New York Times bestselling author, Sonia Choquette shared with listeners how to tune in, access and follow their intuitive voice — the voice of spirit or the higher self…

Explaining her 4-step approach to accessing and using our intuition, she said it’s starts with “waking up” to it.

“The first step is waking up . . . when we experience a disruption in our lives that is significant enough that we realize just trying to figure it out alone is not enough,” she shared on the live call. “It can be the loss of a job. It can be an end of a marriage, a sudden illness or an accident, or it can be more subtle, like a general feeling of dis-ease or depression, dissatisfaction, apathy, or when you can’t find your joy. You finally get to a point where you recognize that living with the intellect alone and just trying to watch the world around you and live from your ego isn’t bringing you any relief.”

The next step after waking up is what Choquette calls “Digging Deep,” and is the next phase in opening up to our intuitive voice. This is when we start to turn inward and come back to our heart or our true self.

“We start to recognize that we have another guidance system that we have been ignoring,” she said.

But what really begins to change our life is the third step in the process called ‘Taking the Leap.” This is really a leap back into our heart and letting our intuitive voice start making our decisions. This will then lead us into what she calls the “flow.”

2 Exercises to Tap In
Choquette shared a number of tools and techniques to begin to awaken our intuition and also find evidence that it not only exists, but is speaking the truth. One of these is journaling.

“Journaling gives you evidence and helps you get in touch with your inner voice,” she said. “When you start writing that down you begin to see in a very short period of time . . . you begin to shift your energy, and then you have this evidence over a period of time that says, ‘This is accurate. This matters. This is important. This in not crazy, this is reliable.’”

One exercise in journaling includes carrying a small notebook with us and each time we have an intuitive hit – a hunch, a thought, a feeling – we take a moment to write it down. For those who prefer, Choquette also recommends using a recorder on a smartphone to record the thoughts as they come up.

“You don’t have to do anything about it, just put it on paper. Watch what happens over a period of two weeks. They will start showing up as very significant markers that have very valuable information to your life,” she noted.

Another journaling exercise is to ask a question to your higher self. Write out the question, and then begin to answer it as if it’s your higher self speaking back to you, she said.

Ask out loud: If it was my higher self, if it was my spirit, what would my spirit say? And be sure to write it out because handwriting is the best since the hand is a direct link to the heart, she shared.

“Intuition is a function of the first organ in your body to develop, which is your heart, which is an intelligent organ, 5000 times stronger then any other sense, and developed way before your brain develops,” she told listeners.

Look to the Heart
When looking for evidence we are hearing our intuition, and that it is leading us in the right direction, Choquette warned not to get caught up in the intellect or left brain – which she referred to as “the ghetto.”

“When you look for evidence in your intellect, you are going to the wrong neighborhood. That is the first thing I tell people. Don’t go to the ghetto because you’re not going to find it there,” she shared. “Don’t go to the ghetto. Don’t go to the left brain — the fight, flight, stress, freeze and anxiety. Go to the heart. That is the good neighborhood. Come back to the heart space and rather then think it, feel it. Don’t ask yourself if it feels right. Ask yourself if it feels true.”