Intuitive Decision Making Lecture

In this lecture we discuss the difference between making decisions out of the fear-based ego mind and making decisions by stepping into the flow of intuition. Often our need to control outcomes drives us to hyperfocus on making the "right" decision. But in fact if we can release our grip, our intuition will guide us to the decision that leads to an even better outcome than we could have imagined.

Transcript

Tonight we are going to talk about intuitive decision making and I want to explain how this topic came up because I think it's really interesting and then we're going to go into a little bit of kind of how we tend to make decisions in our lives and what I mean by intuitive decision making.

So I was talking with a really good friend the other day and we were talking about selling,

About buying and selling things and she said something that really struck me and it's kind of been percolating around in my brain ever since then.

Essentially she said that it doesn't matter to her who is selling.

It doesn't matter to her if the person is selling out of abundance and intuition or if they're selling out of like fear and scarcity which you can feel as them being kind of pushy as somebody who's buying something because she makes all of her decisions about buying from intuition.

So she's completely unattached to the situation of selling or the person who's selling because she already knows intuitively whether she wants to purchase whatever it is,

Whether it's a product or a class or we were kind of talking in general.

And a couple things came to me.

First of all,

She called this a feminine sales model,

Kind of selling and buying from intuition.

That's how this subject came up as opposed to the masculine model of kind of selling out of scarcity or desperation even out of fear.

It's a fear-based model and she was talking about buying,

About her experience as a buyer but the whole system needs to shift to this intuitive whether we're buying or selling and that's kind of what our whole conversation was about and that could be an entirely different show but I'm going to talk about intuitive decision making tonight.

So a couple of the things that came to me as she was talking,

The first thought that I had was like,

Huh,

What a relief.

What a relief it would be if I can make decisions purely from intuition and let go of the kind of hemming and hawing and the mind chatter that goes on when I'm making especially a big decision.

I'm going to talk a little more about that.

And then the second thing that came to me was just the beauty of her non-judgmentalness in the situation.

I don't like being pushed to buy things.

There's a long history in my family of that.

There's kind of a funny story about how my dad got mad in Sears in 1970 something or early 80s and never went back into Sears.

I'm never going to buy anything from Sears again.

And they did eventually close.

A lot of the Sears closed so maybe he was playing a really,

Really long game.

But in the meantime there were a lot of times growing up when Sears would have been the most convenient choice for us to buy something and he just would not go into Sears.

He refused.

And there was a little bit of a kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face going on there.

So intuitively something might be right for you but if you let the way it's presented to you turn you off then you're missing out on the opportunity that your intuition that your highest self is telling you is a good opportunity.

And I never really thought of it that way until I was having this conversation with my friend and I just thought it was really beautiful.

I thought it was a really again non-judgmental way because you don't know when someone's selling and they're pushing.

I don't think I'll ever like that.

Energetically I don't care for that.

I don't respond well to that.

But I also don't know the situation that the other person's in.

And so turning the focus completely on yourself and listening quietly,

Connecting to your intuition and your highest self and deciding is this right for me is just such a much more expansive way to make a decision in that specific situation.

And we're going to talk about making decisions in general.

I'm telling you about the buying and selling because that's kind of how this came to me.

But I really think that this could apply in any kind of decision making situation.

So I want to talk a little bit about how I make big decisions and sometimes small decisions.

I'm a very indecisive person or I have a history of being that way and everyone in my family is a little bit that way.

You know,

What ice cream should I choose?

And my husband will say,

You know,

This is not the last ice cream cone you'll ever have.

But what if it is?

Like there's so much pressure.

I feel a lot of pressure around decision making and especially when it comes to a big,

Like a life changing decision.

So I get very in my mind.

I make pro con lists.

I try to be very rational.

And all of these things are very ego driven.

And we've talked many,

Many times on the show about how the ego is fear based.

So essentially I'm making decisions with a fear based model.

And one of my things that I'm guilty of,

And I imagine every time I do these shows,

I talk about myself because I know that many of you will hear yourselves,

At least in part of what I'm saying.

So I try to accommodate for infinite outcomes when I make decisions.

You know,

What if this happens and what if this happens and what if this happens?

And it leads to a couple of things.

It leads to something that my sisters and I call an OCD loop.

So that's when you get so caught up in this loop of should I,

Should I,

Should I,

Should I,

That you completely lose your perspective of even what you're making a decision about.

I remember one time I was in Target and I had bought these Christmas plates.

I was hosting Christmas and then I had a surprise extra person coming.

So I went back to the Target,

I had all these matching plates and they were out of them.

And I probably spent an hour,

I'm not exaggerating,

Walking back and forth between these two different plates.

Which plate,

Which plate,

Which plate.

And that's what I mean by an OCD loop.

And ultimately,

Not a big decision in life,

Not something that really deserved an hour of my time.

But I got so in my brain about this,

You know,

It's not going to match and maybe this one's better or maybe this one's better that I completely lost my perspective about the fact that this was kind of a silly small decision that I could have easily made and just moved on with my day.

And I think that a lot of us do that and especially when it comes to big decisions.

