by Maureen J. St. Germain: We’ve all been there. From small things like surprise houseguests to bigger things such as phone calls with big news.

Life would be better if you could have “seeing that coming” and prepare for it.

Have you ever been food shopping and spontaneously felt that you should buy extra of something? You get home to discover you have extra guests or visitors! Perhaps you decided to take a different way to work because you got feeling the usual route would be time-consuming. Maybe you couldn’t even tell why you had this strong feeling to take a different route. This actually happened to a hundreds of people normally traveling through the World Trade Center that fated morning in 2011.

So what’s the first step?

How do you cultivate your intuitive skills? Maybe it’s easier for women? Sometimes women find it easier to develop their intuition, because empathy, that feeling of shared concern for others is a natural trait. Intuition is a sister to that, and can move through this familiar channel. Can men develop it as well? Yes, but it’s harder for them to deal with it, because it goes against their desire to compartmentalize information. Some men, who have inherited intuition skills from their psychic relatives, get intuitive feelings and then either deny them, or ignore them. When they won’t go away, the easiest thing to do is express them to someone who is sympathetic to these kinds of experiences, and let them help you sort it out. For sure, the repeated feelings that float into their minds, unrelated to their current experiences are a form of intuition.

Could you bring up your coincidence – radar whenever you want? The answer is “yes.” But how you might ask? It’s a matter of practice and noticing. For example have you ever noticed that body sensation known as goose bumps, or gooseflesh or tingling up your spine? That’s a form of body confirmation. Body confirmation is your body being in resonance with information that is being spoken by another person. You rarely get goose bumps from something you say, it always occurs when someone else speaks a truth, that your body “rings” or resonates is in complete agreement. This is an important experience worth noticing.

Next time you get that tingling sensation make a note of it.  Write it in your journal or note pad on your phone. Give it a date, and time and quick explanation of the subject of discussion when it occurred. By giving value to the experience you’re sending this sensation rich biofeedback to yourself that this is important. What this will do is create subconscious habit that whenever a truth is spoken that you already know intuitively you will spontaneously get that body tingling confirmation. It’s a way to train yourself to respond in resonance.

How do you recognize an intuitive message?

How often do you experience your mind, very gently keeps going back to the same idea? You’ll feel like you cannot shake this sensation or feeling that something is not right. Very often, you’ll have the sensation that something is off kilter. Remember the famous scene in the movie, Matrix I, where Neo saw the black cat repeated behavior like a broken record? He noticed it even though no one else did. As you cultivate your intuitive sense, you will discover that you notice things that are out of sync. When this occurs you have to train yourself to stop the common mental pattern of labeling it in any way. Avoid calling it weird or strange. Instead, you ask yourself the significant question. “What’s going on?”

You will discover that when you don’t automatically evaluate, using your mental knowledge, and remained open to any possibility you will receive the answer. Sometimes the answer comes in quickly. Sometimes the answer floats in gently when you’re not paying attention. What is important here is to stay in wonder. I wonder why she did that? I wonder why my boss is upset? I wonder what’s going on?

Couples have this natural affinity to know what their spouse is doing or thinking. It isn’t just familiarity, but an intuition developed over the time spent together. They often feel each other’s feelings, without them being spoken and can sense when something is happening even when they aren’t together!

The next time something happens that you don’t understand decide to remain receptive. With practice, you can train yourself to notice when something is out of order, Or out of the ordinary. And when you notice, you train your self to not explain the phenomenon right away. Instead, decide to remain open by asking the question, “What’s going on?