Once Upon a Dime: How to Follow Your Intuition (Part 1)

This February we are listening to our hearts. And what better way of doing this than by following our intuition. Today we are joined by Roland Magyar of Handcrafted Travellers who will share his and his wife's vision of simple sustainable living through following your intuition.

Many of you will likely agree with me that some (if not all) of the best decisions in life are made when one follows the whisperings of the heart and not the computations of the mind. It has certainly been true about the evolution of both my individual and my family life course.

However universally understandable the heart-mind division may seem though, I venture to call it an oversimplification of how we, “humanimals” function or should function in our decision making processes. It might pull a haze over one’s eyes: the cataracts of a binary system of sort that our modern lives are so much conditioned to, from the electoral campaigns (yes or no) and the way most appliances work (on or off), down into the most innocent childhood game of loves me/loves me not.

Photograph: Cheryl Magyar

It takes real effort to break out of this habit and relearn to appreciate nuances at their true value, notice patterns and try to understand the multidimensional way those interconnect.

Instincts and intuition
Where I am going with this, is trying to draw your attention to the hugely undervalued or – on the contrary – much mythologized realm of the instincts and intuition. Without going into how these relate, it is enough to point out that they do and they relate strongly. All animals follow them while foraging, when choosing mates, paths to take or places to rest, give birth or pass away. Once we accepted that we, too, are animals, it seems only natural to do the same.

In fact that is what our subconscious automatically does or at least tries to do. Nevertheless, way too often we override these messages with infantile action responses and replace the hugely complex and fine tuned suggestions with dumbed down, poor alternatives.

Listen to your heart or use your brains?
In simple language, I believe it is the kind recommendation of “listen to your heart” that is meant to address intuitive existence. And it indeed seems to be a much better guidance than the sheer slogan “use your brains”. Why? Because intuition, instinctive feelings incorporate so much more than just attempting to mechanically add up the most apparent bits of information into a coherent image.

When using intuition one reaches back to and effectively accesses in an instant the wealth of information otherwise surely overwhelming for the strictly rational judgment. It taps into our common evolutionary wisdom, emotional intelligence that is far older and far more tested to be good than the fragmented, traditions, customs based and often erroneous (ethnic) cultural heritage.

How could one harness this protective and life-affirming power?
Well yes, by adjusting pace of life to the natural rhythm of the locale, turning the volume of white noise off or down enough to hear what our conscience tells us. It will most likely tell us to be more humble, divorce from our material type desires that are in excess over our real needs and spend more time with whoever and whatever we love most.

Photograph: Cheryl Magyar

Being a father who made the conscious decision to watch closely his daughter’s personal development from day one of her life, I am very inclined to believe that as individuals we are born with good intentions, innocent curiosity and genuine love, strong draw for helping others, sharing what we have.

Most definitely this “givence” can be and is altered in any direction, good or bad, by the kind of environment that comes to nurture the forming sense of self. As a result, the individual inherently attuned to intuitive behavior, is – and I was not exempted either – progressively drifted away from it with age. But no matter how common this phenomenon is, I am convinced that it is not irreversible.

My very life as a soon to be married young man’s and later as spouse’s, settler’s and father’s stands to show proof. And I am but one of the many...

Now it's your turn, do you trust your intuition? Let us know in the comments.  

This post is part of Listen to Your Heart month on Kanelstrand. Read the rest of the posts here and join in the discussions, we'd love to know what you think!

Also, don't forget to Join us with Roland again on Thursday, February 28th to learn how to follow the intuitive path to a happy family.

Roland Magyar is a thirty five year old husband and father, a sustainable life designer with holistic approach. You can read more from him and his wife on their simple living blog, or else converse with them on Facebook.