Are you good at listening to your gut? New York Times best-selling author Laura Day is on a mission to help people re-connect with their own intuition. As a deeply intuitive woman herself, Day has authored titles like Practical Intuition and Welcome To Your Crisis that are primers for learning to hone the fine-tuned skills of intuitive ability.

At this time, when so many of our anxieties are running high, we asked her to help us navigate better and this is what she had to say…  

Intuition is the most effective way to predict which actions, relationships or choices will create your best future. However, people often mistake anxiety for intuition, thus empowering a dangerous emotion that freezes you into hyper-focus and inaction.

In times of stress, when demands challenge our ability to cope, we tend to regress and lose our mature ability to filter our own “crazy.”

We notice this especially when we are tired, hungry, or feeling poorly. Difficult moments like these can begin an anxiety cycle, which we then feed and cultivate with our brilliant creative mind…a mind gone rogue.

I have been a teacher of intuition for over forty years. The two biggest intuitive mistakes, and the most dangerous ones, are confusing intuition – most especially prediction – with either fearful thinking or wishful thinking. When you mistake wishful thinking for intuition, you blind yourself to the obstacles that will, in actuality, keep what you desire from happening. When you mistake fearful thinking for intuition, you often miss the real threats and opportunities that do need your attention.

Persistent worry has nothing to do with intuition. Let me explain why…

As human beings, we repress our own intuition and awareness when those insights have no solutions. If we didn’t, we would be incapacitated by a flood of disempowering information, and the human subconscious protects against that.

Intuition is a survival skill. We avoid things that make us unable to act effectively; when we fail at that, we become dysfunctional. Intuition is immediate, actionable, and accurate. It provides solutions, not problems. Once again, if the problem doesn’t have a solution, your subconscious will repress it.

People also mistake the powerful “voice” they hear when they do something destructive for the intuitive voice. “Stop smoking or you may get a host of diseases” is not intuition. It is information-based common sense. If you ignore it, you run a risk. If you obsess about the risk while still ignoring it, you are making a dangerous choice, and that choice may worry you – but that is not intuition.

For a moment, let’s all take a step back from the anxiety and drama of daily life. Although life has its obstacles and even its devastations, for the most part it works. A certain amount of effort is required, and we all experience times of loss, but we are equipped to handle both. If you recognize intuition’s real function and train it, you will have more success with less effort. You will not avoid every difficulty, but you will be prepared for the inevitable ones, and you will have the information you need to be proactive about what you can change.

Intuition empowers you to create what is really valuable in your life and be comfortably alert to dangers. But first, let’s reason with crazy!
First: Is there any real evidence that supports your fear? If so, what can you do about it, right now?
Second: If you can do something, do it. If nothing can be done, focus on the things you can change in your life. Intuition loves a goal or question.

You will find that synchronicities – meaningful coincidences – begin to happen when you “target” or focus your attention on the “can do,” “can change,” “can improve” in your life, instead of allowing anxiety to freeze you in place. The best part of this process is that your subconscious will learn how to create your reality effectively without worrying you unnecessarily.

Now, let’s engage intuition in keeping you and what you value safe without scaring you… 

ONE Make a list of what you value in your life.

TWO Make a list of your goals. Keep them short. Phrase them in the positive. Don’t
throw everything in. You only have so much focus.

THREE Put the whole list under one umbrella by finding a few sentences that describe the life you are committed to create:

“I am part of a loving family, and this love supports my work and health.”
“My life will always be interesting and passionate.“
“I am finding the perfect relationships in love, work, and life.”
“I attract wealth in all things by growing into the person I enjoy being.”

Four Commit to living that goal. You will find that in working this way, you allow intuition to illuminate both your real opportunities and your real obstacles. Intuition gives you work to do! When you get busy, your anxiety lowers as you apply real action and intuition to building the life you want and safeguarding what you value.

Five Keep a record of your commitments and of the intuition, the information, and the coincidences that begin to happen once you redirect your attention toward change. This will give you the reassurance you need when anxiety once again tries to overcome reason.