The Power of Intuition

Find out how that guess can be helpful when making a decision in life. Learn to use intuition in your favor - you will be amazed

                                                          

We think, therefore we exist. Excuse me, reader, to start this text like this, with a cliché already so propagated of philosophy - and with the license to still put it in the plural, go there ... But it is difficult to find a more accurate argument to define human existence That our ability to think, is not it? The truth, however, is that something seems wrong in such logical reasoning. Wrong, no. Maybe incomplete. After all, we only become truly human in that we can combine our thoughts - and then it is worth including what we think about others and the world around us - with other forms of knowledge that we have, such as our feelings, our sensations And our intuitions to perceive the world around us.

Sometimes, even when reason tries to take us away from an idea that seems logically unfounded, we go there, we give the face to beat. We stubbornly and occasionally proved that our own reason was rightly wrong. After all, our world-consciousness does not realize that it is so rational-or of seeking rationality in everything. Therefore, we are able to perceive many things without passing through the sieve of reason. The feelings are there to prove it. Who never fell in love to the point of losing logic?

Another form of knowledge not supported by reason is in intuition, which comes from the Latin intueri and means to consider, see above. Do you know when you are sure of something, but you can not explain why or where it came from? For then, this is a manifestation of our intuition, a capacity for knowledge that you and I have, but which we do not always value, it is true. But it is time to reevaluate our way of being aware of things: foreboding can lead us to make better decisions than rational deliberations. To understand, do not just think. It is necessary to feel and, above all, to intuit.

Is the reason right?

It is not difficult to understand why many people still wring their noses at intuition. Today the model of knowledge we have in the modern Western world is still very much grounded by rational and logical thinking. "It's something we inherited from the Greeks over 2,000 years ago," says psychotherapist and philosopher Ari Rehfeld. A phrase like "I believe it to be like that out of pure intuition" will hardly convince a friend or a boss. Because we know this, we try to internally sabotage our particular signals, not giving them proper attention. What's worse is that we wasted so a powerful tool to make much better decisions.

Intuition is an aptitude that we all have, but it needs to be developed - as well as the ability to think. It is that perception or decision that apparently does not have a logical explanation and that even contradicts common sense, but that in the end makes perfect sense. It functions as an inner guide, which manifests itself through non-linear knowledge. "That's why intuition comes through unexplained sensations, insights, dreams, or an inner voice that seems to say 'yes, that's right' or 'this will not work,'" says American psychiatrist Judith Orloff, author of the book Second Sight ("Another look", in a free translation, still without edition in Brazil). It is difficult to explain intuition because it is like a flash, an immediate response that our neurons build in a situation. "

Logic and conscious modes of thinking monopolized our understanding of the world. But, however, logic is just one of the many useful tools the mind can use. "Even because there are information and perceptions that go straight to the unconscious, without going through the filter of our conscious," completes Rehfeld. Philosophers like Plato have already valued intuition as a starting point for their ideas. The balconies arose intuitively, and then they tried to put them to the test in the light of rationalism. "But today we live in a world where we do not have time to stop and intuit. We are condemned to the rhythm of rational thought," says the psychotherapist.

Less is more

In the age of information, we suffer from the evil of "thinking too much". So much so that, with much reasoning, we overload the whole attention capacity of the brain, compromising the health of the mind. As a result, we end up being depressed and anxious. Thinking too much and knowing too much can become a problem. During a trip to Italy, the musician Abbie Conant was invited to take a test for the Munich Philharmonic. The 33 candidates had to play behind a screen, which made them invisible to the selection committee. Conant concentrated to make a perfect presentation, but missed a note. She thought she would be disqualified. But everyone on the committee was astonished by what they had heard. The director of the Philharmonic was so excited that he dispatched back the candidates who had not yet performed.

But when they called Conant, they were surprised - and disappointed - that she was a woman. Woman and trombone did not fit the director of the Philharmonic. And despite having won all audition rounds, she joined the orchestra against the will of the director who, a year later, downgraded her to the second trombone. Conant was so outraged she took the case to court. As evidence, he did a batch of tests: he blew on special machines and even had his blood examined to prove his ability to absorb oxygen. All results were above average. It was only after eight years, by court order, that she was reinstated to the position of first trombone.

The story is told in the book Blink - The Decision in a Blink of an Eye by American journalist Malcolm Gladwell, and shows that if they had taken into account only the first impression of Conant's hearing, members of the Philharmonic would have a great artist as the first trombone from the start. "But because they thought it might be fragile for such a masculine instrument, they decided to give credit to rational thinking, which indicates that women are less fit for instruments that require more breath, not what they have heard," writes the journalist. This also happens to many of us. The act of thinking objectively in the reasons can lead to decisions that make us less satisfied. Analyzing all sides of the issue may not be a good tactic.