But the thing that I've noticed on this spiritual path is that the best things in life seem to come when we're in flow.

Not when we're trying to control things.

Oh,

What if this happens?

What if this happens?

And oh,

Here's my pro-con list and I don't know.

And now I've got to weight these.

You know,

That's,

Ah,

That's very anxiety driven.

It's very fear based.

And flow is completely the opposite.

Flow is being in that expanded loving state.

Flow allows us to connect to our intuition.

And I was thinking about this.

I just took a new job and it came essentially out of nowhere.

Like one day I was thinking,

I wish I had something that I could do and I had,

You know,

I kind of listed some things in my mind,

Something that I can do on the side so that I can still do this business that I'm doing.

And I kind of just threw it out there.

And literally the next morning I got a text from someone about this job.

And so I immediately started my hemming and hawing that I always do.

Well,

I don't know,

Should I do this?

And am I going to still have enough time to focus on my spiritual business and growing that?

You know,

All these things came into my head.

And I talked to my husband and I talked to the HR lady and then she was going to get back to me with kind of a final offer.

And so I said to my husband,

Well,

I'm not going to make a decision today.

I'll see what she has to say.

I'll tell her I need to think about it.

You know,

We'll talk about it and then I'll make my decision.

And what actually happened is that when this woman called me and we started talking and she presented the offer,

I found myself from this like deep place,

From this intuitive place just saying,

Yes,

This sounds like a perfect fit.

Those are the words that came out of my mouth.

And I was like a little bit surprised because that was not what I intended to say.

That was not what I had planned with my husband ahead of time.

But I was in flow in that moment and I was trusting that the universe was going to take care of me.

And that's kind of what intuitive decision making really is.

When we make decisions from a deeper place,

We accept that the universe wants to support us and then we can dream of something.

We can visualize something,

An ideal outcome,

Let's say,

And then let go and then not try to control the way that we get there.

Let that wisdom,

That divine connection,

That intuitive highest self connection guide us into the flow.

I had had this thought about what I wanted and the next day it showed up in a way that I never would have expected.

And the other thing about making a decision out of flow is that there's less regret because that's another thing.

I definitely have the buyer's remorse,

We call it sometimes in our family,

The buyer's remorse.

I feel like that's a pretty common phrase.

And about this,

I get the ice cream and I'm like,

Oh,

My husband's ice cream looks better.

I have the buyer's remorse.

I feel like when you're not making intuitive decisions,

When you're making those ego-based,

Fear-driven,

Rational brain decisions,

You're always doubting yourself because you're,

Oh,

What about this outcome and what about this outcome?

Because you're really trying to control.

And as we've talked about many times,

Control is an illusion.

And when we let go of control,

When we open to a connection for our highest good,

Then things show up for us that are beyond what we could have imagined for ourselves.

And that's the goal of a spiritual life.

And so the last thing I want to say is that when I was thinking about this topic,

I was thinking about how I choose crystals.

And I posted today a picture of just a very simple crystal grid that came to me with a couple of beautiful crystals that I got recently.

And when I go to buy my crystals,

I go into the shop and I do it completely by intuition.

Sometimes I have kind of an idea of what I want or what type of crystal.

Maybe I'm looking for,

But sometimes I just go in and let my body walk to where it walks.

And then when I find the section I'm looking at,

Then I start to touch and I let my body figure out which crystal is right for me.

And I allow myself to feel supported in that situation.

And the interesting thing is that I don't have any buyer's remorse in that situation.

Every time I pick a crystal,

Every time I make a grid,

Which I do,

I'm looking down at my grid now,

I do with completely out of intuition.

It's always the perfect thing.

I always feel completely supported.

I don't have to worry that it's not going to work out for me.

And I've talked a bit about kind of having these walls up in myself and I think we all do that.

And I have been very intuitive in my energy work and in my coaching and in my choosing of crystals.

When I write music,

It's almost completely intuitive.

But in the rest of my life,

I still have been very controlling.

I still have been very ego driven about how I choose things.

I haven't allowed that intuitive flow to come into my everyday decisions.

And so my goal is to bring that into my life.

And I hope you will join me because anytime we get more in touch with our intuition,

Anytime we open and expand to that divine connection,

It takes us to another whole level.

It takes us to a place beyond what that little ego mind can think of.

And that little ego mind wants to keep us small.

And that's not our job.

That's not our path here.

No matter what your path of divine service is,

It's unique to you.

It does not involve you staying small.

It does not involve you worrying about every single little thing and trying to put the little chess pieces in the place.

It involves letting go and surrender and that divine intuitive connection.

So what we're going to do tonight in our meditation is connect with our highest self.

We did a full meditation on that a couple of weeks ago.

So I suggest if you haven't done that meditation,

Maybe afterwards go back and visit that one.

But don't worry about it.

I will guide you into it tonight if you've not done it before.

And we're just going to play with this a little bit.

We're going to explore this idea of connecting with our intuition,

Of what it might feel like if we started to make our decisions that way.

Maybe you'll find like me,

Ugh,

What a relief!