuitive sense.

PHASE 3: Discovery

In this phase, the goal is to develop a consistent and trustworthy notation of the feelings coming from your intuition. You begin to practice using techniques to arouse that intuitive understanding. You are now working on the discovery phase. It is real, I feel it, and I want to know more about it. You realize the more you acknowledge it, the clearer and the more in control you feel.

PHASE 4: Releasing Fear and Trusting the Process

Your intuition is becoming more evident, yet you still fear being wrong. It is time to release the fear of right or wrong and simply trust. Start small, and when you know it’s starting to work, and you see the accuracy, your fears will begin to fade.

PHASE 5: Let go and allow

You are now unconsciously letting go of the fear baseline and allowing the intuitive information to come as it deems necessary. You allow it to flow and now feel the superpower of trusting your intuitive knowledge. Not always, because fear will always try to step in, but you are learning to effectively push it aside and return to that peaceful state of intuition, allowing the intuitive information to flow and serve your highest good.

Remember, you will always be working on exploring your intuition, as it is a constant challenge to trust your gut instead of your fear. Be gentle with yourself and know that as you work with your intuition, so it will work with you.

As the years passed as I began to put more emphasis on my intuition instead of my fear base, I organically became more proficient at questioning my senses to be sure my intuition was not, in fact, fear; but coming from that place in my gut, that knowing place that tells me something significant needs to be addressed. Most importantly, learning to make sense of your intuitive senses takes practice and awareness of your surroundings.

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