The Intuitive Mind

The point is that even if we try hard we can make all the decisions of our life under the sieve of reason. Our mind works best by relegating to the unconscious a good portion of rational thought - it would not account for everything, if it did not use that artifice. Because of this, evolution itself has given our minds the ability to react even before we think when we are facing a situation of risk - intuition is therefore an evolutionary aptitude. "The instinct that makes us today opt for something we know is the instinct for survival in the wild. We can choose a meal with green eggs, but would not you choose a less exotic option if you could?" Asks Professor of Psychology at the University Of Chicago, Gerd Gigerenzer, in the book The Power of Intuition. "When we choose foods we know,

Antes mesmo que você considere o ovo colorido, sua mente já mandou um recado que é melhor comer o velho ovo com clara branca e gema amarela. A intuição permite à nossa mente colocar alguns comportamentos e decisões em piloto automático. "Pensar toda vez em como se anda de bicicleta ou como se deve sorrir nem sempre é melhor do que fazer ambas as coisas de forma automática. As partes inconscientes da mente são capazes de decidir sem que nós - ou o eu consciente - conheçamos as razões", afirma Gigerenzer.

   We are able to make an entire trip driving down a road with holes and adverse conditions without even rationalizing a part of the journey. But this was only possible after the mind had acquired enough knowledge to be able to relegate to the unconscious the task of leading the direction. So it is with our intuition. After all, we only have intuitions from experiences, information and knowledge that we have obtained, voluntarily or not. "In fact, nature gives the human being a potential, and practice over time becomes a capacity." The intuitive mind adapts and acts with economy using the unconscious, the evolutionary skills and the empirical methods that we develop in the course of our life. They consist of trying to stick to the most relevant information and ignore the rest.

As in the case of a job offer where the salary is great, but, according to her friend, the department head is a thick and organizational climate, rather tumultuous. Empirically, the only information you can prove is that the salary offered is three times what you earn. Your friend's personal relationship with the boss and the team may be relative - or a problem alone. It is up to you to trust the information you have or to take into account everything you have heard. Therefore, intuition has to do with hunches, with the risks that we run and that only experience and experience will show us whether we hit or not.

Attention to the signs

People who decide to follow their intuition and get along come to value the warnings and signs that the unconscious gives them. The singer Tiê always went to listen to her foreboding. "If I talk about something that I think might not be legal, I do not do it, and it's very difficult for someone to convince me otherwise," he says. She has already refused to participate in shows simply because she thinks they would not be worth it - at the same time that she agreed to do others in seemingly not-so-cool places but that her intuition said to be the best choice. "And it's funny my hunches always prove." You also use your intuition when it comes to creating and composing. It gives more value to the ideas that arise spontaneously and it is difficult to think and change notes and words later. "Of the five senses, I think that the smell is what I have more accurate, So I often jest that intuition is the smell of the mind because it allows us to sniff things away. You can hardly mistake a smell, right? "

To intuit, in fact, means to use another sense that we have beyond vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. It is even like a "sixth sense" placed at our disposal and that helps us to improve our relationship with the world and facilitate our life. And the more that we listen, the better we recognize a noise, the more we use intuition, the better we can seize the foreboding. Intuition improves with experience without us noticing. A great executive is able to predict whether a product will succeed in the marketplace even though the surveys your company has ordered indicate that it is not - and that it can not logically explain its arguments. That's because, in career years, he had enough experience to know the market and store unconscious records.

This is only possible through the knowledge we have - of the world around us and of ourselves. It is self-knowledge, moreover, that allows us to recognize the forebodings that our mind has. Because it is easy to confuse intuition with desire and with fear. If we are in a relationship that makes us bad, for example, it is easy to intuit that we need to seek a new way to be happy. But this concerns an inner desire, which is not always so clear and which, because of this, can be misinterpreted as intuition. "A person who has the odd feeling that his plane might crash needs to consider whether it is not a fear that he himself has to fly. Because the mind of a phobic tends to project all the risks related to a fear," says Psychologist Virgínia Marchini, director of the Center for the Development of Intuitive Potential,

If we are really attentive to the signs of the unconscious, Virginia advocates, we increase our ability to use our intuition and decide rightly. For this to occur, we need to be as quiet as possible - after all, the higher our level of stress and anxiety, the less acuity of our senses. "Nervous and agitated, we are less likely to feel tastes, to differentiate smells and, consequently, perceive forebodings," he says. Intuition depends on a mental state of relaxation. Research indicates that in this state, the intuitive mind takes no more than two seconds to be able to make decisions.

Trust (and act)

Developing intuition means taking a more thoughtful stance and working on self-confidence. Betting on what you perceive and feel. Dedicating time to silence and recollection helps. Record and interpret dreams and impressions, too, because these practices facilitate access to the inner world, as well as reading, knowing, watching, traveling. Other signs appear in our own body, not just in the mind. Physical symptoms such as insomnia and restlessness may indicate discomfort with a situation or decision one is considering to take. "Each of us has the wisdom and knowledge that he needs in his own interior," wrote the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, an advocate of intuition. We need only be open to identifying them, since, after all, we tend to live so much better as we perceive what surrounds us.

To intuit, therefore, is to see better the world by looking within ourselves.That is why we must rely on our own intuitions. It is no use opening a communication with the unconscious if this knowledge does not drive actions. "Intuition is experiential, it must be practiced," says psychologist Virginia. Just as we need to experience relationships to break the face or put our hand on the fire to realize that it burns. And to live is to take risks, to place bets. And for that, it is not always enough to think.